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.
Yeah and if someone who didn’t live a 10 minute drive from where Airbus was going to built the plant including the shiny office building they built on a main road wasn’t reading this you might have made that point successfully. Unfortunately, someone who does live a very short drive from that office building and who has made money on business deals in the industrial park that the plant will be built in is reading this and you’re reading his typing right now.
I can guarantee you that Riley would not have gone out of his way and expended all the effort he did to get a “modification plant.” Those planes are going to be built right here if we get the contract.
Boeing just wants to distract Americans from the fact that they rely on primarily foreign parts and are dirty businessmen.
Someone who knows more about EADs lies and thievery...and real objectives... than you do, can guarantee you that you are being hoodwinked. And that someone is typing this right now!
Uh, you better read again: Boeing largest aerospace employer in Alabama
if the safety issue is correct,
then Airbus builds military planes for militaries that have no military function.
Sorry. Flat wrong.
From EADS point of view, the contract was the justification for the factory, not the other way around. They want a non-European A330 production line more than the tanker contract.
The reason EADS were so keen on the contract last time was that the work would justify building an aircraft plant in the lower cost USA. That was before the dollar went south against the Euro. It's even more incentive now,
EADS on the other hand is, for the most part, in France. I want American Military strategic assets to come from an American company with the ability, if needed, to fully design and build said asset here.
Now both Gruman and Northrop are two American companies that had long and storied histories of designing and building aircraft right here in the US of A. Very fine aircraft. And if they wanted to design and build their very own tanker to bid on the AF tanker contract, I think that would be great.
But slapping the NG name in front of EADS and bidding a European aircraft is not the same thing.
When the dust settles my prediction still is that the Air Force will be forced by Congress to buy both planes, thus getting fewer aircraft for more money than had they single-sourced the contract.
one company makes profit
one company was founded to make jobs regardless of profit
No. You are flat wrong. And especially with the dollar tanking against the Euro. That is why Northrup Grumman...at the behest of its EADs masters... is utterly opposed to a fixed-price contract...which is also a big part of the RFP.
The argument that they were going to save money by assembling in Alabama was also false since they are making all the A330 components in Europe, and would have less transportation and assembling costs to continue to do as they already do...assemble them in Europe. The Alabama operation will be a redundancy. And they for sure will not be shifting commercial production to Alabama...which is what they would be doing irrespective of the Defense contract if they were a legitimate free private business.
But that is not who you are dealing with.
Instead, they are a State-Controlled-Jobs program for Europeans. Not Alabamans. And not Americans. Indeed, their politicians publicly stated their agenda is to destroy the US as an aerospace leader.
Bump. But notice the AirbusBots never ever consider that point.
Boeing does not consider it self a American Company anymore.
Money is whats inportant to Boeing Corporate officers.
Not patriotism. They will sell to anybody with the bucks.
PS I worked at Boeing for 10 years.
I’m biased so I should say that off the bat. I worked for Northrop and so has my mother (over 30 years). They are a large employer here in Maryland. I think they make great products, although I don’t know much about EADs/Airbus - I think they get a raw deal sometimes, compared to the big guy.
I worked mainly in the F-16 division (APG-66/68, V-9, V-10 radars)
Thanks! I personally am sick of all the political maneuvers while the USAF is flying tankers dating to the Eisenhower administration.
I’m well aware they have an operation in Huntsville. Huntsville is also more than 300 miles away from the operation that they would have down here.
And it’s obvious that you know nothing of Alabama because if you did you wouldn’t have used the term “Alabaman” to describe people from this state as everyone who has ever spent even a day in the state knows that an i goes between the m and the a in that word.
And as someone who was a part of the city’s business community until I retired, remains active in the Chamber of Commerce, who knows the people who worked on getting that site selection and who helped put more than a few of them in office I think I’m very well qualified to speak when I say that it is my understanding that EADS has every intention of building those planes here and as you can see from the graph someone else put up, the plane that will be built here is far superior to the Boeing competitor.
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