Boeing to get another shot at $35B Air Force tanker contract

I guess cheaters do prosper.

Good luck Boeing!

This is the USA. Not France. Enough said.

Boeing is a spoilt little baby who didn't get its way just this one time so it turned to the other parent.

This is wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start.

D - agreed. Keep U.S. dollars in the U.S.

Who did they blow this time? Are they still offering the outdated product they presented before? I hate to see jobs go outide the US, but the Boeing management
team was caught cheating and the company deserves to be penalized. Besides that, I would venture a guess that a majority of the components for the Boeing tankers are outsourced to other countries. I also appreciate how all of the tax breaks given to Boeing to relocate its headquarters to Chicago have benefited the city and provided vast employment opportunities.

While I favor the Boeing proposal (and am disturbed that two sets of requirements were issued by the USAF), the role of EADS as a subcontractor for Northrop Grumman is overblown. Boeing has lots of foreign content but no subcontractor big enough to look like an equal partner. While Boeing would make airframes in the US while EADS makes them in Europe, there is the rest of the aircraft to consider. Northrop would fill the A330 with Grumman electronics including stuff made up in Rolling Meadows, Arlington Heights and Schaumburg.

It seemed really strange to see a military contract of this magnitude to go to an overseas vendor. Northrup would only have been a figurehead in the production of the tankers. Boeing is a one-stop shopping center for the whole deal.

My guess is this was some political hand-slapping for Boeing because they screwed something else up. And they all figured at some point Boeing would get another shot at it.

I've worked with folks at both EADS and Boeing, and they are all motivated professionals, trying to keep their businesses in business. But from this American's point of view, handing any US defense project to a foreign vendor (French or German or Canadian or whoever doesn't matter) is iffy at best. We've given enough of our secrets away already.

It should be law that our govt. spends 90% of it's budget in the U.S. so that the tax dollars they take from us make their way back through our economy.

all right - keep most of the $$ in the USA

From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/business/10...
:

The decision comes in the wake of a report by the Government Accountability Office that found flaws in the process that initially awarded the contract to a partnership of Northrop Grumman and the European parent of Airbus over a competing bid by Boeing, which filed a protest.

The action reignites the controversy surrounding the largest trans-Atlantic military contract. The Pentagon’s decision will also enter the realm of presidential politics because John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, had long been a critic of Boeing’s initial bid and as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee held a series of hearings that opened the door to the bid made by Northrop and European Aeronautic Defense and Space.

As a result, critics have contended that he has favored a European supplier to an American company for a critical American military contract — an impression not helped by the fact that several of his top campaign advisers had worked as lobbyists for Airbus.

Sharon wrote:

Boeing is a spoilt little baby who didn't get its way just this one time so it turned to the other parent.
This is wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start.

Educate us (or me anyway). What's up with Europeans securing an US defense contract of this size? National proprietary information and domestic spending aside.

Airbus was going to build TWO factories in the United States to when awarded this contract. On top of that the entire tanker would be filled with Northrop Grumman parts & electronics. The jobs are not going outside of America. The money is still being spent on America. Boeing didn't win the contract, and lobbied whoever they needed to in Congress to overturn the decision. I'd also like to point out that only Boeing Corporate is located in Chicago. All their plants are still on the West Coast. So we're not getting any additional jobs in the Chicago-land area because of the tanker. Whereas Northrop Grumman has a plant in Rolling Meadows that will hire more people within the Chicagoland area.

Um, Air Force people? Can you keep the US dollars IN THE US PLEASE?

Don't you remember the French hate us?

Lisa is correct, the Northrop plane would be filled with US avionics inside the Airbus airframe. No "secrets" would be given away as Dave in Oregon fears.

Resident A - Boeing is using lots of foreign contractors for the 787 and would also do so with the KC-767 or -777. As for France, they hate us so much that they have been a steady presence in Operation Enduring Freedom with hundreds of special forces alongside the 101 Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions, among others. France also rotates its main aircraft carrier as part of the CAP over Afghanistan. Please stop getting your news from Homer Simpson.

D'oh!

I didn't know Homer watched Fox News. Do they have Duff Beer commercials? mmmmm beeer

Pilot wrote:

D - agreed. Keep U.S. dollars in the U.S.

Very ignorant comment. I'm as red white and blue as the next guy. But if you do a little research you will find that the Northrup/Eads contract would produce more "new" jobs in the US. You don't think Boeing uses subcontractors from outside the US? This is all political. The Air Force should have went with the bid that produce the most value for the American Taxpayers.

Good. It seems unlikely that given the same proposal from the USAF, Boeing would propose the 767 platform and EADS the A330; they are not even close to the same size. Something is weird there.

As far as tax dollars going over seas, I'm an American, and pay US taxes. We're a NATO signatory, which means our politicians ok'd the following: "These common economic interests shared by the members of NATO call for...the greatest possible freedom in trade and payments and in the movement of manpower and long-term capital" (www.nato.int)

Oh, and France doesn't hate the US.

Gary Dee wrote:

Lisa is correct, the Northrop plane would be filled with US avionics inside the Airbus airframe. No "secrets" would be given away as Dave in Oregon fears.
Resident A - Boeing is using lots of foreign contractors for the 787 and would also do so with the KC-767 or -777. As for France, they hate us so much that they have been a steady presence in Operation Enduring Freedom with hundreds of special forces alongside the 101 Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions, among others. France also rotates its main aircraft carrier as part of the CAP over Afghanistan. Please stop getting your news from Homer Simpson.

"France rotates their main aircraft carrier" to support Operation Endring Freedom? The ONLY French aircraft carrier -Charles de Gaulle- ha been in dry dock since september 2007. The ship has spent more time being fixed and repaired since entering serrvice than operating! In 1999 during construction the Charles was supported to get a squadron of Boeing made FA-18 Super Hornets. French politicians and aerospace unions -Dassault Aviation- opposed the buying of US warplanes for the aircraft carrier. France's government had to fund the building of a very costly navy version of the Dassault built Rafale fighter to equip the Charles de Gaulle. So stop the myth of the Fench being good guys and allies. When it's about business and monmey they don't give a damn about America. THEY BUY FRENCH even if the product is not up the task compared to its US rival. The Rafale Marine is a piece of junk compared to the combat proven FA-18 Hornet. But France rejected the American plane. So keep my tax money in America. Give jobs to Americans workers.

So can we expect a fair fight this time? Probably not.
Meanwhile the Russians get richer with oil and the Chinese buy our currency and the Arabs buy our markets.

Soon with all this infighting we won't have money to buy gas to put in the tankers. At least we still have American Idol and Paris Hilton.