Northrop Grumman,
Two recent articles, one in Aerospace Daily and Defense Report and the other in Air Force Magazine are the latest in a long line of stories highlighting the urgent need to replace the Air Force's aging fleet of KC-135 tankers.
The Aerospace Daily piece quotes none other than the most powerful defense appropriator in the U.S. House, Congressman John Murtha, who recently told a reporter that despite the tightening U.S. Defense budget, the tanker replacement is one of “only two U.S. Air Force production lines…likely to remain in operation.”
Congressman Murtha “said he's trying to convince the Defense Department and industry to decide 'what weapons systems we need, how we're going to look at them and let's buy them up in a quantity that we save some money.'”
The Air Force Magazine piece, headlined “Air Lift on Thin Ice,” quotes General Arthur Lichte, head of the Air Force Mobility Command who said the entire mobility fleet “is at 'the ragged edge of the minimum' for the job.
With respect to the tanker program in particular, the Air Force Magazine article notes, “A huge factor in the mobility equation will be the new KC-X tanker. In February, the Air Force selected the Northrop Grumman KC-30 to replace the oldest USAF tankers, the KC-135Es. The Eisenhower-vintage KC-135Es have become so frail, Lichte said, that it is no longer economical to fly them, and the last E models in the fleet are either already being retired or are grounded pending retirement.”
Further, it states, “Since the KC-135Es are no longer flying, AMC has decided to increase the rate at which it flies the KC-135Rs, which received a structural modification in the 1990s that made them “younger” than the E models, and gave them newer engines. Additional flight crews will be added, and E model technicians will be put to work on the Rs. However, AMC said that the Rs cannot keep up the pace indefinitely. They will have to be relieved by the new tanker, and soon.”
Lichte goes on to describe the benefits of a much more technologically advanced tanker and the improvements that will bring over the current fleet. And, while General Lichte does not express a preference between Boeing and Northrop Grumman in this article, it is fair to point out that in its original source selection, the Air Force found the Northrop Grumman tanker to be the superior offering in four out of five major categories, tying with the competition in the fifth.
John Young, the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, said in an interview in September that the Northrop Grumman proposal for the first 68 tankers would have cost $2.9 billion less than Boeing's plan. And Northrop Grumman promised earlier delivery of its tankers and offered tankers with more capability and offload rate.
“Frankly,” Young said, Boeing's tanker “was smaller and should have been cheaper….A member of the American public might conclude that Boeing sought to charge more than the Defense Department reasonably expected” to pay.
In addition, only Northrop Grumman has built, tested and flown its tanker aircraft and aerial refueling boom. Boeing has not and has recently indicated that it is exploring offering a different aircraft entirely, which could lead to further delays in delivering the new tanker to the Air Force should Boeing be selected.
The bottom line, once again, is that it is clear in the halls of Congress and in the highest ranks of the Air Force that a new more modern more capable tanker is needed now and Northrop Grumman is ready now to provide it.
