Posted on 08/31/2009 3:43:02 AM PDT by Kaslin
When the White House and Congress wanted to take old cars off the road and replace them with newer models, they passed "Cash for Clunkers."
However, when it comes to the clunkers in America's military aircraft, things are quite a bit different. For more than a decade, Congress has wrangled with how to replace our aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers. The planes that provide much-needed in-flight fuel to military aircraft have been in circulation since 1957. Yet, despite the desperate need for an upgrade, political gamesmanship has delayed the Air Force from trading them in.
While they are not the supersonic fighter planes glamorized in movies, the Air Force simply could not do its job without these tankers.
Like the efficient new sedan that was supposed to replace the old clunker, the goal of upgrading the tanker should be to replace aging equipment and obsolete technology with a better, more efficient design, at a reasonable cost and timeframe. Unfortunately, neither goal is currently being met.
In a move that has since been overturned by the General Accountability Office, the Air Force procurement office announced last year that it would award the contract to build the new tanker fleet to a European firm EADS, working with American-based Northrop Grumman, that had never built a tanker, instead of American-based Boeing. This decision ignored input from "warfighters" on the actual core mission of the tanker, and according to the GAO, changed the requirements for the bids in mid-process while keeping Boeing in the dark about these changes.
GAO upheld a Boeing protest of the contract award last summer. In the midst of a presidential election year, the bidding process was set back yet another year with the Pentagon setting a deadline of Oct. 1 for a new, "final" decision.
Already well behind schedule, the Air Force needs to salvage the situation by deciding on selection criteria based on the best advice of our warfighters, not politicians. Then, they need to select the most capable company to build the most capable aircraft.
Simply put, Boeing has been building America's aerial refueling tankers since 1957 and can start building our new tanker without further delays. EADS and its American partners will need to build and equip a factory then hire and train a work force before it can actually start building a tanker - a process that will take several additional years.
Most warfighters believe that the Boeing tanker is also better suited to the core mission. Its Boeing 767 airframe is smaller and lighter than the oversized EADS Airbus 330 tanker, making it more maneuverable in the air and allowing it to take off and land in up to 20 percent more airfields worldwide. Fewer usable airfields would increase the time our military aircraft would need to remain in the air waiting to be refueled, potentially jeopardizing both mission objectives and pilot safety. However, if the Air Force ends up rebidding the tanker contract with cargo capacity as an additional criterion, Boeing has put forth its 777. The 777 can not only fulfill that role, but is so much lighter and has such a greater range than the Airbus 330 that it virtually renders the Airbus 330 obsolete.
And as a former Marine, I can tell you that close air support is something every soldier counts on. So, getting a fleet of tankers that is most capable of being in the right place at the right time is the warfighters' bottom line. The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker has been serving our nation for more than 50 years - the last being purchased by the Air Force in 1965. If it were a car, President Barack Obama and Congress would be tripping over themselves to get it off the road and replaced with the very best solution the auto industry has to offer.
The same urgency and prudence should be afforded the refueling tanker.
Well, I wouldn’t know why anyone chooses EADS to do their work...I think they’re a good company, but bogged down in a political quagmire by their multi-country board. But I think this not choosing Boeing thing was the penalty for their doing some rather questionable lobby work in Washington, which was somewhat close to being illegal, right?
But you realize that the liberal (statist) mentality regarding military issues is to either “make due” with what ya got, don’t expect a lot of new “bells and whistles”, and if we can cut it, you bet yo sweet bippy, we’ll do everything we can to cut it...
The new twist is that they are going after the brains (intel community) to neuter the awareness and planning group as much as possible and weaken our response as much as possible...
Very traitorous behavior in my opinion...
But then again, what do I know...
Well, it took years just to get a fan jet to replace the fuel hungry turbo jet on the original water wagon 135.
One of my experiences involved a mission taking off with perhaps more fuel than needed, and the results of the mission being more important than the extra fuel, which if need be, was dumped in order to land without delay. over a five year period in the early seventies, some 20 years before the old engines were replace, I “dumped” approximately a million pounds of fuel a month for at least four years, at 6.5 pounds per gallon.
I was just one of a number of crews engaged in the same operation day after day. 100,000 pounds of JP-4 is about 15,000 gallons if my math is correct.
Think about it.
It is already a heavy hauler, and is STOL. How about a fuel system that rolls into the fuselage and add a boom? Think out of the box for once... If our Goverment keeps piddle-farting over the retrofit, give to the Israeli's they would get-r-done, they have the design capability in house to do so.
In a few years get a growth version of Pratts Geared Turbofan and retrofit the engines for extended range with it's lower fuel consumption...
Bttt............
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