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US Airforce new tanker

US Airforce new tanker

US Airforce new tanker

(OP)
The U.S. Air Force announced Thursday that it has selected Boeing's NewGen Tanker to be its new KC-46A air refueling jet.

It will be based on the B767.
it was in concurrence with the A330 of Airbus.

The contract is about 35 billions dollar.

What do you guys think of it?
Do you think Boeing should have win?
I heard that the Airbus aircraft was better.

will it create a lot of job?
A lot of new projects are coming for Boeing.
 

Ben
Nacelle Stress Engineer (repair on Civil Aircraft)

RE: US Airforce new tanker

I say it's about damn time that we got _something_ to replace the decrepit tanker fleet.

Maybe in another ten years we'll get something to replace the Space Shuttles...

 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: US Airforce new tanker

(OP)
Oops sorry for making a double.
thanks IRstuff, I'll try to find the previous thread.

lol mike!

Ben
Nacelle Stress Engineer (repair on Civil Aircraft)

RE: US Airforce new tanker

BenBarca7

USAF outbriefing to both competitors will give details that will bolster or kill the case for the Boeing Tanker.

The contract award outbriefing in 2008 [when the EADS aircraft won the contract last time] was filled with inconsistencies ...  which indicated that EADS acft failed to meet contract and/or spec minimums... but the USAF gave them a "pass".

Regards, Wil Taylor

Trust - But Verify!

We believe to be true what we prefer to be true.

For those who believe, no proof is required; for those who cannot believe, no proof is possible.

RE: US Airforce new tanker

aren't the Australians flying the airbus tanker now, or is that something different?  

RE: US Airforce new tanker

The Airbus tanker is in, or nearly in service with RAAF & RAF amongst others.

The Boeing offering is more of a 'paper aeroplane' last I heard.  The Japanese 767 tanker was based on a different model and had all kinds of trouble.

While there were irregularities, from what little I know about it I'm inclined to think the Airbus was potentially the better solution.

A330, is newer than 767.  767 is virtually reaching the end of it's life.  With the stratotanker, it was a brand spanking new design, more akin to if Boings solution had been 787 based (although, it wasn't actually as closely related to the 707 as  it initially looked).

Either way there's a good chance the Military tanker will be in service long after most of it's civilian equivalents have been replaced, with all that implies for maintenance.  767 will probably hit that hurdle before the A330 though.

My understanding was that the KC10 had significant advantages over the KC135 because of it's larger size and payload and the fact it's a wide body.  767 isn't a true wide body as I understand it while A330 is a true wide body (dual standard containers in the belly).  Of course, there are a few runways the larger aircraft can't use.

I'm sure a lot of it was based on the US V European (or as it's enemies like to call it 'French') company.  Especially as EADS no longer had Lockheed leading the bid.

Posting guidelines FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm? (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

RE: US Airforce new tanker

i'd agree (with the traditional US vs the rest), except for the b@lls the USAF showed awarding the contract initially to EADS.

mind you we're hearing now the EADS initially out-priced Boeing (or did Boeing out-gouge EADS ?).

so maybe all this saved the US taxpayer some money ... ya'think ?

RE: US Airforce new tanker

(OP)
Is this the LAST decision or can Airbus appeal again?

Ben
Nacelle Stress Engineer (repair on Civil Aircraft)

RE: US Airforce new tanker

Hey, it's USA politics.  There ain't no LAST decision.
 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: US Airforce new tanker

It will be interesting to see how much redesign work Boeing will put into the B767 airframe to support this. On the one hand, the existing 767 is at the end of its life. Boeing admitted that, had this contract been lost, the line would probably be discontinued. But Boeing doesn't have the engineering skills left to do much in the way of a new design. Witness the 787 fiasco. Most of that was due to Boeing pushing engineering tasks out the door, often to foreign firms at the expense of its in-house staff.

RE: US Airforce new tanker

The B767 is a wide body with twin aisles. Any new application of the type will have accummulated the benefits of continuous improvement. What is good for Boeing is good for the country. The US Congress should consider that the Airbus technology was largely immitative of US models. That includes engines, also. My GE patents were sold to Airbus/SNECMA at the outset of the Airbus program. A study of modern engine cross sections shows a family resemblance reaching back to early American Airbus engines.

RE: US Airforce new tanker

"Airbus technology was largely immitative of US models" ... maybe for engines (how many manufacturers of large engines anyways ?), but not for structures ... they've always had very different approaches, often attributed to the higher labour skill in europe.

RE: US Airforce new tanker

(OP)
Airbus would also have been good for the country I think as they would have created a lot of job here (building a FAL, they have an engineering center here and would have a lot of american partners).

Ben
Nacelle Stress Engineer (repair on Civil Aircraft)

RE: US Airforce new tanker

surely the jobs argument is nationally pretty neutral ... the work would be done on shore, the only difference is where on shore (ie which state).

question ... is it ironic (moronic ?) to replace an obsolete airpalne with an obsolescent one ?  ok, the plane's a flying gas tank, and it'll have updated systems and be a new build airframe ... some (most?) of those KC135s are older than most of the people in the office ('cept me) and obviously need a lot of upkeep (like me !)

RE: US Airforce new tanker

"A study of modern engine cross sections shows a family resemblance reaching back to early American Airbus engines." - plasgears, what exactly do you mean by resemblance, and what is it that you expect to see so much different than before, especially on a turbofan engine cross-section?

Thanks in advance for the details.

Cheers,

rotorblade

RE: US Airforce new tanker

rotorblade,
Compressor diffuser, fuel tubes, turbine stator air cooling, deletion of mid support on core engine, etc, are all evident on modern engines. These are not generic details.

RE: US Airforce new tanker

ok, and I'm still wondering how you're going to link the resemblences on engine technologies as evidence to a european airframe manufacturer being immitative of US models. since when do the airframers build aero engines?

cheers,

rotorblade

RE: US Airforce new tanker

definitely!

RE: US Airforce new tanker

how about Curtis ?

RE: US Airforce new tanker

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

RE: US Airforce new tanker

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.  

RE: US Airforce new tanker

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.

Posting guidelines FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm? (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

RE: US Airforce new tanker

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

RE: US Airforce new tanker

(OP)
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)

RE: US Airforce new tanker

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...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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

Trust - But Verify!

We believe to be true what we prefer to be true.

For those who believe, no proof is required; for those who cannot believe, no proof is possible.

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