Our first reaction to this piece of news from the St. Louis Business Journal was, What the hell?

“Northrop Grumman Corp. has nearly doubled its estimate of the number of jobs its KC-45A tanker contract will support, using a different projection formula, the company said Monday.

“Using more recent data from suppliers and the Labor Department’s formula to project aerospace jobs at the state and local level, Northrop said the KC-45A program will employ about 48,000 direct and indirect jobs nationwide, the company said Monday.

“Its previous estimate of 25,000 direct and indirect jobs in the United States was based on the U.S. Department of Commerce jobs projection formula for the aerospace industry. The supplier base includes 230 companies in 49 states, according to a release.”

After all the dissing by Northrop of the Boeing forecast that its airplane would produce 44,000 jobs (and we had trouble believing this figure, too), now Northrop one-ups Boeing?!?

We’re traveling but we’re going to follow this up when we get back.