US Airforce new tanker 1

[KENAT]

The Wright Brothers?

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[rotorblade]

definitely!

 

[rb1957]

how about Curtis ?

 

[rotorblade]

The bottomline is that I think it's not fair to blame Airbus for immitating Boeing, or vice versa. They're different aircrafts, and although Airbus was founded in the 70s, the parent countries have been manufacturing aircrafts for a century.

It is not fair to highlight immitations based on engines, either. The manufacturers of Boeing and Airbus engines are usually the same ones.

It would be fair enough, however, to propose that european projects do not advance as fast as US projects - more countries and more political issues, more holidays sometimes slow things down... But in this case this does not apply because the KC-45 has been in flight tests for more than a year and it has already received certification.

Regards,

rotorblade

 

[rb1957]

yeah, but you've got to love the ongoing bun fight between them.

Airbus launch the 320NEO.

if Boeing launch a 737NEO they'll be later and look like they're copying, so they go with "an all new airplane".

Airbus reply "there's not a business case" ...

i think it's very interesting to see that they have taken different strategies on a number of key decisions.

380 vs 787 ... a few super large vs lots of smaller planes, the prestige of having the largest plane (Boeing's former high ground).

but then Airbus "copy" with the 350

Airbus launch the 320NEO, "just" re-engineeing the 320, Boeing counter with a new design ...

different strategies ... both will swear they're right, and by default the other's wrong, but i expect in the long run there's market enough for both.

 

[KENAT]

Of course the original A320 is a lot newer than the original 737, so there's probably more justification for a modest update. Boeing did their modest updates to 737 twice already didn't they?

Anyway, the idea of an American taking the moral high ground on Jet Engine design against Europeans is pretty amusing, given the lead Germany & Britain had in the late 30's early 40's and the amount of license production of British Engines the Americans did in the 40's & 50's and even later.

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[thruthefence]

I wonder how long it will take the Chinese to build their first "big" airliner?

 

[Benbarca7]

The tanker will be equiped by P&W engines. Is it the PW 4000 serie engine or the JT9D, or both?


Ben
Nacelle Stress Engineer (repair on Civil Aircraft)

 

[rotorblade]

PW4062 according to Wikipedia (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-46).

 

[WKTaylor]

Folks...

An interesting "fud-4-thot" article on the greater context of this contract competition.

After this article, I've added a "parting-shot" to show how this "good-enough" concept likely prevailed in another contract competition, that Boeing thought might be a slam-dunk... but lost decisively.

Hopefully Augustine's Laws aren't destiny...

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Now 'good enough' wins the defense contract..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/13/AR2011031304386.html

By Marjorie Censer
Sunday, March 13, 2011; 11:44 PM
The Air Force's decision late last month to award the long-contested, $35 billion aerial refueling tanker program to Boeing ended a competition that had been fraught with controversy. But analysts say the decision may have sent another message to the contracting community: The government isn't necessarily seeking the most capable or "best value" equipment, but rather good-enough equipment with a lower price tag.

Losing bidder European Aeronautic Defense and Space had "a more capable system," said Richard Aboulafia, a defense analyst with the Teal Group. "I don't think even Boeing would dispute that."
Yet, EADS still lost to the lower-priced Boeing proposal. The company's tanker is smaller, meaning it not only costs less but that it uses less fuel, which means it received credit for costing less to operate.

The movement within the government to focus on price and "good-enough" capability over ideal, envelope-pushing systems has been gaining momentum since Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in 2009 called on the military to forget the "exquisite" platform and instead seek the "80-percent solution," equipment that's affordable and can be fielded quickly and in large quantities.
"They're not going to pay for bells and whistles," Aboulafia said. "That's the clear message here, and everyone should be heeding that message."

The idea of paying less to get less isn't only gaining traction in the halls of the Pentagon. In the information technology world, Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, has been pressing contractors to provide smaller, functional pieces of an information technology system sooner, rather than take on a big contract and fail years later to provide a perfect, complete system.

The focus on cost isn't surprising, considering the tightened budgetary environment. Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said price will loom increasingly large as the defense budget shrinks.
What Gates is saying is that "we've emphasized for so long high performance because we really haven't had to worry about cost," Krepinevich said. "Well, that's changed. Cost really matters now."

The Pentagon has been reserved in talking about how EADS and Boeing stacked up when it came to performance versus cost. At a press conference to discuss the award, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, asked whether EADS's tanker provided a better bang for the buck, said only that the Defense Department "went through a process that evaluated war-fighting requirements, evaluated price, evaluated life-cycle costs.

"And the process yielded the result it did, with Boeing winning."
But some industry advocates and officials are pushing back against a cost-focused strategy as short-sighted and risky. They worry that the focus on cost will mean companies have little incentive to invest in new technology and that the government will in fact get less for its dollars.

Malcolm O'Neill, the Army's top acquisition official, acknowledged at a luncheon last week that he recognizes a troublesome trend developing in which innovation is not prioritized over price -- or what he called the "this is good enough" mentality.

"I fight that every day," he said. "It's a fear of getting the press [coverage] that this system cost more than it's supposed to cost [or] it took longer to get to the field."

O'Neill said he just rejected an Army solicitation because it failed to offer contractors any reason to push the technological envelope. The document said the contractor would assume all risk if the system it designed was more advanced than the level designated by the Army.

Pushing to the next technological level remains important to the Army, said O'Neill, who warned that aiming for an 80-percent solution has its own risks.

Instead, "you get 50 percent," he said. "That's the problem."
Officials at EADS, who sounded a warning note about choosing the less expensive tanker over what it considered the better value, remain on the fence about whether the Air Force procurement signals a sea change within the industry.

The tanker program has been one of the Pentagon's most contentious. In 2003, the Air Force planned to lease tankers from Boeing, but the deal was canceled after a procurement scandal that sent a Boeing executive and a Pentagon official to jail.
The Air Force relaunched the program and in 2008 awarded the contract to Northrop Grumman, partnered with EADS. That decision was overturned after the Government Accountability Office upheld a protest filed by Boeing. Northrop Grumman announced it would not participate in another competition, and EADS competed on its own this time.

Sean O'Keefe, chief executive of the North American unit of EADS, said the tanker solicitation was designed to get the best value -- but only within a very limited price range. As a result, he said, more innovative technology was not given credit.
But O'Keefe stressed that the Air Force was running a very specific procurement. The tanker program has taken years to get off the ground, and last month's announcement was the third effort to award the contract.

"I don't look at this competition and say, 'Gee whiz, it was the wrong way of doing it,' " O'Keefe said. "It was a way of doing it, but it has consequences."

Barry Watts, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said he wouldn't assume other contracts will be evaluated the same way, citing the tanker program's "unique and ugly history."

Boeing declined to comment.

Defense contractors say they're not making a strategic U-turn yet. EADS, for one, still plans to invest as usual in researching and developing new technology, said O'Keefe.

But companies are looking to focus on programs where they already have proven technology and can make targeted improvements and innovations.

Lawrence B. Prior III, who oversees BAE Systems' services business, said the company isn't giving up on cutting-edge technology but that contractors are "making choices earlier, and not everybody's going to play in every competition."

The government sometimes has trouble making a case for selecting a pricier system, said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, an industry association.

"My sense over time is that agencies have a hard time paying even a little more for a little more," he said. "I think that's a shame that we're devolving into a strictly low-price mentality."
Chvotkin said he wouldn't recommend that companies, facing a competitive market, depart from investing in new ideas.

"I don't think companies should jettison their [research and development] work; companies still have got to differentiate themselves in the marketplace," he said.
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NOTE.
For this very reason ["good enough"], Northrop-Grumman may have won it's bid to re-engine The E-8 Joint STARS over the Boeing bid.

NG proposed the latest generation JT8D 219 engine [cousin to the currently installed TF-33 engine], as a virtual drop-in replacement with relatively minor modifications to the existing pylons/nacelles/cowling. PW claims this engine has higher thrust and ~20% lower fuel consumption and greatly improved reliability/maintainability. The mod was developed to allow aging 707 airframes to continue operating in today’s fuel-noise-pollution conscious environment with minimal structural and systems changes. NOTE: I suspect that thrust will-be flat rated, so thrust benefits occur mainly at higher altitudes. However, fuel economy, reduced noise, reliability, etc benefits will occur thru the entire flight regime.

Boeing’s Re-Engine proposal was based on the CFM-56... same as the current generation KC-135R. This mod was originally intended for 707s... but worked well for -135s (without thrust reversers). Unfortunately, this mod was considerably more extensive, requiring serious airframe and system changes, new pylons/nacelles/cowling, etc. When all was said and done… this mod would be significantly more expensive while providing marginally better performance and fuel economy than the N-G RE Mod.

In my humble opinion, sanity and good judgement RE "Value" prevailed in this case [E-8C]!!!


Regards, Wil Taylor

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