March 4, 2010 in Region

Boeing says it will bid on Air Force tanker

Associated Press
 
Tags:Air ForceBoeingNorthrop Grummantanker

Gregoire, 6 other govs applaud Boeing tanker plan

Gov. Chris Gregoire led a group of seven governors Thursday patting The Boeing Co. on the back for joining the competition over the new Air Force tanker.

Not that there’s any surprise that Boeing would get into the competition. After all, it has been trying to get the Air Force to buy or lease new tankers from it since 2001, and basically drove a stake through the heart of the Air Force’s plan to give the bid to Northrop Grumman/EADS back in 2008 over changes in the bidding rules. Not cmpeting this time would have lots of people wondering what the heck was all the fuss about two years ago.

Boeing said it will propose a tanker version of its 767 design, which is the same airframe it has been talking about using since 2001.

Northrop Grumman/EADS (what some Northwest politicians like to call the Airbus group) has not yet announced it will enter the competition with the new specs that were released earlier this week.

— Jim Camden, Spin Control

WASHINGTON — Defense contractor Boeing said Thursday that it will bid for the Air Force’s troubled $35 billion refueling plane contract, leaving rival Northrop Grumman to decide if it will make its own attempt to build the long-delayed jets.

Boeing said it plans to offer a military version of its 767 passenger jet for a fleet of 179 new planes. The contract is expected to be the first of several to replace many of the Air Force’s current planes that date back to the 1950s.

It remains to be seen if Boeing’s bitter contest with Northrop will be renewed after two failed Pentagon attempts to pick a winner earlier in the decade.

Northrop has warned that it may not bid on the project, saying the Air Force’s guidelines appear to favor Boeing’s smaller plane. The Northrop variant would likely be based on the larger Airbus A-330 airframe under a partnership Northrop has with Airbus parent EADS.

Randy Belote, a spokesman for Northrop, said the company is still analyzing the Air Force’s request for proposals and will announce its decision when that process is finished.

The Air Force badly needs to replace some of its refueling planes, which gas up fighter jets and other military planes mid-flight, allowing them to fly for longer distances without landing. But past failed attempts to build the plane became symbolic of problems with the way that the Pentagon hands out billions of dollars worth of arms contracts.

The two companies, among the nation’s largest defense contractors, closely contested the contract, backed up by their allies in Congress. A top defense official went to jail for favoring Boeing. A contract award in 2008 to Northrop was later overturned after the Government Accountability Officer deemed it was unfairly given to that company.

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Seven comments on this story so far. Add yours!

  • empyrius on March 04 at 12:49 p.m.

    All Boeing and Northrop owners and employees need to be tried, and put to death, for war crimes against humanity entire, just like the evil U.S. government they sell their weapons to!

    You evil fascists are going down!

  • force_vector on March 04 at 1:59 p.m.

    empyrius -

    Forget your meds today?

  • mdriftmeyer on March 04 at 3:14 p.m.

    Unless Boeing’s bid includes assembly in Spokane how does this matter to Spokane County and Eastern WA, not to mention Northern Idaho?

  • force_vector on March 04 at 5:57 p.m.

    Mdrifmeyer-

    I would be the last person to defend the Spokesman, but a boeing win on this does matter to Spoakne County / E. Washington. This area, while getting percentage wise less of the State tax dollars per year than W. Washington, could not survive without State handouts. The State will have more handouts to give this depressed area if boeing wins and assembly occurs in Everett.

  • empyrius on March 04 at 7:02 p.m.

    I don’t have the money, and obviously not the health insurance, to get a medical marijuana prescription force_vector; so I remain med-less.

    But what does my inability to see a doctor without going to the emergency room have to do with you evil war criminals? Well . . .,

    a lot actually.

  • Poohbear on March 04 at 10:24 p.m.

    I am all for Boeing getting the tanker contract. Our military, whenever possible, should be equipped by people and organizations within your own border and regardless about what Grumman may say their tanker is still Airbus equipment.

    My grump lies with why Boeing is proposing the B767-200 as the airframe for the new tanker. That model is thirty years old and has already been phased out by most airliners in the world in favor of more economical airframes. At one point Boeing was proposing a tanker based on the B777 airframe with which the latest model of this airframe family has been designed within the past five years and flies farther and carries far more payload (fuel). Why is Boeing proposing a 30 year old dinosaur over the most current technology available?

  • cowboy on March 04 at 11:31 p.m.

    empyrius medical marijuana certification $200.00 they take payments, grow your 15 plants sell half yield to one other card holder turns a profit of 21,600 a year. come on get with the program, man.

    I would like to see any US company get the contract as long as the work is done by american workers.

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