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Boeing will pitch KC-767 in tanker contest

Boeing announced Feb. 12 it will pitch its KC-767 aerial tanker in the Air Force’s multibillion-dollar quest to replace its aging KC-135s, with company officials stressing the plane’s size would allow the service to base more flying gas stations “closer to the fight.”

Boeing mobility experts “looked at many configurations of the 767 and the 777” as they analyzed the Air Force’s list of solicitations and mulled which plane to propose, said Mark McGraw, the company’s vice president of tanker programs.

Ultimately, “we decided that the Air Force wanted a KC-135 replacement” and decided the KC-767 would best meet that need, he told reporters. “If they had wanted a larger plane, we would have pitched the 777.”

Today’s announcement sets up a long-anticipated showdown between Boeing and a Northrop Grumman-EADS team that has declared its intention to enter a version of the A330 tanker in the race. The service is expected to buy 179 planes over several years.

The service will analyze the final bids over the next few months and award a contract in late 2008, Sue Payton, Air Force acquisition executive, told reporters last week during a separate briefing.

The Air Force’s requirements for the new fleet of tankers indicate the service wants a plane that sometimes can also carry passengers and cargo — or a mix of both. Northrop officials have said they chose the larger A330 because of a determination that the service planned to use the KC-Xs as airlifters more often than its existing tankers.

But Boeing chose the KC-767 because its mobility experts determined the air service primarily wants a plane that is an aerial tanker first and an airlifter second, the officials said today. To that end, Sams said the existing KC-135s and KC-10s hauled “one half of 1 percent” of all the cargo Air Mobility Command moved last year.

Officials from the Chicago-based defense giant who briefed reporters Feb. 12 said because the KC-767 is a “moderate-sized” plane that can take off from and land on runways as short as 8,000 feet, the Air Force will be able to use more air bases than they use for the KC-135 fleet — and more importantly, more than they would be able to use with the larger A330.

“Bigger is not always better because [with a larger tanker] you might have to base the plane farther away from the fight,” said John Sams, Boeing vice president for Air Force programs. Because a larger plane would have to travel farther, it would burn more fuel to get there, driving up operating costs, he added.

“The challenge” for an air planner “is to have enough tankers at the right place at the right time,” said Sams, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who last commanded the 15th Air Force.

If Boeing wins the contract, the planes will be built in Everett, Wash., before shipping to a “finishing facility” in Wichita, Kan., according to the company. Boeing estimates a successful bid would generate 44,000 jobs, including employees who would work for the program’s many subcontractors.

The program experienced turbulence in recent weeks after Northrop-EADS threatened to not bid because of concerns the A330 would not be competitive, but announced late last week the team would enter a proposal.

Some around the U.S. defense community are speculating Northrop-EADS might have opted to enter the race in an attempt to drive down the final value of the contract by slashing the price of their plane, which experts say is more expensive than the KC-767.

Though the Boeing officials did not respond directly to that scenario when it was addressed by a reporter, McGraw said all proposed airframes must be judged “not only by the retail cost or the development costs ... we think the Air Force will look at the operating costs across the life of the aircraft.”

If blue-suited officials do that while deciding which plane to buy, McGraw predicted the KC-767 will be cheaper to operate and sustain than its rival A330.