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Israel is working to convert Boeing 767 into a long-flight refueling tanker "US defense and air industry sources report that the Israeli Air Force may give up on the US Boeing’s KC-46A Pegasus as its future refueling tanker for long-range flights because of delays in its delivery." "Israel had first planned to take the Pegasus to replace its converted Boeing 707 when delivery was first to the US Air Force was scheduled for August 2017. But this week, the company put the date back by another eight months and the price increased by half a billion dollars. American sources point...

European defence ministers facing shrinking budgets agreed Thursday to join forces to get more air-to-air refueling planes, deploy extra field hospitals and exploit "green" energy. The projects are part of the European Union's efforts to pool and share military resources as the debt crisis and a US strategic pivot towards Asia forces Europe's armed forces to band together. The ministers, who met in Brussels, emphasized in a statement "the urgent political necessity to retain and develop the military capabilities for sustaining and enhancing" their common security policy. They signed a political declaration to pursue ways to purchase or share airborne...

A U.S. Air Force officer told Congress that both Boeing and EADS handled "correctly and professionally" a situation in which each received data from the Air Force about each company's bid to build a fleet of refueling tankers. Major Gen. Wendy Masiello also testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Air Force unintentionally sent Boeing and EADS the rival bids on compact disks. The reason for the hearing was to determine whether EADS is in a better negotiating position after one of its employees briefly viewed a summary of the Air Force's assessment of rival Boeing's bid, according...

European defense giant EADS expects the Pentagon to award the $35 billion KC-X tanker contract as early as next month. "The contract award … was to have been around the middle of November last year. It has moved toward next month," EADS North America Chief Executive Officer Sean O'Keefe said Wednesday in Paris, citing information from the U.S. Defense Department. European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. is in a fierce competition with U.S. arch-rival Boeing for the contract to outfit the U.S. Air Force with 179 in-flight refueling tankers.

The Air Force’s latest mobility study found the United States could not muster enough tankers to execute two of three likely scenarios, senior service officials told the House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee today. One of the principal reasons for that is that the aging tanker fleet needs so much patchwork and loving care that almost 20 percent of the fleet is in a depot at any one time, Brig. Gen. Michelle Johnson testified. “In two of three scenarios we did not have sufficient tankers,” she said. For the big one, two nearly simultaneous large land campaigns, with...

Air Force launched a new competition Wednesday for a contract to begin replacing the nation's aging fleet of aerial tankers, but it's not clear whether Northrop Grumman and its European partner will bid against Boeing for the $35 billion deal. The initial contract is for 179 new tankers, but the deal eventually could be worth $100 billion as the Air Force replaces its fleet of about 600 Cold War-era tankers in what could be one of the largest Pentagon purchases ever. There apparently were few major changes from an earlier "request for proposals" that drew sharp criticism from the Northrop...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon (news - web sites) postponed action on $18 billion contracts for 100 Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA - news) 767 tankers until the deal is investigated following Boeing's firing of two officials for ethical violations, Defense Department officials said on Tuesday. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told leaders of the Senate Armed Service Committee in a letter dated Dec. 1 that he was ordering a "pause in the execution" of the Air Force contracts to lease and buy the mid-air refueling tankers, a major setback in Boeing's two-year effort to sell the planes. Wolfowitz said his decision...