Build a plant in Alabama, and they will let you build foreign jets to sell to the USAF. You can almost see the high fives from everyone that had to fight over this huge pork barrel. I bet the NATO countries (a few of which are part of Airbus) are going to be delighted that when the time comes for "foreign" sales they will in reality be selling these planes to themselves. Yay!
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Air Force on Friday announced one of the largest military acquisition programs in U.S. history, saying the service had chosen Northrop Grumman over Boeing to replace its aging air refueling tanker fleet.
"We look forward to partnering with them as we continue to defend our great nation in the future," said Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne.
The announcement was a surprise to many in the business industry who expected Boeing to be favored over the company, which will use a European company's airframe, Airbus, for the tanker.
The $40 billion deal to start replacing 179 tankers -- known as the KC-45A program -- will expand to over $100 billion to replace the entire fleet of almost 500 planes, Pentagon officials said.
Boeing proposed a tanker based on its 767 commercial airliner, while Northrop -- working with Boeing arch-rival Airbus and its parent company, European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) -- offered a model based on the Airbus A330 airliner, which is larger than the 767.
[From Northrop Grumman gets $40B deal to replace Air Force tankers - CNN.com]
I actually would feel better if some of these $100 million could be re-routed to buy more MRAPs for the Marines. After all, how many long range bombing and surveillance missions (that require air refueling) are we doing every day nowadays?
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