Airbus today won a Northrop Grumman backed bid to supply a new fleet of tankers to the US Air Force in a massive defeat for incumbent supplier Boeing.

 

Absolutely shocked when i read this, great result for EADS and the Europeans.

i guess there will be an inevitable appeal from Boeing but i don't see why they just cannot except that the better proposal won, especially as Northrop Gruman were strong in every area that counted, especially cost price refuelling...

 

 I think i'd be pissed if someone went into what is my backyard and took a contract worth billions

Yeah, but this was fully open to tender and everything must have been taken into account. Boeing should'nt take it for granted that just because they put in a bid that THEY would automatically get the contract!!! Looks like Airbus is moving forward BIG TIME and congratulations to them on a very successful bid, I say.

 

Frankly, I would have prefered to see the USAF select the Boeing. I still think the Airbus will turn out to be too large to be the primary tanker, particularly one that needs to operate from forward bases.  Sooner or later the U.S. will want something more the size of the 767, but by then that airframe will be long out of production.  However, I do believe that the USAF has made a sincere effort to evaluate the two entries on their merits and would not like to see a drawn out appeal that would push the in service date back even further.

 Of course, if the Europeans were serious about buying the best available aircraft regardless of where it came from they would ditch that flying subsidy program called the A-400M and buy C-17s from Boeing.

The A330 is simply a far superior aircraft than the 767. Without a doubt the best aircraft won. Boeing should have pitted the 777 as i am sure that they would have won with that.

I agree on the A400M although really that is up against hercs rather than the C-17. What should have happened is that the Europeans should have purchased C-130Js and C-17s as a combination. We have them them over here in the UK and they are great. I must admit that i am very sceptical about the merits of the A400M. The programme should have been stopped years ago.