US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said there will be a split buy on the KC-X tanker program over his dead body.
“I’m laying my body down across the tracks,” Aviation Week quotes as saying in this short article.
It’s not Robert Gates but you get the point.
A bigger issue is how much have we already spent trying to procure a tanker replacement and you would know that better then I, plus the cost of the cancelled effort last year and how much more will it cost if we have another protracted competition that ends in a sustained protest, not to mention the additional time lost? Also how much more will be spent keeping the current fleet operational over the additional years required if we keep dragging our feet on this?