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The Spectacle Blog
Boeing gets the tanker contract. I smell a rat. A crooked rat. Even Boeing thought it was going to lose. EADS under-bid it, and its plane was bigger and could do more. But Boeing is headquartered in Obama’s Chicagoland, and Defense Secretary Gates will retire to his Seattle-area home — Seattle being the main historic base of Boeing and still the site of the largest portion of its jobs, including the jobs for the tanker project. It’s all so very convenient…… as it was convenient for Boeing to get the first contract after a major kickback scheme, as it was convenient for Gates to throw out the legit award to EADS and re-open the competition even after the Air Force corrected for the eight small procedural errors identified by GAO in an otherwise perfectly fair process. The rat is big and hairy, and it smells like the sewer from which it crawled.
I repeat what I wrote here something like four full years ago: The contract should have been split up. Conservatives believe in competition. Without the ongoing competition caused by a split contract, I guarantee you that Boeing will have major cost overruns, major technical problems like those that plagued its pathetically ineffective elecronic border fence, and maybe even some safety problems down the line. Just watch.
View all comments (50) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/02/24/obama-gates-boeing-connection
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David T| 2.24.11 @ 5:44PM
I agree they should have split the baby 60-40. That strategy has worked before with engines and cruise missiles. But if the award had to go to one source, I'm glad it was Boeing, even if it smells. With all its problems, Boeing is still an American company. And its tanker will be produced almost entirely in the US. EADS was a foreign company and a proven cheater. This is a good day for America.
john| 2.25.11 @ 2:47PM
An aircraft mechanic friend working on PDX tells me he owns his job to Airbus, asked why he replied "IT'S JUNK"!!!
If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going.
WL| 2.24.11 @ 6:04PM
I don't know what to think about it...but one thing is for sure...under the Obama administration...the best outcome or not...It was going to whoever benefited THE ONE.
Quin| 2.24.11 @ 6:04PM
It's a terrible day for America. Boeing's bid would not have created any more jobs -- in fact, at one time it was estimated to be FEWER jobs -- in the US than would the EADS plane. That's the fact, Jack. Meanwhile, we've just started a major trade war, and we will see foreign companies stop even trying to build plants in the US, thus depriving American workers of needed jobs. I also bet the WTO gets involved and charges the US with a trade infringement of some sort. Expect the worst.
Dan| 2.24.11 @ 6:20PM
This is nothing to the really important contract which Obama and his beard Gates obliterated, and that was the F-22 Raptor contract.
When combined with his obliteration of America's space program, ---------------- in just a single year of his tenure, Obama just put in jeopardy America's dominance of aerospace.
And if that doesn't scare the hell out of you, --------- then you haven't been paying attention.
Al Adab| 2.24.11 @ 6:25PM
Well on point Dan. This nation must remain second to none in aerospace and most of this administrations actions have the opposite effect. By the same token, ALL our weapon systems need to be produced on shore. Otherwise we are hostage to supply interruptions during conflict. Keep posting and keep the clear thinking in the fore.
Mike| 2.24.11 @ 9:32PM
Dan,
We are cutting military and aerospace spending. Hello! Heard of the deficit and the debt? TEA, Dan?
Al Adab| 2.25.11 @ 11:52AM
Mike:
The debt and deficit are driven by entitlements, extra-constitutional, not by defense spending which is mandated. I understand tThe Left doesn't like (loath was Clinton's word) our military but it remains a duty of government. Where is our million man army, where our 400 ship Navy, where our fighter and bomber wings?
Mike| 2.25.11 @ 1:06PM
Your assertion about military spending is simply wrong. As much as entitlements, military spending is part of the problem. Perhaps you are forgetting the cost of two wars that the Bush administration conveniently left out of the budget. And what about the GE alternative engine that the military neither wants or needs?
Warrior | 2.25.11 @ 11:57PM
Your liberal friends had 4 years to defund the wars and didn't bother to conduct one vote. Obama has expanded the Afghan war and yet you still bury your head in your ass talking about Bush. Military spending could easily be reduced by closing bases in Germany and Japan to start. This would not necessitate any cuts in advanced weapons systems. Before you talk about the Bush year budgets, don't forget your liberal buddies didn't even bother to deliver a budget last year.
Curly| 2.26.11 @ 12:11AM
Bravo!
Mike | 2.26.11 @ 12:54AM
Warrior,
You and I are on the same page.
It would be nice if those on the right acknowledged the following: the continuity of of economic and foreign policy between the Bush and the Obama administrations and the fact that "Obamacare" is much like the Republican health care plan presented during the Clinton administration.
Ryan| 2.25.11 @ 8:38AM
Actually, the F22 cut more or less made sense. Expensive, and the F35 is a TON cheaper. The F15 is also still highly capable, except the maintenance on them is getting out of hand...
Thom| 2.25.11 @ 6:09PM
Ryan,
The F-22 cut made no fiscal or military sense unless you think flying a 35 year old airframe in high G combat makes sense. As for the F-35 being a “ton” cheaper well the F-16 which it is replacing is two “tons” cheaper than the F-15 which it was designed to complement and the F-35 is still in development and way over cost. If you ignore that the F-22/F-15s and F-35/F-16s are completely different class of craft and capabilities then just the cost difference might have some value but in no way can the F-35 perform the Air Superiority mission the way the F-22/F-15’s can.
When the first model F-15s and F-16s models were delivered they had a nominal cost of about $1,000,000 per thousand lbs of empty weight. The F-15s cost twice as much as the F-16 effectively. If you find the actual production cost of the F-22, not all the cost figures published that add in development cost to each airframe up to that point in production and then look up what a new model F-15 or F-16 cost today you might note the adjusted for inflation cost of the F-15 and F-16 models isn’t exactly “affordable” by the standards the F-22 is singled out for today. When the F-15A first touched down on their first combat base in 1975 I was there to see them officially go operational. My AGI is 8 times what it was in 1975 and I’m still in the same field of work I was then. We sold A model F-15s to Israel for about $25,000,000 back then.
Would you pay 8 times the cost today for any car or truck produced in 1975? Just as automobiles haven’t outrun inflation cost generally the cost of anything military will decrease in cost if you build enough of them over their production run. The last F-35 produced will cost less in inflation adjusted dollars over the first model produced and the first ones produced will not cost a “ton” less than the last batch of F-22s produced. I strongly suspect the first F-35 models are not going to be “affordable” stealth and not a stand in for the F-22/F-15 type long range air superiority mission platform as some naive people seem to wish for. The F-35 wasn’t designed for all aspect “stealth”, high combat maneuverability or to carry a sizable load of air to air armaments internal thus it will be only more “affordable” than the F-22 because it has given up all the expensive parts of the F-22 capability. Whatever the final cost figures are for each model of the F-35, it won’t be “affordable” using the same guidelines being thrust upon the F-22 production aircraft.
Dan| 2.24.11 @ 6:22PM
And Quin, the situation was always going to get worse under Obama,
A Carter clone can be nothing other than Carteresque.,
Nothing is as important right now than making sure Hussein Obama never gets a second term. Everything else pales into insignificance.
Quartermaster| 2.24.11 @ 6:24PM
rather than rave about it, you need consider several things about the Boeing aircraft.
1. The Aircraft has already been produced and has performed well in airline service. There are no development costs here.
2. The refueling equipment is also tried and true. No development costs there either.
3. The 767 will fit existing infrastructure and will require no new infrastructure. The A330 will.
4. The aircraft will be produced in its entirety in the US. The A330 plant that was supposed to go up in Alabama would only be an assembly plant with only engines and avionics sourced in the US. IN other words, it woul be an aerospace Maquiladora. The hign value production would remain in Europe.
There are also very serious questions about Airbus equipment. There have been serious structural problems (the loss of a vertical stabilizer on an Airbus climbing out of JFK), software problems (Air France coming out of Brazil and lost in teh Atlantic, and a crash outside of Marseilles - neither problem has been corrected to my knowledge). There has been a potentially serious accident recently with the refueling equipment on an A330 slated for the RAAF that damaged both the tanker and a Portuguese F-16.
Was the thing baked? Perhaps, I don't know. But I have the strong feeling that we got the better aircraft.
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 2.24.11 @ 6:45PM
Boeing's a "Union" Company now isn't it? So Europe never stood a real chance on this "low" bid, even if they do have a better product this time. Nothing to see here!! It's the Chicago way, or the highway!!
Mike| 2.24.11 @ 9:57PM
And, if the contract went to the European company, the right would have castigated the administration for not supporting the American company.
Boeing is a union company. Well cry me a river. American workers earning a decent salary and benefits. Why do you hate American workers?
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 2.25.11 @ 5:51AM
Fuck you Mike!!
JimH| 2.25.11 @ 9:04AM
This is why I visit this site, for the witty, well reasoned repartee.
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 2.25.11 @ 3:16PM
Jim: I don't "hate" American Workers, and that's why my response to that douchebag above was so, as you called it "well reasoned". I was a member of a Union in good standing for a dozen years plus (CWA-1101-with two Strikes under my belt too), so I'm not "anti-Union", but I "am" certainly against Government Unions as they stand today. They don't negotiate in good faith like a private sector Union has to, they don't have to answer to a balance sheet, they just have to elect the Politician who will give them the raise they're looking for in the end, and damn the Taxpayers who have to pay for it. Now as for Boeing, they might be a private Corporation, but with their symbiotic Military relationship with the Government, they might as well be Headquartered in D.C., because it's hard to tell where they end, and the Government begins. This contract just seems like another back-room deal to me, it stinks, and the American Taxpayer will have to pay for it, as it always does.
M. Murcek| 2.24.11 @ 8:35PM
Not to worry, it's time for the dung beetle mcshame to crawl out of his lair and put the whole mess back to square one again while we rely on 60 year old airplanes to refuel our fighters and bombers.
dr kill| 2.24.11 @ 9:03PM
Word.
serge| 2.24.11 @ 10:35PM
EADS is subsidized by the EU, so it is little wonder they underbid Boeing. Add to the ongoing troubles Airbus has with their planes, and there is no doubt we bought the better airplane.
c17wife| 2.24.11 @ 11:20PM
This contract was originally about and should have always been awarded for the sole purpose it was intended...BOOMS in the air. Period dot.
Boeing can do that better, and cheaper.
As one who shares my bed with a flyer...this is actually a good day for America.
David T| 2.25.11 @ 12:06PM
Ma'am--You're husband is a lucky man.
DJ| 2.25.11 @ 1:53AM
Even for an opinion piece this is really bad.
You say "EADS under-bid it" - how do you know this at this point. I don't think any details have been released. The conditions of the bid were that they had to go with the lower bidder unless the bids were within 1%. So without any other details it is a good assumption that Boeing was the lower bid.
Last time millions were added to Boeing's bid for "risk". How those numbers were calculated was never clearly revealed but they magically made the ND/EADs bid the lower bid by a fraction of a percent. Until a math error was found that showed even that to be untrue.
In the last go round which you call "the legit award to EADS " their bid failed to meet two requirements, so by definition it was non-conforming. So much for legitimate.
Also I would like you to show me anybody who thinks the 8 errors listed by the GAO were "minor". At the time it was considered one of the most compelling smack downs the GAO had ever issued.
Ryan| 2.25.11 @ 8:41AM
Some of the guys I know in the Air Force (particularly in logistics) knew that everyone's situation was screwed up. I'm not sure there was a real good guy in the whole process.
gsr| 2.25.11 @ 6:31AM
As a former USAF air refueling "boomer", who flew in the KC-135, I can tell you Quin, no one knows aerial refueling better than Boeing.
Kudo's to Boeing. Besides, if we can't even design and build our own American military equipment here domestically, why are we even a "country" anymore?
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.25.11 @ 9:02AM
Quin,
I have to part company with you on this one.
Why?
Because the ranting on your part just reminds me too much of the communists, (pardon the shorthand), that used the same darned rhetoric concerning Haliburton in Iraq......
...the SAME darned rhetoric!
Mike| 2.25.11 @ 10:10AM
Ken,
I am reticent to do this for fear of tainting you with guilt by association, but I agree with you. There is too much angry, unreasoned rhetoric from both sides of the political divide.
But, I will chide you for your "communist, pardon the shorthand." It is no more accurate than accusing everyone on the right as being fascists (pardon the shorthand).
Veritas| 2.25.11 @ 10:03PM
Sorry, Mike, Fascism and Communism are two sides of the same Statist coin, and both describe Leftists like you.
Mike | 2.26.11 @ 1:01AM
Veritas,
Too simplistic an understanding of communism and fascism, but I get your drift.
Oldefarte| 2.25.11 @ 11:07AM
As I said Thursday in comment-reply to Quin's then editorial ("As one who lives near the southern city where EADS would have conducted [some?] of their manufacturing operations, if awarded this contract [and which would have provide thousands of '''''American''''' NON-UNIONIZED, NON-AFL-CIO jobs] let me tell you straight up that THIS CONTRACT WILL BE AWARDED TO BOEING! Why? BHO, that's why! Boeing's corporate HQ were formerly located in Seattle, Washington before moving to Chicago, Illinois. Got it, MORONS [Chicago, home of BHO, Emmanuel, and the entire WH staff currently and formerly for the LAST TWO YEARS]? Additionally, the South [recent-historically] has voted for REPUBLICANS in national/state elections [and NOT BHO OR DEMOCRATS]. Get it MORONS? There's NO GD WAY IN HADES that that contract ever would have been, was possibily going to be, or forever will be awarded to ANY COMPANY that represents a political benefit to any area that votes predominately REPUBLICAN, and that's a political fact of life you can take to the bank [AND THE CORRUPT POLITICAL AWARDERS CAN STICK IT WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE STARTING [OR CONTINUING] IN NOVEMBER 2012!!!!!!!!)
DEMOCRATS/AFL-CIO/CHICAGO-WAY-------1
SOUTHERN REPUBLICANS/RIGHT-TO-WORK/TAXPAYERS--------------------------------0
lol wut?| 2.25.11 @ 11:19AM
http://www.realclearpolitics.c.....09024.html
"In the last go-round, the Air Force devalued speed, acceleration and maneuverability of the Boeing aircraft in favor of the greater range and cargo capacity of the Airbus. The result, as the GAO found, was that the Air Force illegally ignored the fact that the Airbus lacked both sufficient top speed and acceleration to perform certain flight maneuvers which must be performed to refuel fast aircraft safely.
Because the requirements for speed and acceleration remain the same - and the fact that the Airbus A-330 in the current round is the same aircraft offered the last time - it logically shouldn't win the competition."
ah, so Herr Doktor Hillyer, ye would have us saddled with an inferior aircraft?
Oldefarte| 2.25.11 @ 12:35PM
LOL, try/think again. It ain't SPEED that kills, but THE CHICAGO WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
whuh?| 2.25.11 @ 12:15PM
unbelievable. your antipathy towards Obama now translates into you rooting AGAINST america's financial interests. pathetic and hardly "conservative."
Oldefarte| 2.25.11 @ 12:39PM
Whuh, HUH? Right, America's CHICAGO[BOEING HQ'D]-WAY, AFL-CIO/UAW/OBAMA,GARRET,EMMANUEL.......
interests!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
gsr| 2.25.11 @ 1:42PM
Airbus' huge, lumbering, slow aircraft is not the correct aircraft for the mission of arial refueling. Period. Other reasons are secondary to that fact.
Airbus' poposed aircraft could carry more fuel but that's not the only qualifying requirement. Speed in flight, break away speed, runway capability, as well as domestic engineering/manufacturing are all contributing factors as well.
Oldefarte| 2.25.11 @ 2:40PM
AND THE COW JUMPED OVER THE MOON, WHILE THE DISH RAN AWAY WITH THE SPOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
JimK| 2.25.11 @ 3:52PM
The Airbus is a gas hog and requires much longer fields. Two good reasons to go with the Boeing.
Oldefarte| 2.26.11 @ 11:23AM
The BEST REASONS are that Boeing's HQ's are in Chicago, and that Boeing is an AFL-CIO employer, not to mention that EADS would locate their assembly center in a southern city of a region that traditionally votes REPUBLICAN!!!!!!!!!!!
1blumutt| 2.25.11 @ 3:53PM
No facts, here, if for sure EADS was the lower bid. Figure it could have been, as EADS is subsidized. Better we utilize what resources, even available political opportunities we have, to get for the needed jobs for US workers. Mark me down as being happy for Boeing.
Oldefarte| 2.26.11 @ 11:24AM
Me too! let's hear it for the AFL-CIO and their Chicago-Way facilitators!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mike| 2.25.11 @ 6:21PM
Lallabys, Legends and Lies,
You are a former union member who despises unionized government workers and unionized workers who work in the military-industrial complex. Right wing propaganda and the politics have resentment have been very successful. Sad, really sad.
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 2.25.11 @ 7:42PM
I'm an American Taxpayer first Comrade Mike (and I don't say that in the same way you might say it to a fellow Soldier, just so you're not confused here), and being that I "now" currently work for this very same Government we're talking about here (but not a Union member type you see), I get to see the Government Union Worker up close and personal, and I've got to tell you Comrade Mike, the American Taxpayers are getting ripped off big-time, with high pay, low production, great retirement benefits, or also know as, the same old-same old. These are not American Heroes, more like blood sucking leeches, who feed off their neighbors blood and sweat, but "you" know what I mean? You know what Comrade Mike, I think you sound like one of these Government Union worker types to me, you can admit it here if you like, there are lots of Mikes out there Mike, so nobody will know it's you, Government Union Mike. Oh yeah Comrade Mike, you see the little red words below that says "reply to this", if you click on "those words", you can directly reply to me (not really to me personally, but to this post specifically), instead of dropping your reply all the way down to the bottom, where I might miss it, like I almost did this time. Oh yeah and Comrade Mike,one more little thing, it's Lullabys, not Lallabys you dumbass stupid overpaid/underworked Union Commie bastard!! Show some respect won't you?
Mike | 2.26.11 @ 1:15AM
Lullabys etc.
I sincerely hope you are now a state government worker in some other state than the one in which I live. If you are a federal government worker, I am distressed that my tax dollars are being used to pay your salary.
That being said, regardless of which level of government employees you, I hope your benefits extend to mental health services. I think you will be needing them.
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 2.26.11 @ 7:08AM
Comrade Mike: Thanks for the diagnosis of my mental health just by reading my posts, but why would "I" need mental health services Comrade? I'm not paranoid or anything, Government Union workers really are trying to steal my Tax dollars, that's not paranoid, that's the truth. So you won't say if are a Government Union worker still, maybe you're not as "proud" of working for Uncle Sam as I am, but I'm still pretty sure you do work for the Government, which is why you're taking this topic so personally. Oh yeah Comrade Mike, just to make it clear, I happen to be one of the "good" guy Government Workers that the American People "do" support, so don't be too distressed about "wasting" you tax dollars on my salary (I'm not really making that much anyway, and I sure do have to work very hard for what I do make, I know we all say that, but it just happens to be true in my case). You see, I'm one of the 1% of the population who's defending you from all the bad guys around the World, so even you "might" support what I do for a living Comrade. But then again, with the sad state of affairs that the Left has become since the Vietnam War, you "might" look at me as being one of the bad guys, instead of one of the good guys. I really don't understand the Left in America today, but I'll defend their right to be the complete dumb-asses that they are!! I live in a different World than most do, when I look around here at FT Bragg, I only see the best Red-Blooded Patriotic Americans who've I've ever served with, who are willing to put their lives on the line for their fellow Americans, year after year, and tour after tour (03-04, 06-07, 08-09), even if they are Government Union workers, or Commie American Leftists. Now who do you work for again, Comrade Mike? Airborne!!
Veritas| 2.25.11 @ 10:09PM
"Rightwing propaganda" had nothing to do with the disgusting display of thuggish union behavior we saw in Wisconsin the last two weeks. Americans don't like bullies like you.
You clowns are your own worst enemies.
Oldefarte| 2.26.11 @ 11:30AM
No, LEFT-WING propaganda and politics were obviously successful by you DEMOCRATS, since Boeing WON the contract by means of their CHICAGO-WAY subversive procedures!!!!!!!!!