Too Big, Too Heavy

Human Events ^ | 3/24 | Jed Babbin

[Paul Ross]

Too Big, Too Heavy

by Jed Babbin, Human Events
Posted: 03/24/2008

The mission of the US Air Force is to fly and to fight. Everyone in the Air Force’s job falls into one of three categories: to do the flying and fighting, to command those who do, or to support them. Part of supporting the warriors is to buy the best aircraft to accomplish the mission at lowest risk. Which is why the Air Force’s decision to buy urgently-needed tanker aircraft from the Northrop Grumman – EADS consortium must be reversed.

That decision -- announced on February 29 -- could not be judged quickly or without consulting with experts on both sides of the controversy. Air mobility experts, two former chiefs of staff of the Air Force and other experienced warfighters gave me very different opinions.

My reluctant conclusion is that the Air Force’s decision is profoundly wrong. I base it on two facts: first, the warfighters need a tanker that isn’t so big and heavy that it is unable to deploy on many of the world’s airfields; and second, the Air Force is taking an unreasonably high risk on the NG– EADS aircraft.

Congressional whiners and populist pundits are suffering a case of the vapors over the decision to award the contract (for an estimated $40 billion) to NG-EADS because American jobs will be exported to France. To be sure, US jobs and tax dollars will go to the subsidized French Airbus company -- a subsidiary of EADS -- whose A-330 will be modified into the tankers. But it was Congress that imposed a procurement system under which the Air Force was required to have competition for the sole US company capable of building the tanker -- Boeing -- and it is Congress that enabled foreign companies to compete.

Tankers aren’t glamorous. They are big, heavy and drab. But without them, America would not be a superpower. There are not that many places in the world in which American combat aircraft can land to refuel. Without tankers showing up in the right places at the right times, fighters can’t fight, bombers can’t bomb and transport aircraft can’t deliver troops, supplies, or disaster relief to far corners of the world in a matter of hours.

Former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper (who has consulted for Northrop Grumman on other programs) told me that he believed the tanker procurement was “squeaky clean” and that the warfighters would get what they need from the NG-EADS aircraft because it met all the requirements set by the Air Force.

Air mobility experts point out that we don’t run out of bulk cargo and passenger-carrying capacity. The Civil Reserve Air Fleet -- civilian airliners and cargo aircraft that can be called into service by the Air Force in a crisis -- provide tremendous capacity to carry people and cargo, but not jet fuel. But our warfighting ability is limited by the number of tankers and how and where they can be deployed.

Deployability is critical because tankers are bad tenants. Most runways can’t handle their weight and their size limits the number that can be stationed on any airfield. The bigger and heavier the tankers are, the fewer airfields can accommodate them.

The Boeing tanker, a version of the 767 jetliner, has a maximum takeoff weight of 395,000 pounds. It’s 159 feet long and has a wingspan of 156 feet. The NG-EADS Airbus 330 tanker’s max weight is 507,000 pounds. It is 192 feet long and has a 197-foot wingspan. My best scientific wild guess is that the NG-EADS aircraft will be unable to operate out of at least 20% of the airfields that could accommodate the right-sized Boeing tanker.

How the Air Force allowed this to happen is nothing short of bizarre. The warfighters are supposed to control the “requirements” -- the criteria the aircraft must meet -- and the procurement pukes are supposed to apply those criteria to choose which aircraft will be bought. But somehow, in mid-stream, the criteria were changed without the warfighters’ knowing about it. Critical criteria including maximum takeoff weight and clearance between wingtips while parked were changed to skew the competition to favor the larger Airbus.

Gen. Ronald Fogelman -- former Air Force chief of staff (and before that, commander of what is now Air Mobility Command which operates the tankers) is a Boeing consultant. He disputed that idea: “Anybody who thinks that somehow they’re going to dual-use these airplanes in a crisis and get benefit from both tanker and cargo-carrying capacity just doesn’t understand the way these things get used.”

Fogelman’s point is well-taken. For every hour a tanker is diverted to other purposes, every other aircraft that depends on the tankers has one less hour to fly.

One senior retired officer who requested anonymity told me that when the changes were revealed he called several officers high in the chain of command and they all reacted by asking “what are you talking about?” Now they know.

The other huge problem is the risk inherent in the winner’s inexperience and plan to build the aircraft. Boeing tankers have been delivering fuel in flight for over 50 years. NG-EADS has delivered fuel to an aircraft in flight through a “boom”, the crane-like device that is extended from the back of a tanker and through which fuel is delivered, precisely once. And NG-EADS promises to assemble the aircraft in a new plant in Alabama that isn’t built, using a new workforce that hasn’t ever built a tanker.

I’ve been down this path before.

Seventeen years ago, I sat in my Pentagon office wondering what went wrong and how to fix it. A top-secret Navy attack aircraft program (which we know now was the A-12) had turned into a disaster. I hadn’t been cleared into the program, so despite my fancy security clearances and title I couldn’t even find out what had happened far less try to fix it. My boss had done a bad job of judging how the program was doing and had told the Secretary of Defense (a gent named Cheney) that all was well when it wasn’t. The big boss had passed that opinion on to Congress with embarrassing results.

My puzzlement ended when a familiar large head leaned into my office. Its owner smiled and asked, “Jed, you got a minute?” This friend, whom I count among my mentors, was a retired Air Force four-star general and had been commander of Air Force Systems Command. AFSC ran all aircraft procurement for USAF, so he knew a thing or two about building airplanes.

The explanation he gave was horribly simple. My boss had been shown an empty factory floor by the CEO of General Dynamics (now a part of Northrop Grumman), on which chalk rectangles marked the spots where specialized machinery would be placed to produce the A-12. And the CEO told my boss that they’d be turning out aircraft in 18 months or less.

Which sounded perfectly reasonable to my boss, whose previous career had been in the automobile industry. He was used to retooling factories and retraining workers every year to build new cars. He didn’t know you can’t do that for complex aircraft. It takes 18-24 months just to get the special tooling and test equipment (known in the aerospace biz as “STTE”) you need, and only then can you train your workforce to use it. My boss fell for the CEO’s yarn and the A-12 program produced a lawsuit but no aircraft.

NG-EADS promises to deliver about fifty tankers in the next five years. The component sections will be built in European plants and shipped to Mobile, Alabama to be assembled. But they haven’t broken ground for the Mobile factory yet. Whatever empty lot is chosen can’t be turned into the KC-45 plant for at least two years. Then -- if you make the false assumption that you know exactly what STTE you need now, and order it today -- you still have to install it, hire and train your workforce and organize to assemble and test-fly the aircraft.

If they can deliver fifty aircraft from Mobile in five years I’ll parachute from the 50th at 20,000 feet wearing my tuxedo. The risk inherent in this scheme is enormous, and it means that the NG-EADS aircraft is a huge mission risk measured in time. They will be years late in producing the aircraft, the costs will increase greatly, and tankers won’t be where we need them when we do.

The Government Accountability Office will rule on the Boeing protest against this contract in the next several months. But the GAO -- as I know from three decades of trying cases like this before it -- cannot rule on anything more than the legalities of what the Air Force did. Its authority does not extend to judging the effect on our warfighting capability.

Before GAO acts, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates must. He should call in all the combatant commanders and all of the Air Mobility Command former bosses he can find who aren’t working for one of the competitors. Get to the bottom of why the warfighters were apparently ignored. And fix this before billions of dollars and precious years are spent on what may reduce the Air Force’s ability to fly and to fight.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Babbin is the editor of Human Events. He served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in President George H.W. Bush's administration. He is the author of "In the Words of our Enemies"(Regnery,2007) and (with Edward Timperlake) of "Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States" (Regnery, 2006) and "Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse than You Think" (Regnery, 2004). E-mail him at jbabbin@eaglepub.com.

[Paul Ross]

If Boeing was as influential as some believe, they would never lose a bid.

Yes. The EADS apologists do seem to have a problem with that point.

They usually duck it outright.

When the full report is released the same people arguing against the OMB will not be swayed, no matter the depth of proof, or the lack of integrity of the Air Force process.

Sigh. You are most likely right on that. Irrational grasping at straws seems to be rather prevalent on their side.

This is further evidence of the danger of foreign outsourcing...the divisions of our country they are able to create.

Divided we fall.

I think if EADs hadn't been so pervasive with its spin-control PR machine, its agents in the McCain camp, and elsewhere, ...and thorough with the degrees of its lies to confuse truth...not so many good conservatives would have bought the Kool-Aid...still obviously hoping that there was some rational basis for continuing to trust the outgoing administration...however weakly. But the globalism and non-conservatism grows more evident every day...

Good luck fighting the good fight.

Thanks. As Laura Ingraham says... "I try."

[A.A. Cunningham]

cannot

What are the aircraft that the KC-10 "cannot" refuel? Is that "cannot" definitive or is it supposition on your part and what exactly is it about #2 that makes refueling certain aircraft impossible?

KC-10 C-17 27 December 2007

KC-10 C-5 23 July 2007

KC-10 C-5 C-141

[A.A. Cunningham]

Why does he or anyone else need to?

Because anyone claiming that Boeing is the better choice has to defend their being several years behind schedule in delivering only eight tankers.

The U.S. KC-767 will be U.S. made.

With 100% US components; nothing farmed out to foreign suppliers or contractors?

[A.A. Cunningham]

Same claim about the RAF Tristars and a T-tail like the VC-10:

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=5893450

or a Tristar and a Sentry AEW.1?

[Vinnie]

Thanks for the info.

I went to an airshow last year where one of the demonstrations was a C-17.
Wasn’t expecting anything exciting, but that plane is amazing.

Living fairly near Ft. Bragg, I used to see C-141s often and got to really like them.
Frankly I didn’t think the C-17 would be able to replace the C-141s but after seeing the C-17 in action, WoW.

[cmdr straker]

last i heard was t-tails sustaining cracks from kc-10 middle engine.

[djwright]

OK I will explain it. The Japanese and Italian tankers were sold as basically follow on orders to the 100 airplane tanker lease program. (that was later canceled).

So now instead of making 108 tankers you are making 8. That is a much smaller program and you still have pretty much the same amount of engineering and testing. So to stay in the black you can't man up the way you would have and the schedule tends to slide.

So do you think that is a good predictor to how Boeing would manage a 179 airplane order?

Also if time is so critical there is an easy way to overcome a 2 year slide or delay (if the contract has to be rebid). Increase the delivery rate. You could easily catch up by building 15 airplanes a year. Both the A-330 and the 767 have been built in much higher numbers and this isn't pushing it at all. That would also give you a chance to replace all 500 in only 38 years.

[Paleo Conservative]

the KC10 / Dc-10 has the same 156 ft wingspan, but it does have a much higher MTW, and is far less efficient than the 767 in fuel burn. the KC10 pruchase was a political one, since the airline were not buying Dc10s anymore.

The KC-10 and KC-135 are used for different missions. The KC-10 is often used to ferry sqadrons across the oceans along with personnel and supplies. They don't have to fit on the tarmac at many of the air bases used to by KC-135's for supporting tactical operations. At the time the KC-10's were ordered, ETOPS wasn't allowed, so a tanker used for transoceanic missions would require at least 3 engines, so a 767 would have been out of the question anyway.

I read somewhere that the need for a bigger tanker with longer legs like the KC-10 was noted during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when the US was sending C-5's loaded with supplies to Israel without the benefit of flying the most direct great circle routes, because of OPEC threats to cut off oil exports to European countries that might help Israel. Only Portugal would allow USAF tankers to use its air bases.

[A.A. Cunningham]

So do you think that is a good predictor to how Boeing would manage a 179 airplane order?

A good predictor is actual performance, like Boeing's inability to keep on schedule with the 787, 767 tanker delays and other model production backlogs.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Any credible documentation of that allegation? Since the KC-10 is still being used to refuel the C-5 and C-17 it's highly unlikely that that is indeed occurring. In addition E-3s don't have T-tails. Therefore, what is your claim about them?

[AndyJackson]

when Boeing sent their tanker conversion work to Aeronavali in Italy, outsourcing it from Wichita, were you screaming about those jobs?

Northrop can build airplanes. This is all about sour grapes and the size of Boeing's lobbiest and blogger force. You would think that would actually get the 787 in production before whining so much about losing a contract. It is really really old and tiresome, and my opinion of Boeing is going in the tubes.

[Paleo Conservative]

Any credible documentation of that allegation? Since the KC-10 is still being used to refuel the C-5 and C-17 it's highly unlikely that that is indeed occurring. In addition E-3s don't have T-tails. Therefore, what is your claim about them?

The E-3 has a large radome mounted on supports above the fuselage that could act like a T-tail.

[AndyJackson]

I simply call the author's attention to two items in the following chart: Global airfield availability with a 200,000 lb fuel load, and fuel load from a 7,000 ft runway.

In other words, mission effectiveness. You would think that if the choice were such a disaster pilots would be crawling out of the woodwork to criticize the choice. It mostly sounds like sour grapes from Boeing emplyees.

[Hulka]

Just a quick post then gotta run. . . .weekend, you know.

First off, pilots love to fly. Anything. Period.

Second, the pilots are not allowed to speak publicly about any policy/source-section issue. They must remain mute. Though, having spent much time over the past three years in the Pentagon, there WAS a lot of grumbling.

Third, and most importantly, pilots would be in a heck of a lot of trouble if they critically spoke openly about the source section, especially this source selection. Moseley would have had them in a vice for becoming entangled in media and McCain wars.

Serving pilots/officers/any military can’t speak about the new uniform unless approved by the Public Affairs guys, let alone on something like the tanker.

Simple truth is, the RFP was the defining document for the source selection and it was not adhered to by the Air Force. There are other issues that affected this poor selection, not the least of which is the role McCain played.

Have a nice weekend.

[AndyJackson]

There are a lot of retired pilots who make lots of noises if the wrong things are done. They are private citizens and can say what they like.

[djwright]

What was the last LARGE airplane the NG built? How did that go on budget and delivery?

I can't believe we have so many cheerleaders in FR for sending this much military and engineering work overseas.

All you have to do is hire a US company to be your front man (and lobbying arm) promise a couple of states some jobs and POOF instant support.

Don't look behind the curtain at the French governments part ownership and even Russia wanting to buy in. Don't worry about them protecting US technology.

Don't worry about having our own government helping prop up a foreign company whose primary purpose is to challenge and eliminate the US aerospace industry.

BTW a production backlog in commercial airplanes is a good thing. It shows strong demand for your product. This isn't whoppers, you don't crank up the assembly line to meet demand overnight.

[Paul Ross]

Northrop can build airplanes.

So why didn't they offer their own design and build it themselves instead of fronting for EADs and using their plane?

This is all about sour grapes and the size of Boeing's lobbies...

Which would have won the contract in the first place if that was so.

No. The Sour Grapes appear to be coming from John McCain, (weeping crocodile tears on behalf of the taxpayer...when the USAF itself admitted it had improperly picked the more expensive and costly-to-operate planes, and conflated the Boeing price in violation of the rules), and EADs bloggers.

So was this an isolated non-sequitur by McCain? I think not. The interference by McCain on behalf of EADs just doesn't quit.

This supports my contentions from years back that there was a fix in for the EADs bid...led by McCain himself. So, is he "Owned", lock stock and barrel? Its beginning to look that way. Consistent with EADs global corruption model. They are accustomed to deducting their bribes as business expenses (still).

And the USAF conducted a blatant and proveable double-standard. So how can you fault the GAO for finding definitive improprieties that were not deniable by the USAF? You want those swept under the rug, eh?

Furthermore, its not over yet...all the GAO was strongly recommending was that the USAF conduct a fair bidding...which it had failed to do. Thus they need to rebid it...and do it right.

What are you afraid of....fairness? This fear of fairness by EADs and its minions makes it likely that they know that their political fix could unravel under the withering exposure to sunlight...and real openness and transparency. They and the USAF have been the ones redacting the details that went against EADs. Boeing has shown every sign of "letting it all hang out" since they had nothing to lose.

And if Boeing wins with fair rules, I imagine that you will still whine. If Boeing loses again...and it was fair, I believe they would not appeal.

Put yourself in their shoes. How would you have reacted to having been lied to, and misled by the USAF procurement team?

[Paul Ross]

I can't believe we have so many cheerleaders in FR for sending this much military and engineering work overseas.

I too am shocked.

It would be interesting to know how many of these whiners are not really Americans at all.

An alternative is that some, (a few have admitted it) are simply those who are looking at this as a venal self-opportunity...the best interests of our nation, its warfighters, and their capabilities...be damned.

Then finally, there is an ugly sectional rivalry to some of their sentiments, as if this is the War Between the States all over again.

[djwright]

The full redacted GAO report is out. There is a lot to digest in 67 pages and tons of footnotes.

I think there are 2 points that will get a lot of attention.

1) The report says the AF did not do the analysis to show that NG/EADS met the requirement to be capable of refueling all current fixed wing aircraft. And the wording tends to point to some of the faster airplanes not the V-22 as suspected.

2) NG/EADS did not meet the requirement to provide service support within 2 years. They had been reminded at a mid-point review that this was required and they still didn't do it. This was a requirement. That is a show stopper. That means they didn't meet all the requirements and the contract should not have been awarded to them.

In a legal sense it can be argued that not only should NG/EADs not have won but in fact they should have been eliminated and that Boeing actually won based on the RFP.

I expect to hear a lot more about this in the near future.

Here is the link:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3619962/Full-Redacted-GAO-Tanker-Decision

[djwright]

Here is the quote for item 2 in my comment above:

from page 54 of the GAO report

“It is a fundamental principle in a negotiated procurement that a proposal that fails to conform to a material solicitation requirement is technically unacceptable and cannot form the basis for award.” A paragraph later it goes on to say: “In sum, the Air Force improperly accepted Northrop Grumman’s proposal, where that proposal clearly took exception to a material solicitation requirement.