KC-46 except not

[Oldbaldguy]

Anybody been following the saga of the Air Force's new tanker that can't?  CSAF recently told the world that Boeing's KC-46 doesn't work and that the Air Force would use it in front line service only if there were no other assets left.  His comments may have been taken out of context, but still.....  Since a new tanker to replace the ancient and tired KC-135 fleet has been a service imperative for quite some time, having the senior Air Force guy say this one sucks beyond retrieval is pretty damning and, from my perspective as a taxpayer, a little scary.  If I remember correctly, the Air Force originally awarded this multi-billion dollar contract to Airbus because their A340-based tanker was already up and flying and it ticked most of the Air Force's boxes, but Boeing sued on a list of technicalities and eventually won a reversal, ending up with the contract.  Their KC-46 was to be a mishmash of well-proven, existing stuff:  the familiar 767 airframe, reliable and proven engines with millions of fleet hours logged, the same boom as the KC-10, avionics suite already certified in other operational aircraft, etc.  Should have been a shake and bake build, but Boeing, once they got the contract, sort of stopped giving a crap and has sold the Air Force (and us) a gremlin-filled tanker that is supposed to reliably pass gas but can't, is supposed to haul pallets and pax at the same time but can't because the tracks in the floor won't secure the loads, and that is supposed to be on the ramp in numbers already but isn't.  Amazingly, at least to me, nobody as yet has gone to jail for this.  In the meantime, KC-135s and KC-10s soldier on, doing what they've been doing for decades.  I read a couple of years ago that another Air Force senior leader told a group of people that the mother of the last KC-135 pilot has yet to be born.  Amazing as this sounds, it may still be true.

[rigor]

I guess sue Boeing for a crappy products 

[John1]

Anyone really surprised by this?   BA massively underbid this.    We are getting exactly what we paid for.  
 

Just Boeing being Boeing.   

[jenshb]

Boeing needs their engineers to be better than their lawyers...

[John1]

2 minutes ago, jenshb said:

Boeing needs their engineers to be better than their lawyers...

They have world-class engineers.   BA’s problem is that they used to be a company run by those engineers.   Now they are a company run by MBA’s whose only goal is to maximize “shareholder value”.    
 

Pretty sad.  

Edited March 4, 2020 by John1

[thierry laurent]

Tricky situation for a company building strategic toys: should it simply act as most profit-driven companies or rather balance that with the fact they are a major actor in the building of a state national security and get most of their money from the citizen taxes...? That equilibrium is difficult to find and if reached stays very fragile... 

[Juggernut]

Strange that the Boeing people I work with in Philadelphia do not have that mindset or problems on their production lines, nor in their offices.  

[Tony T]

Apart from topping-up target-bound aircraft carrying a large load (which take off with less than full tanks to maximise stores, and burn a bunch of fuel climbing to cruise height), there isn't much need for tankers — and K-series UCAVs like UCLAS will increasingly shoulder that burden.

I see KC-46 as just a huge financial appendage to the already ludicrously expensive short-legged F-35 programme.

 

As for the cr@p Boeing jet workers are leaving in the aircraft, that's really just sloppy work. I can't believe it's sabotage when they know lives may be put at risk — unless, of course, morale really is that low.

 

Tony 

 

[John1]

2 hours ago, Tony T said:

Apart from topping-up target-bound aircraft carrying a large load (which take off with less than full tanks to maximise stores, and burn a bunch of fuel climbing to cruise height), there isn't much need for tankers — and K-series UCAVs like UCLAS will increasingly shoulder that burden.

I see KC-46 as just a huge financial appendage to the already ludicrously expensive short-legged F-35 programme.

 

As for the cr@p Boeing jet workers are leaving in the aircraft, that's really just sloppy work. I can't believe it's sabotage when they know lives may be put at risk — unless, of course, morale really is that low.

 

Tony 

 

Do you have any idea how critical tankers are?  Apparently not because if you did, you’d be well aware that they service much more than “short-legged” F-35’s.  
 

BTW, might want to study up on range info before you peg the JSF as short-legged.   It may have issues but as far as range goes, it’s pretty respectable for a tactical jet.    Especially when you consider it doesn’t use draggy, performance-inhibiting external tanks like pretty much every other jet out there.  

[rigor]

F35 short legged Wierd we have them here in Vermont flying around 

Edited March 8, 2020 by rigor

[Tony T]

15 minutes ago, John1 said:

Do you have any idea how critical tankers are?  Apparently not because if you did, you’d be well aware that they service much more than “short-legged” F-35’s.  
 

BTW, might want to study up on range info before you peg the JSF as short-legged.   It may have issues but as far as range goes, it’s pretty respectable for a tactical jet.    Especially when you consider it doesn’t use draggy, performance-inhibiting external tanks like pretty much every other jet out there.  

 

As long as you wish to prosecute war you need tanker jets.

 

Simples

 

Tony-for-Defence, only 

[Oldbaldguy]

Apparently the US Air Force considers tankers to be important enough that they are now considering going to civilian operators such as Omega and whoever else pops up to fill mostly stateside tanker support requirements, freeing up operational birds for other missions down-range and such.  The Air Force in this last budget cycle tried to divest itself of some of its older and tireder KC-10s and KC-135s earlier than planned in anticipation of the KC-46 in order to free up money for other things and is now scrambling to find funds to "buy back" a couple of dozen of these airplanes to keep up with operational needs.  So, we remain in SNAFU mode.  I'm still trying to understand how contracting operational capacity from the civilian sector can be cost effective in the long run while we continue to pay Boeing for KC-46s that spend most of their time sitting on the ramp non-op.   Seems to me it would be smarter and cheaper to tell Boeing to fix it or DOD stops writing checks for airplanes that don't work.  Of course, the 737 Max debacle hasn't seemed to phase them much either, so maybe they think they are too big to fail.

[thierry laurent]

Too bad...

I can try to understand that:

- a worldwide power wants to control strictly its military assets production. We should not be naive: China does it, Russia does it and so on and this is often considered to be one of the foundations of state security.

- a large country wants to foster its own champions even if this may go again the principles of "fair competition". This exists since the emergence of the first organized human societies.

- an Air Force is willing to standardize as much as possibler airplanes types. This is totally reasonable to cut costs.

However, this case is becoming totally absurd. When you look at the number of KC-135/KC-10 to replace, the current state of the tankers fleet and the possible pace of airliners production lines, I'm wondering if sharing the production between the planes of the two companies would not be the most relevant approach as many precious years have already been lost. Airbus wanted to collaborate with Grumman. So, even that option would support the US air industry and this would give the possibility to get first a quite mature plane while giving the time to Boeing to fix the maturity issues of their plane.

Too bad that politics and profit margins seem too often to remove the logical approach in most human minds. It is a pity as Boeing used to be a great company making terrific products.

I'm really sad for the US industry and hope this is just a temporary problem...as we really need at least two large western airliners companies such as Boeing and Airbus.

 

The thing that amazed me the most with the Boeing problems was the fact the FAA delegated to the private companies the management of the process to certify their own products! To me this is the door open to major problems.

:-(

[Old Dog]

Airbus originally won the contract for these with an aircraft that was already air worthy and Boeing sued to get the contract, looks like we should have went with Airbus. Maybe not American made but IIRC part of the work would have been done here and we would most likely have a mission ready aircraft in service.

[jenshb]

It would be American made - IIRC, Airbus would set up a dedicated factory in the US to build them.