Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- A350-1000 or 777-9? Part 3 April 25, 2024
- Boeing CEO promises company is turning around…again April 24, 2024
- Solid start for stand-alone GE Aerospace despite cuts to LEAP output April 23, 2024
- SPEEA, Boeing at impasse over safety program, union says April 23, 2024
- Better transparency needed on Boeing’s 1Q earnings call April 22, 2024
Pontifications: Mississippi’s aerospace footprint
By Scott Hamilton
July 17, 2017, © Leeham Co.: Living in the Seattle area, the highest profile, dominant industry is the commercial aerospace sector.
Boeing, of course, headlines just about everything when it comes to aviation.
Boeing’s competition is principally Airbus—or at least it used to be until Boeing claimed teeny tiny Bombardier, a company one-sixth the size of Boeing’s revenues, is poised to put Boeing out of business with BBD’s CSeries.
Pontifications: Catching up on the KC-46A, KC-30A
By Scott Hamilton
April 11, 2016, © Leeham Co.: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) concludes that the Boeing KC-46A aerial refueling tanker for the US Air Force has “challenging testing and delivery schedules” ahead in its annual review of the program.
It’s been a long, long time since I wrote about aerial refueling tankers. Having delved into this topic during the long-running saga of the USAF recapitalization effort, and the competitions between Northrop Grumman/EADS and later Airbus alone and Boeing, the topic had been beaten to death.
But as we who follow such things know, Boeing’s current effort to build the winning KC-46A for the Air Force has run into more than a few problems. These have led Boeing to be at least eight months late and write off $1.2bn pre-tax on the program.
And the problems aren’t over.
Northrop wins, Boeing/Lockheed lose bomber contract
Oct. 27, 2015: Northrop Grumman, builder of the B-2 bomber in the USAF inventory, was awarded the contract to build the next generation long-range bomber, which is yet to be named. For the moment, we’ll call it the “B-3.” For now it’s official name is the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB).
The Seattle Times has this story.
This is a big blow to Boeing, whose declining defense business was already in trouble from defense cutbacks and previous contract losses. The contract is worth $80bn.
Boeing’s strategy in acquiring McDonnell Douglas Corp back in 1997 was to even the revenue stream between commercial and military, in which Boeing then had a small portion and MDC was predominately military. Boeing was a sub-contractor to Northrop on the B-2, gaining a lot of its composite experience there which ultimately benefited development of the 787.
Unless Boeing finds grounds to challenge the contract award, prevails and wins a second competition, its Defense unit will continue to shrink.
Goldman Sachs, as with many other investment banks, called this a big win for Northrop.
Pontifications: Dueling refueling tankers
By Scott Hamilton
Sept. 21, 2015, © Leeham Co.: This Friday, Sept. 25, is the date that at long last, Boeing and the US Air Force expect the first flight of the KC-46A that is equipped with the fueling system.
A “bare” KC-46A made its first flight last December. Then it spent the next six months or so on the ground. First flight of the second KC-46A, the one with the fueling system, has been delayed several times. All the program margin is gone and it’s going to be a challenge for Boeing to stay on schedule to deliver 18 combat-ready KC-46As to the USAF by 2017–two short years away. To try and stay on schedule, Boeing started production of the the airplane concurrent with the flight test aircraft, a risky proposition that could result in major rework or other difficulties if Murphy’s Law comes into play.
The KC-46A is the successor to the KC-767 International tanker program, which was an industrial disaster. Only eight airplanes were produced, four for Italy and four
Boeing KC-46A makes its first flight Sept. 25, 2015. Photo via Google images.
for Japan. It ran years late and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. There were flutter and design issues. These problems became part of the risk assessment by the USAF in the KC-X competition evaluation between Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS–and one of the reasons why the Air Force selected the Northrop KC-330 offering (later named the KC-30).
Boeing successfully challenged the contract award and won the next round with what became known as the KC-46A. Boeing claimed it benefited from lessons learned from the KC-767 International program.
Pontifications: FAA shouldn’t be surprised at composite fire duration
By Scott Hamilton
August 24, 2015, (c) Leeham Co. News that the US Federal Aviation Administration was surprised at the duration of the composite fire with the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 in 2013 came as a surprise to the agency, but it shouldn’t have.
When fire tests were undertaken during the development of the 787, the FAA received comment that the fire testing standards weren’t what they should be from engineers. The FAA largely dismissed these concerns at the time.
More to the point: the take-off crash of a Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber, on which Boeing was a sub-contractor, burned for 24 hours. This should have been a clue to the FAA.
Leeham News and Comment published a long piece March 10, 2009, about composite and aluminum airplane fires after a Boeing 787 on final approach in Laredo (TX) caught fire. The plane landed safely, but the testing was set back months.
I’m reprinting that report in its entirety here.
Boeing’s MOP and Iran’s nuke program
June 25, 2015: We don’t often stray into military topics, usually confining ourselves to commercial derivative programs like the Boeing P-8 Poseidon, KC-46a, Airbus KC-330 and the like. But, of all places, Politico has an interesting three-screen piece about President Obama’s “Plan B” in case the talks with Iran fail over curbing its nuclear program.
Plan B calls for the prospect of a Northrop Grumman B-2 stealth bomber dropping a series Massive Ordnance Penetrators, or MOPs, on targeted Iranian nuke facilities to destroy them. The MOP is a super-bomb, but of non-nuclear design, that is so big and so powerful it can penetrates some 200 feet under ground before it blows up. Boeing designed the MOP.
Countdown on KC-X tanker award
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EADS CEO Louis Gallois went public today in Europe with his prediction that the USAF will award a tanker contract next month. The best and final bid will be submitted this month.
We previously noted that the final bids were due this month and a contract award expected next month.
Meanwhile, here is an interesting story on the tanker from KING5 TV in Seattle, with this piece.
As readers know, the competition is a price shoot-out. As the KING story notes, Boeing continues to be worried about the benefit EADS has from subsidies found to be illegal by the WTO on the ability to under-price Boeing, but as we noted in this post last year, WTO may not have the effect Boeing fears; the withdrawal of Northrop Grumman as a partner to EADS has a much larger benefit to EADS’ ability to price the airplane.
Buying Russian for US lift
We have, from time-to-time, joked that the USAF ought to buy a Russian aerial tanker as a way to avoid the Boeing-EADS-Northrop-Airbus rhubarb in the long-running KC-X saga.
Well, here’s news that the US Navy is planning to buy Russian helicopters and United Technology’s Sikorsky helicopter division is not at all happy with this sole-source selection.
Let’s see if all the Buy American crowd gets as wound up over this one as they have in the KC-X contest.
Boeing seeks cybersecurity recruits
Boeing’s Defense unit created a cybersecurity division a few years ago as the company recognized the growing threat to national security and the need to diversify from traditional weaponry with changing defense needs.
Here is a story today about Boeing’s effort to find new recruits for cybersecurity from Bloomberg.
Get over it and move on (Part 2)
A flurry of activity has been happening on the air force tanker front while we’ve been in Geneva, Switzerland, (working, not playing). Unfortunately, we think the activity has all been rather sad.
In the aftermath of the World Trade Organization issuing its final report on the US Trade Representative complaint about illegal subsidies to Airbus, the anti-Airbus crowd has once again seized on this issue to attack the new reports that Airbus parent EADS is now likely to bid on the KC-X contract against Boeing’s KC767NewGen.