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March 1, 2008
The European Tanker Deal

The U.S. Air Force has decided to buy refueling aircrafts from a Northrop/Airbus consortium instead from Boeing.

The Buy American crowd is up in arms over this at the various ‘defense’ blogs and in the Seattle newspapers.

According to the taxpayers in those threads this decision is the fault of the Democratic senators from Washington, the Republican senators from Alabama, the unions, the union busters, the Boeing company, Northrop Grumman, the Bush administration, the liberals, the far right, the Pentagon, the French, Airbus, the GOP, the donkey party, John McCain, John McCain, John McCain …

But none of the hundreds of comments asks the real question.

Does the U.S. need 500+ aerial refueling tankers at all? Why?

Posted by b on March 1, 2008 at 14:53 UTC | Permalink
Comments

Absolutley not. How many planes do we actually need in the air at any given time to justify the large purchase?

Posted by: DMK | Mar 1 2008 15:03 utc | 1

This is the new plan to get the oil out of Iraq. Since the pipelines cannot be guarded, just load it onto planes and fly it home. Cost is no object. 😉

Posted by: biklett | Mar 1 2008 15:50 utc | 2

b, not that it makes that much difference to the overall point you are making but your numbers are off considerably. according to the Air Force the TOTAL number to be acquired over the course of the contract is 179 airplanes.
The KC 135 is based on the Boeing 707 which was developed in the early 1950s meaning that they are considerably older than the men and women flying them. When not refueling, those planes are also used to haul people and stuff around.
Even the KC 10 based on the DC 10 was rolled out in the early 1980s and is probably a lot less efficient than the new Airbus.
sheesh, 40 billion is less than 5 months of Iraq and a great deal of the money will be spent in the US while throwing a bone to the UK. Flying gas stations are not all that frightening to me whereas one F-35 Lightning is $77 million, and the Air Force wants close to 1,800 of these fighters.

Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 1 2008 17:16 utc | 3

Boeing made the satellite that was recently shot down, which was supposed to allow ground view thru clouds, at night, nipples and bush and everything. The technology was unproven (and I believe it remained so), and the thing sucked up money like a six headed hydra. Considering the cost of the euro, they have got to be pisssed..
🙂

Posted by: bellgong | Mar 1 2008 18:47 utc | 4

Here is a little story about that spy satellite, seems to me that Boeing did alright on that project….

Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 1 2008 19:05 utc | 5

@dan – 3 –
WaPo writes:

Under the new deal, the Northrop-EADS team initially will make 179 tankers for the Air Force. Replacing the roughly 500 tankers in the Air Force’s fleet could be worth as much as $100 billion over several decades, analysts said.

NYT writes:

The contract, one of the largest at the Pentagon, is initially valued at $40 billion but has the potential to grow to $100 billion.
…
The deal is the first phase of a multidecade program to replace the aging aerial tanker fleet, which dates to the Kennedy and Eisenhower eras. The fleet, which now numbers about 535 refitted Boeing 707s and DC-10s is one of the largest but oldest fleets of jets in the world.
Replacing these tankers has been the Air Force’s top priority since 1996, when the government first proposed obtaining new planes. The first 179 tankers will be acquired at a pace of about 15 a year. But it is expected that over time, nearly 400 new refueling planes will be needed, which could bring the program’s total cost to $100 billion.

So maybe only 400 new replacing 535 current tankers.
The DC-10 will be nearly 40 years old when the last one from this order is build. The Air Force would be nuts to buy a mixed fleet and Boeing will shut down the 767 line anyway. So this contract really opens the new line for all tanker orders.
With a $100 billion tag this is quite a big investment program in the Pentagon budget – not really peanuts.
The F-35 price tag is btw 120+ million a piece – and that was a year ago. It will easily go to 200+ before the first one is delivered.
BTW: The NYT writing: “The fleet … is one of the largest but oldest fleets of jets in the world.” is absolutly silly. The U.S. fleet of aerial tankers constitutes 3/4 or more of all tanker airplanes in this world. “one of the largest…”???
Still – I wonder why not in one in the hundred comments I have read over the deal anyone asked if the need is really there. The Air Force simply says so and then nobody is challenging that.
Do people believe they will not have to pay for these?

Posted by: b | Mar 1 2008 19:21 utc | 6

b,
the short answer to your question is that tankers are needed to project air power. Fighters and smaller bombers have short legs, the F16 has about a 500 mile combat range meaning that it can attack and return from targets within that range without refueling. Even the B52s require inflight refueling when doing their long range missions. You also need multiple tankers when moving larger numbers of fighters because there is a fairly narrow window for refueling and they simply can not wait in line.
No one wants to talk about the need for all of this, it is accepted without even a hint of curiousity. the other night I was listening to Airamerica radio and some substitute host had Mike Gravel call in. Gravel explained that he was still running an impossible race in order to get a message out to people about taking control of their government and doing something about the enormous defense budget. the host did a couple of half hearted ahha’s and then cut to commercial as soon as possible. there was no further mention of it.
made me embarrassed to have even listened to the program at all. it was of even lower quality than limbaugh.

Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 1 2008 20:57 utc | 7

b, you should do a you tube song/video sometimes. I love Meravigliosa creatura..

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Mar 1 2008 21:42 utc | 8

Let’s look at this from the perspective of a finite earth – what the bloody hell are we doing wasting finite resources that have to last humans for all eternity on such ephemeral crap? Nobody – in power – asks how this enhances anyone’s life. Ahhh…the final stage of Patriarchy…the Dingbat Daddy State – Greed & Guns, baby, Greed & Guns… Testosterone Junkies Rule to Ruin…

Posted by: jj | Mar 1 2008 22:39 utc | 9

b,
A shorter answer than dos, is that the “C-17” was accepted not making range specs and needs inflight refueling, in many cases, just to cross the Atlantic. sigh! Otherwise, great aircraft. Just a little short on the legs.

Posted by: IntelVet | Mar 1 2008 23:26 utc | 10

The article in Sunday’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung showed a tanker refuelling a B-2 Stealth Bomber, a plane with a rather limited range. If America wants to launch a first strike, it will need a large airborne tanker fleet.
It also mentioned that EADS sweetened the deal by promising to relocate some of the production facilities to the USA, which is advantageous to EADS right now because of the low dollar.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 2 2008 18:34 utc | 11

I heard something years back about how Pentagon wanted to be able to strike anywhere in the world w/in a ridiculously short time span – w/in a day or something nutso… More infinite Tough Boy Fantasies…

Posted by: jj | Mar 3 2008 4:02 utc | 12

“Let’s look at this from the perspective of a finite earth”
Is there any other way?
“Nobody – in power – asks how this enhances anyone’s life.”
They don’t have to, they’re in power and they tell the rubes that it protects us from the evil other (as Steve Earle said t’other night – it’s the immigrants again – Canajan translation – other cultures) and most of us defer to this autonomously. Those that don’t are quickly marginalized to the fringe.
In the meantime, the worm turns and the lifecycle of this finite planet or solar system does us in with or without our input as we gaze at our navels. These environmental issues would have to be addressed even if we did live in some sustainable, relatively pollution free panacea.
Not to mention investing in cleaner ways of doing things that aren’t band-aids, repairing infrastructure, education etc.
War is a sad waste and far too many people accept it as if it is beyond any human intervention like, well a huge asteroid/comet – which may very well be at this time (those “rocks” really aren’t hard targets, making destruction/deflection a difficult proposition even with REALLY BIG nukyular dewices).
Speaking of time, the interesting little sci-fi show chat a while ago mentioned several different series (Sci-fi Channel Dune is good). All those future civs are classed as Level 2 by futurists. We are zero.

Posted by: jcairo | Mar 6 2008 7:36 utc | 13

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