Outsourced Air Tankers
- Thread starter Facetious
- Start date
It's just a sign of the globalization of the economy of the world and this is not a particulary bad deal eithier for the US and its workers.It's not like when jobs are lost to countries who pay dramatically lower wages with no health and enviormental restraints.In fact these planes will still be assembled here in the US in Alabama.So while the senator from Kansas where boeing would have built the planes is unhappy the senator form Alabama thinks its a good idea as shown here by his quote from the link.
"Airbus will assemble the tankers in Mobile, Alabama, and has vowed to transfer assembly of its commercial 330 aircraft there, creating jobs.
Republican Alabama Senator Richard Shelby welcomed the decision. "Not only is this the right decision for our military, but it is great news for Alabama," he said.
The contract was expected to bring up to 1,800 jobs to the Mobile area and 5,000 to the state, he added."
So one senator has brought home some bacon and one has lost out,that's the way it goes.
I don't worry nearly as much about competetion from place's like Europe as I do place's like China and South America.At least with Europe were on a fairly equal playing field.
"Airbus will assemble the tankers in Mobile, Alabama, and has vowed to transfer assembly of its commercial 330 aircraft there, creating jobs.
Republican Alabama Senator Richard Shelby welcomed the decision. "Not only is this the right decision for our military, but it is great news for Alabama," he said.
The contract was expected to bring up to 1,800 jobs to the Mobile area and 5,000 to the state, he added."
So one senator has brought home some bacon and one has lost out,that's the way it goes.
I don't worry nearly as much about competetion from place's like Europe as I do place's like China and South America.At least with Europe were on a fairly equal playing field.
I don't believe the entire aircraft will be assembled in the U.S. no matter what Northrup and Airbus "claim." They may build a materials factory in Alabama, they may do some of the prep work...but, until proven otherwise, these tankers are going to be built in Europe mainly because the Miltary can't wait around for an actual tanker factory to be built and operational--from scratch. These planes will take long enough as it is to be delivered...
If our economy was "roaring" along--I would be pissed at this announcement--but I could understand it.
Our economy is in the shitter now and the "meager" performance advantage of the Northrup tanker do not warrant its selection, in my opinion.
I do see another side of this. The Military is punishing Boeing executives for various MAJOR scandals from 2004--2006. Boeing is a dirty, untrustworthy "win at all costs, break laws if you have to" kind of company...and the Air ***** is sending Boeing Management a loud message. Clean up your house or get our of our way, basically.
It will be interesting to hear how the Republicans defend this decision in this volatile election year...How will this decision square with Huckabee, for example, a populist Republican, in the South? Will he "naively" assume the planes will be built in Alabama? Or will he cry foul? What about McCain..who torpedoe'd the leasing scheme Boeing tried to implement a couple of years ago? Did he really want to see this contract leave the country??
Interesting stuff....
I am all for punishing companies when they fuck up. I don't believe this contract will cost jobs at Boeing. They have enough commericial work to pick up the slack at this time. But there sure won't be much job growth in the state of WA for the next couple of years...
If our economy was "roaring" along--I would be pissed at this announcement--but I could understand it.
Our economy is in the shitter now and the "meager" performance advantage of the Northrup tanker do not warrant its selection, in my opinion.
I do see another side of this. The Military is punishing Boeing executives for various MAJOR scandals from 2004--2006. Boeing is a dirty, untrustworthy "win at all costs, break laws if you have to" kind of company...and the Air ***** is sending Boeing Management a loud message. Clean up your house or get our of our way, basically.
It will be interesting to hear how the Republicans defend this decision in this volatile election year...How will this decision square with Huckabee, for example, a populist Republican, in the South? Will he "naively" assume the planes will be built in Alabama? Or will he cry foul? What about McCain..who torpedoe'd the leasing scheme Boeing tried to implement a couple of years ago? Did he really want to see this contract leave the country??
Interesting stuff....
I am all for punishing companies when they fuck up. I don't believe this contract will cost jobs at Boeing. They have enough commericial work to pick up the slack at this time. But there sure won't be much job growth in the state of WA for the next couple of years...
Facetious
Moderated
Granted, there are shenanigans going on in any sizable entity, however, I just seem to be observant of an overwhelming ***** to create an atmosphere where America must now rely on the production of other nations in order to meet it's needs. The Outsourcing scheme has metastasized into areas previously unforeseen. The good old blue collar, middle class welder, ironworker - tradesman is dwindling in this nation ! You know the drill
When and /or if America were to have a national emergency, we'll have to rely on other nations' assistance in order to remedy said emergencies. :nono:
We ofter hear that "the world hates America"
That said, why in the hell would the American citizen acquiesce to the idea that products manufactured abroad will be made / grown with the greatest of care and quality ?
√ Look no further than the PRC who delivers poison in their export wheat glutens (melamine), leaded toys, glycolized (antifreeze) laden toothpaste etc ad nauseam.
√ Imported fruits and vegetable are commonly farmed with chemicals and methods which are forbidden in America.
Outsourcing, IMO will create somewhat of a oligarchy in this country - A once prominent middle class will become a majority of subservient serfs as their employ disappears to nations overseas. The wealthy become fewer, more affluent and more corrupt.
I don't champion the body American corporation per se, however, they must remain intact and competitive if we intend to save this Titanic of a nation.
These tankers are being built by a foreign entity outside of the USA. How will the USA be able to control anything on these planes that are classified?
Peace.
Peace.
Its just an air tanker I don't think there is any tech at all being used in such things that is not widely known to the europeans as well as the rest of any aircraft makers in the world.The europeans also have very good military planes,they are not really behind us in tech and such.
Facetious
Moderated
^ They all must have an incredible range lol !
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Ask a seasoned flight attendant, they'll tell you which is the better of the two airframes. The A330 has had it's share of bugs & creaks.
I understand that the 330 requires a structure tune up / upgrade every 5 years at a cost of millions $$$, as you could imagine.
Not so for the Bo.
I'm not saying that the Boeing is superior in all cases, I'm hardly qualified. It's just in my readings I have found the 767 to have a better overall flight record.
Finally, I did hear a report that job security at Boeing would be affected if the contract was awarded to North. Grumm.
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Ask a seasoned flight attendant, they'll tell you which is the better of the two airframes. The A330 has had it's share of bugs & creaks.
I understand that the 330 requires a structure tune up / upgrade every 5 years at a cost of millions $$$, as you could imagine.
Not so for the Bo.
I'm not saying that the Boeing is superior in all cases, I'm hardly qualified. It's just in my readings I have found the 767 to have a better overall flight record.
Finally, I did hear a report that job security at Boeing would be affected if the contract was awarded to North. Grumm.
True, it is a Air Tanker, but there are features about it that need to remain classified.
without Air Tankers, the US Air ***** and Navy could not operate. Those things are big targets in the air. If a enemy can figure out how to take them down, it will ground US air Operations.
Peace.
Facetious
Moderated
I'm not chiding the European option, it's just that we must retain what little of the industrial infrastructure that remains for purposes of National Security.
Damn did we ever have a machine of men and industry late into our Great Depression years and on through WWII.
If "our" politicians wish to continue with the use of such terms as "protectionist" "isolationist", "nativist" or "anti free market" in defense of their sell out to special interest scheme(s), they have no senses beyond a two week time frame.
There's too many stupid people voting for these idiots !
IMO.
Damn did we ever have a machine of men and industry late into our Great Depression years and on through WWII.
If "our" politicians wish to continue with the use of such terms as "protectionist" "isolationist", "nativist" or "anti free market" in defense of their sell out to special interest scheme(s), they have no senses beyond a two week time frame.
There's too many stupid people voting for these idiots !
IMO.
Indeed ...
What bothered me with the decision was not all the alleged "outsourcing" non-sense. Even Boeing is outsourcing some (although not as much).
What bothered me were many of the reasons why Airbus won. That included citing size issues with the 767 in comparison. The USAF changed their requirements as to explicitly set Boeing up for a failure.
Understand these are supposed to be mid-sized tankers, not large ones. The USAF already has DC-10-based large tankers. So based on the requirements, Boeing pitched the 767.
People are blaming John McCain for this. Honestly, all McCain did is "whistle blow" on Boeing and point out they were circumventing the process. The re-evaluation was supposed to be fair to all parties.
This is a foul-up in USAF requirements, changing to favor a company, after the pitch was made. I don't know why they did it, but the 777 would start to compete with the existing DC-10-based tankers, and cost more too, just like the Airbus units cost more than 767s already.
All-in-all, this has been both a political and engineering fuck-up. I've about had it with the USAF's processes as of late. We're not talking about grunts in the field, but officers -- most who sit safely behind a desk.
Indeed.
What bothered me with the decision was not all the alleged "outsourcing" non-sense. Even Boeing is outsourcing some (although not as much).
What bothered me were many of the reasons why Airbus won. That included citing size issues with the 767 in comparison. The USAF changed their requirements as to explicitly set Boeing up for a failure.
Understand these are supposed to be mid-sized tankers, not large ones. The USAF already has DC-10-based large tankers. So based on the requirements, Boeing pitched the 767.
People are blaming John McCain for this. Honestly, all McCain did is "whistle blow" on Boeing and point out they were circumventing the process. The re-evaluation was supposed to be fair to all parties.
This is a foul-up in USAF requirements, changing to favor a company, after the pitch was made. I don't know why they did it, but the 777 would start to compete with the existing DC-10-based tankers, and cost more too, just like the Airbus units cost more than 767s already.
All-in-all, this has been both a political and engineering fuck-up. I've about had it with the USAF's processes as of late. We're not talking about grunts in the field, but officers -- most who sit safely behind a desk.
Ignore some people. They regularly expose their gross ignorance of basic defense-related concepts, even if only a minority of us know it (because we've done such engineering work).
But in this case, that's why Airbus partnered with Northrop-Grumman. Any systems and other integration that covers US classified Secret, TS, Compartmentalized, etc... will be handled by Northrop-Grumman.
In my personal opinion, I think the USAF did a 2-step.
First, they defined it as "oh, we only want a mid-sized tanker." But with all the delays as well as the whistle-blowing, they decided the DC-10 is getting aged too. So they changed the requirements to a "larger frame" that could possibly take over the DC-10s when they hit another 15+ years.
In that regard, the Boeing 777 would have been a much, much better choice than the 767 or just about anything Airbus has. I might be biased because I used to work for Boeing, but I would much rather be in a 757/767/777 than a A320/330/350 for safety, performance and record considerations.
This was a chronic requirements fuck-up, repeatedly. I think the USAF is still living in the cold war sometimes, at least until just a few years ago. They think they can keep buying toys. They need tankers, but planned on buying not only mid-sized now, but large ones in 10 years too.
Now they realized they should have just gone for an "one size fits all" model. The Boeing 777 was better there, just like the 767 was better at the mid-sized. Several core US allies had already bought the 767 model, just like many of the same allies bought F-15s and F-18s as well.
They are workhorse, quality, complex American-designed machines. One of the few things we still do good. God help us when we lose that.
IMO the AF is going to get handed its ass on this one. It makes no sense that a company like Boeing that had two airframes available could misread the requirement and put forth a wrong sized aircraft. Airbus only had the one airframe available so the size was what it was for them. If the AF wanted a big ass trash hauler like the KC-10 they should have said so. I read a bunch of articles today about how the numbers were screwed with to favor Airbus. For instance, the cost to fly/maintain the 767 was calculated using data from the KC-135 tanker instead of the decades of data available from operating the 767. Not suprisingly, the older tanker is more expensive than the 767 because it requires a lot of fixing. Airbus got to use their actual numbers. Something is dirty about that. maybe with the shakeups in the leadership today something will break in this tale.
Since that response from Blackbull was to me we can assume the ignore some people who show ignorance was as well I guess.Lets see the same person who thought no communists ever went to jail for being communists in the 50s or refused to acknowledge that the employees at Toyota car manufacturing plants in the US are not represented by unions is someone who thinks he is in a position to decide who should be ignored or disregarded.That glass house has lots of broken windows.
Anyone who thinks that there is any equipment on a flying gas truck that is not well known already by Airbus is really naive and just someone who thinks he knows things.He really probably is the janitor or something at Nasa LOL.
C'mon prof put up some link that says classified technology is used on a fricking air tanker.Is there a secret stealth tanker?:1orglaugh
I agree. The Air ***** can deny it all it wants to. But Boeing's past screwups had to play a part in their decision.
I also agree. This isn't a stealth tanker. It's just a commercial airline freighter that has been modified for tanker/military freighter duties. Other then some stuctural strengthening and tanker equipment, a couple of black boxes (like Friend or Foe transponders) and some military radios; I can think of no highly classified modifications that will be done to these aircraft.
Yes, it has all this...at a 63% higher cost. That would mean (in theory) that the Air ***** could only procure 112 airframes instead of the 179 at present. My guess is the Air ***** needs a certain number of airframes to adaquately do the huge and vast ranging job that these tankers are asked to do.
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According to the links below, the Airbus entry comes in at less then 10% more per plane coompared to the Boeing 767 entry and yet delivers 25% more fuel/freight capacity, almost 60% more freight pallets and haul at least 20% more passengers then the Boeing 767 entry.
It sounds to me that the Air ***** chose the best plane for the job.
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