An Airbus Tanker?

On Sun, 2 Mar 2008 09:02:47 -0800 (PST), eatfastnoodle
wrote:

On Mar 2, 9:28*am, Ed Rasimus wrote:

Lets see, we've got engines made in the US, assembly of the airframe
in Alabama, and avionics/support systems built by Northrop. Estimates
of 25,000 US jobs created by the program....how is that bad?

And, we add a new aircraft manufacturing facility to the US industrial
base thereby diversifying our production capability. Throw in an
economic binding to a necessary European consortium of allies for a
bonus.

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"www.thunderchief.orgwww.thundertales.blogsp ot.com

One problem might be Boeing being knocked out of the market for
military aircraft. Boeing lost to Lockheed Martin on the JSF contract.
Now Boeing lost to EADS on the tanker deal. Basically Boeing is shut
out of the two biggest air force contract over the next 20-30 years.
Will the blow be severe enough to convince Boeing that it's not worth
it any more to stay in the market? Too much consolidation happened
during the 90s, now we are stuck with less and less competition in the
military contract market, can you imagine how horrible it would be if
the air force had to rely on pretty much everything on Lockheed Martin?

A good question, but based on narrow assumptions. First, Boeing is
well established and doing quite nicely with transport contracts for
current and future airliners. So, not in jeopardy of near term demise.
Then you don't acknowledge that Northrop/Grumman is a significant
player in the defense industry. They have not only survived, but
prospered as a development company and a very diversified defense
contractor. Rather than wither away after loss of YF-17, failure of
F-20 and loss in A-9 and YF-23, they grew into a R&D house for
advanced UAV technology, incorporated a huge warship building company,
succeeded in avionics with merger with Litton, and then joined forces
with Grumman--a company that had been building canoes and truck bodies
for survival. Add some satellite and missile contracts to the mix and
you've got a huge alternative to LockMart.

Additionally consider the incredible amount of symbiotic linkage among
aerospace contractors. While I was working for Northrop in Hawthorne
CA on ATF, the production facility there was churning out the last of
the F-5s, but also building fuselage sections for Boeing 747s, and
tail assemblies for MacAir F-18s. In the ATF program, Northrop was
teamed up with MacAir on the design and Boeing was added to the mix
when they joined McD.

Incestuous a bit, but it makes for stability in the industry.

We'll never go back to the heyday of multiple system developments we
saw in the '50s and into the '60s, but with current research costs and
risk that isn't possible.

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com