Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 4. Propulsive efficiency April 19, 2024
- Boeing unlikely to meet FAA’s 90-day deadline for new safety program April 18, 2024
- Focus on quality not slowing innovation, says GKN April 18, 2024
- Boeing defends 787, 777 against whistleblower charges April 17, 2024
- Dissecting Boeing CEO’s statement next new airplane will cost $50bn April 15, 2024
KC-30, KC-767 prices revealed
In a remarkable piece of reporting, Reuters‘ Andrea Shalal-Esa uncovered the price offered by Northrop Grumman to the US Air Force for its KC-30 and from there the extrapolation of the price Boeing offered for the KC-767.
Reuters also details a number of other cost details in this report.
Boeing’s supplemental protest filing
Here is the Boeing GAO Supplmental Filing of Boeing’s tanker protest.
Update: 1000AM PDT: Boeing just wrapped up a conference call discussing the supplemental filing. The call largely went over the filing, and the Q&A was largely expansive on the filing. Read the filing and you’ll get the gist of the call.
A couple of points of interest:
- We asked how Boeing could be complaining that the USAF didn’t give proper evaluation to delivery of the Japanese KC-767s because the first was delivered nine days before the award was announced and the second was delivered five days after the announcement. Mark McGraw, vice president of the tanker program, acknowledged that Boeing had been marked down (scored “marginal”) on program management but that the USAF knew the tankers were being delivered and added back scoring–but not adequately, in Boeing’s view.
- Boeing, interestingly, redacted (on Page 8 of the filing) the Air Force fuel burn analysis between the KC-30 and the KC-767 but left in the analysis of a Boeing-funded study that concluded the KC-30 fuel burn was 24% greater than the KC-767. Northrop previously told us that the fuel burn difference in their analysis was about 6%. As the conference call was in progress, we emailed Northrop to ask about the USAF analysis, and NGC tells us the USAF analysis agreed with NGC’s 6% number. On this point, Boeing seems to be playing games by selectively retaining and redacting data.
- In response to a question, McGraw dismissed NGC’s revised jobs number of 48,000–issued shortly after the award was announced–that would be created for the KC-30 program. McGraw believes that NGC’s original jobs number of 24,000 is closer to being correct. We previously had a full discussion of the new jobs number on our Corporate website here.
- McGraw remains mystified over the “motives” for the USAF to select the KC-30. He hopes the GAO will figure this out in its review of the protest.
Boeing expects to have a transcript of the call available later, as well as an audio archive. We’ve asked for the transcript when available and will post it here. The audio archive will be posted at Boeing’s Tanker Blog.
We’ll link select articles as they pop up on the Internet.
Update, April 4, 0730AM PDT: A few articles of interest:
Jed Babbin, former deputy undersecretary of defense for Bush 41, writes another well-reasoned piece on the tanker; he’s a pro-Boeing advocate and he, like his previous writing we linked, does a good job of avoiding histrionics.
Aviation Week’s Amy Butler does another in a series of fine reporting. Her piece is here.
George Talbot, reporting from Boeing’s “enemy territory,” The Mobile (AL) Press-Register, does his usual good reporting with this piece.
Meanwhile, in the Internet website wars, Northrop has launched a new site, America’s New Tanker. This serves as another effort by NGC to rebut Boeing’s PR campaign.
Update 0945AM PDT: Here’s another opinion piece, this one in support of the KC-30, from DefenseTech.org.
Breaking News: GAO dumps NGC, USAF; Boeing narrows protest
From The Wall Street Journal:
April 2, 2008 6:06 p.m.
The Government Accountability Office denied motions filed by Northrop Grumman Corp. and the Air Force to dismiss parts of Boeing Co. protest of a $40 billion contract to provide aerial refueling jets.
Both companies characterized the developments as victories.
“Boeing’s decision to abandon the public relations rhetoric contained in its original protest filings is in keeping with our motion,” said Northrop spokesman Randy Belote in a statement. Northrop also said that it was encouraged that Boeing “streamlined” its approach.
“This decision is consistent with our view that full consideration of all appeal grounds is warranted,” Boeing said in a statement, calling it a “significant development” in the company’s appeal.
The full article is here.
Update, 400PM: We’ve obtained the redacted copy of the USAF Motion to Dismiss Boeing’s protest (which the GAO has now denied–the Motion to Dismiss, that is). The 49 page PDF provides extremely interesting reading in the dynamics between Boeing and the Air Force.
Update 740PM: Boeing says it did not narrow its protest, and claims this is only Northrop’s “spin.” Here’s a Reuters story.
Air Force says Boeing protest too late
Reuters just posted this story, citing USAF filings with the GAO.
Congressional move ill-advised
A move in the US House to adopt legislation to overturn the USAF tanker award to Boeing is ill-advised on a number of levels.
According to a story in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Boeing supporters in the House, incensed over the award by the Air Force to Northrop Grumman and Airbus parent EADS selecting their A330-based KC-30 for the KC-45A tanker, are thinking about adopting legislation to block the award. The details, according to the news story:
- Prohibit the award of a US government contract to any company found by the US government to be receiving illegal subsidies;
- Direct the USAF to reconsider the competing tanker proposals and “factor in subsidies;”
- Direct the USAF to reopen the bidding and allow Boeing to propose a tanker based on the 777;
- Cancel the NGC contract outright.
There are so many things wrong with this approach.
- The World Trade Organization hasn’t ruled on the US complaint, so the USA’s interpretation of what constitutes “illegal” subsidies may or may not hold up before the international body charged with adjudicating these things. Apparently this minor legal detail doesn’t matter to the members of Congress who are behind this one. Furthermore, following the same concept, the EU has “found” Boeing to be receiving “illegal” subsidies (also a complaint before the WTO). If Congress adopts this clause, then the EU would be perfectly justified in retaliating against Boeing by adopting a similar rule. Bad idea all the way around.
- We’ve written on this one before. The USAF has no expertise to factor in anything about the subsidies. It needs to stay away from this topic.
- Boeing had the option to offer a “KC-777” alone or in tandem with the KC-767. Boeing says it was discouraged from doing so, but as far as we know hasn’t presented written evidence to support this, at least publicly. Presumably this element is detailed in the protest filed with the Government Accountability Office. If so, then the GAO can determine whether the USAF improperly steered Boeing away from offering the KC-777 and equally presumably, this might be grounds to send the competition back to the drawing board (so-to-speak). Congress doesn’t need to be involved on this element.
- This is the worst possible interference in Congressional meddling. It sends a message to any foreign defense company, and any domestic company partnering with a foreign company, that it’s a waste of time to compete for Defense business. As we wrote March 22, Britain’s BAE Systems was the sixth largest DOD contractor in 2006. What kind of message would this Congressional action send to BAE? Boeing partnered with Italy’s Alenia to offer the C27J twin-engine turbo prop for light cargo operations. It so happens the Alenia airplane won this contract. The Congressional action proposed on canceling the Northrop deal has all sorts of horror-ramifications.
Let the GAO deal with this, like the law allows. If the GAO upholds Boeing’s protest, so be it. But if the GAO rejects the protest, Boeing and its supporters need to let this one go. In fact, Boeing would be better off calling off the dogs on this Congressional fight. Boeing might win the battle but lose the war. The EU won’t sit back idly if Congress interferes, and Boeing will be the one to pay the penalty, not some member of Congress with a few district jobs to protect.
As we previously said, Boeing would be far better off to devote its engineering resources to fixing the 787 program and developing the Blended Wing Body for the KC-Y competition scheduled for 2020. A KC-BWB, and subsequent commercial applications of the BWB, would be far more advanced than the KC-30 or anything else Airbus has to offer, and superior to the KC-777. Go for this gold, and the advanced technology that comes with it. Don’t stick with an airplane originally designed in the late 1970s-early 1980s. Think ahead. Be bold.
Blended Wing Body test model. Source: Boeing
Minimal job loss over KC-767 tanker
A survey released today (March 22) released by the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Association of 55 companies in the Puget Sound area (Seattle) finds that the loss of the KC-767 contract to Boeing results in the loss of fewer than 250 jobs. Fewer than 400 jobs would have been added.
Boeing had previously projected the tanker contract would have added 9,000 jobs in Washington State and the local politicians have been in an uproar over the job loss because the tanker contract went to Northrop Grumman. The same PNAA survey projects the KC-30 will 13-22 jobs annually. Northrop projects its tanker contract will add more than 4,000 statewide.
The full results of the survey are here.
Separately, as the reader knows there has been a great deal of focus on the fact that a foreign company (EADS/Airbus) is the prime subcontract to Northrop and there are other foreign subcontractors from Europe involved. The stated concern is whether these foreign suppliers will be reliable to the US in time of war.
We think the concern is less about foreign suppliers than it is about Airbus. BAE Systems of the UK is the sixth largest supplier to our Department of Defense. It builds many of the armored personnel vehicles used in Iraq and Iran and has many contracts to DOD and our Homeland Security department, including contracts involving intelligence matters. Fully one third of BAE’s revenue in 2007 came from the US DOD, equaling the revenue from European defense sources.
EADS subsidiaries other than Airbus already have contracts with DOD, and EADS is a supplier to the Boeing 787.
Speaking of job losses, here’s a satirical look at Sen. John McCain’s role in the tanker controversy.
Hopscotching through Europe
We’re sometimes accused of having a warped sense of humor (guilty) that occasionally gets us in trouble with readers. But we simply can’t help ourselves.
We found something in the Boeing tanker protest that we could not help but chuckle at. Boeing has made a real issue over the inexperience of Northrop Grumman and EADS compared with Boeing on building tankers. Boeing also has criticized the production model of Northrop/EADS. The Airbus A330-200 on which the Northrop KC-30 is based in built in England, Spain, Germany and France and the fuselage components will be shipped to Alabama for assembly. (Not unlike the 787 and KC-767 production models, but that’s neither here nor there).
In the protest, Boeing had this gem:
“…The Northrop/EADS…production process…will hopscotch through Europe to produce some planes….”
Who says Boeing doesn’t have a corporate sense of humor?
Separately, Northrop said in a conference call that 50% of the revenue from the tanker will make its way to EADS, which then has to pay its suppliers. We took a stab at assessing this figure on our corporate website in a report. It looks like we were pretty close in our assessment.
Boeing’s Redacted Protest on Tanker
Here’s Boeing’s Tanker Protest filed with the Government Accountability Office over the Air Force award of the KC-45A tanker contract to Northrop Grumman. It’s an executive summary and there’s a lot that’s not in it, but it’s the closest thing the general public will get to reading the file.
Leeham.net updated/Looks at Tanker
Our corporate website, Leeham.net, has been updated with an in-depth look at the Boeing protest of the KC-30 tanker award; the surprise doubling of the Northrop Grumman jobs for the KC-30; and a Wall Street Journal story looking at the reasons for the Boeing protest.
Why Boeing protested tanker award
Because we were traveling this week, we’re a little behind on these sorts of things. Boeing’s press releases concerning the tanker protest don’t do justice to their reasoning. James Wallace of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer posted an audio of the 64 minute conference call in which Boeing executives explain why they protested. You may listen to this audio here.