Posted on 12/14/2009 11:26:44 AM PST by Paul Ross
Airbus/Northrop Threat Revealing
by George Landrith
Human Events, 12/04/2009
The Air Force has issued a preliminary Request for Proposal (RFP) specifying how companies can bid on the $35 billion contract to build the next fleet of air refueling tankers. A final RFP is due out soon.
The two bidders reviewing the preliminary RFP are Chicago-based Boeing, and a team made up of Airbus, based in Toulouse France, and Northrop Grumman, based in Los Angeles. Boeing has proposed building a tanker on its medium-sized B-767 commercial jetliner platform, while Airbus and Northrop have proposed building a tanker on Airbus’s larger A-330 commercial jetliner platform.
The last competition was overturned after the Government Accountability Office issued a report highly critical of the Air Force’s conduct, which they found had favored Airbus by conducting separate and unequal negotiations, offering Airbus extra credit for criteria Boeing was not made aware of. And, importantly, the GAO noted that the Air Force had waived critical requirements to keep the Airbus in the game.
This second competition was meant to offer each bidder clearer criteria, and treat both equally. Now, Airbus and Northrop are threatening to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force changes the RFP criteria to favor its larger, more expensive, less capable, and less survivable airplane.
On several fronts, Airbus’ threats to pull out unless its demands are met takes real nerve.
For starters, consider that Airbus has recently been found guilty by the World Trade Organization of taking illegal trade subsidies from European governments. Airbus has used these subsidies to undercut competitors like Boeing in bids just like the one being conducted by the Air Force. In what could only be called an abundance of generosity, the Air Force has said it will ignore Airbus’ illegal subsidies. This alone should be enough for Airbus to sit down and be quietly grateful, but apparently the French firm has come to feel entitled to the American defense contract, having been so pampered during the last competition.
Secondly, it’s a simple fact that the larger Airbus offering cannot operate from a large percentage of the runways currently used by Air Force tankers. This would mean the A330 tanker would either be less available, or US and allied airfields around the world would need to be reinforced and widened at huge expense. The previous competition did not take these construction costs or opportunity costs into account. This time around, these costs are being taken partially into account, for the very good reason that they will eventually have to be paid. If a homeowner were deciding between two boats, and the larger of the two would not fit in his garage, requiring him to build a new larger garage, then the larger boat might well be a poor bargain, no matter what its sale price might be. Same with the tanker. New runways and hangars are expensive, and the Air Force should take that into account up front.
Third, the larger Airbus A330 is less maneuverable than the Boeing B767, and -- as HUMAN EVENTS Editor Jed Babbin reported in July 2008 -- is unable to perform “breakaway” and “overrun” maneuvers critical to the safety of its mission. If for any reason, the tanker and the aircraft it is refueling fly too close together, the tanker is supposed to climb and accelerate, while the aircraft receiving fuel dives, thus ensuring a clean, safe separation, called a “breakaway.” The problem is that an Airbus A330 laden with fuel cannot climb and accelerate steeply or quickly enough to perform this maneuver. Its larger size and weight also prevents it from being able to speed up and “overrun” aircraft that end up positioned in front of the tanker, rather than behind it, at their rendezvous point. These are not trivial issues: they are essential to safe flight operations.
The Airbus-Northrop team has attempted to portray the larger size of the A330 as an asset, claiming that it carries more fuel, which is certainly true, and that it would also have lots of cargo and passenger space, which it would. But a tanker should first and foremost be a tanker. Secondary missions as a cargo or passenger plane would distract from its primary mission. Conducting secondary missions, and fitting on fewer runways means that the A330 tanker would be less available as a tanker, and all the extra fuel in the world does not help if it is not where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.
So, what Airbus and Northrop are demanding is that the Air Force ignore Airbus’ illegal trade subsidies, that it ignore all the additional construction and opportunity costs the A330 would add to the tanker program, and that it ignore the inability of the A330 to perform important safety maneuvers. And, Airbus and Northrop are also demanding that secondary missions are to be counted in their favor, even though warfighters are not asking for those secondary missions.
In other words, Airbus and Northrop seem to be demanding that the Air Force do what it did last time -- rig the bidding process so that Airbus can’t lose. Or else, they will not even bother to offer a bid. This is a haughty attitude indeed. The Air Force should not dignify the threat with a response.
Airbus has been given every conceivable courtesy, to the point of receiving unfair advantages in this competition. If with all these advantages it still cannot compete, and cannot even be polite, then the Air Force should thank them, and move on.
George Landrith is the President of the Frontiers of Freedom Institute and a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. As an adjunct professor at the George Mason School of Law, Mr. Landrith has taught constitutional law, appellate advocacy, and legal writing.
What threat. They are building the plans in America and unlike Boeing the Airbus/Northrup team has never rejected a city for a contract and then proceeded to attack said city and its workforce when they found out that their rivals had chosen said city and had put in a better bid for the same contract.
In a fair tanker competition EADS will win and that tanker will be built here. Boeing had a chance to take advantage of our hard-working, non-unionized workforce and they passed for us and then proceeded to attack us claiming that we weren’t “good enough” to build the tanker. As far as I’m concerned they can rot in hell.
No bias in that sentence. Nope, no siree.
If it’s for the United States Air Force, it should be built in the United States. There’s nothing this country can’t build and do it better than anyone else.
The Northrop/EADS plane would be built in Alabama and have more US content than the Boeing plane.
If Airbus/Northrup/EADS gets that contract those planes will be assembled at a plant in Mobile, which is a part of America the last time I checked.
Hmmm, smells like a union reply there. Nope, Boeing just doesn’t want unions doing to it what they did to GM and Chrysler.
Besides, as a pilot (albeit a fighter-type), I like to be in control of my plane (as Boeing does it) rather than being a voting member (as Airbus does it).
Besides, you wouldn’t find me flying a plane which cannot hack it in bad weather. You might want to have a seance and check with those room temp pilots of that Airbus over the Atlantic and see what they think of that solid French software engineering.
Instead of whining about how Boeing treated your city think about which plane will do the job and keep our pilots safe at the same time. From the article it sounds like the Airbus could be a dangerous solution. I agree that the Boeing suits are dickheads but let’s put that aside and think of the safety of our troops.
Really? You say that and yet they keep their facilities in Chicago and Washington state.
And the Northrup/EADS tanker is the better tanker. That’s why they won the first tanker competition. The plane is only not being built right now because Boeing whined and padded the pockets off enough Congress people that they listened. I don’t doubt that Boeing will get the contract. The President is from Chicago and McCain’s daughter-in-law lives in this area. It would still be nice if there would be a fair competition again like the one that Northrup won last time.
How do you square requirements over your apparent dislike of Boeing?
Doesn't the mission count?
The bid was for a replacement for the KC-135, not the KC-10. If the replacement tanker was to replace the KC-10, then the EADS bid would make sense. But the bid was for a mid-size tanker and therefore their bid did not.
Threshold vs Objective? How did the EADS bid rank when evaluated in accordance with those criteria?
Were they compliant? Non-compliant?
Basically, I would like to see a line-by-line analysis of the GAO report and any fact-based arguments refuting the GAO report.
Oh, how much large aircraft manufacturing experience does your area have? Would like to know if the work-force would have to be trained from building. . .what. . .to a level that can efficiently and safely build large aircraft.
Not familiar with the Boeing bid for the location. Please explain or send to link that can cover that subject. Unbiased, of course.
Thanks.
Actually, it would be built in France, shipped to the US for assembly.
Y’know, the USAF decided once what aircraft best met their requirements. Boeing went to their bought-and-paid-for politicians and had the competition overturned. This, after John McCain had their sweetheart lease deal overturned.
The USAF is going to get the tanker that the politicians want them to buy, their requirements be damned.
The objections to the A-330 seem to me to be substantial in nature.
I would like to see Boeing get the contract because it looks like thier aircraft meets the needs of the medium sized tanker RFP better than the A-330 (which may be a better plane, but it is simply too large).
The Draft RFP specifies certain cargo offload capabilities, which exceed what the KC-135 can do, are slightly below what the KC-767 can do, and well below what the KC-330 can do.
The Draft RFP specifies meeting those minimums, then concentrates on lowest cost. At that point, with no regard for the extra (or excess, depending on your point of view,) capacities in fuel/cargo/troops, then why should NG-EADS even bother with a multi-million dollar bid process it cannot win?
And don't forget, until the bids were unsealed during the last go-around, this was the $40 billion KC-X program. With two bidders, it became a $35 billion KC-X program.
Now, given Zero's recent spending habits, I know that $5 billion isn't a whole lot, but I'd love to see it turned into another 35 or so F-22 Raptors.
I was about to scold you by telling you that we should be buying an American Built airplane.
I then realised that Boeing Airplanes have 90% of their parts from all over the world. It would not be an American airplane after all.
I guess you have a point.
False. They are built in Europe. The inital planes will then have Modifications done in the U.S.
Promises to later on, merely ship the components to Alabama and reassemble the plane are fairly clearly never going to happen. They will, after getting the contract landed, simply change their plans. It would be vastly cheaper to them to retain their European assembly. They have every financial incentive to weasel out of their proposed arrangement with your Alabama folks. Face it...you are being used. And against the U.S.
Ones that can actually do the proper emergency pull-away that is specified in Air Force regulations?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.