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: The soup du jour
March 14, 2022, © Leeham News: You might call it the soup du jour.
By Scott Hamilton
EcoAviation is all over the place at aviation conferences these days. It was a key topic at last October’s Annual General Meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Likewise at last month’s annual conference of the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance (PNAA). EcoAviation also was an element of the Speed News conference in Los Angeles early this month and at another event the following week. Investor Day events now routinely include ecoAviation discussion.
This is all well and good, but at last, some key members of the industry are putting caution and realism to the pie-in-the-sky stuff that is sucking up investment like the Dot Com era a few decades ago. Only a few ideas and technologies will be successful.
Pontifications: Ukraine impact on commercial aviation
By Scott Hamilton
Feb. 28, 2022, © Leeham News: The clouds are very dark over Ukraine today. The unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by an international autocratic lying amoral thug is horrible. What the implications are for neighboring European countries, the greater Europe, the US, and the rest of the world won’t be fully understood for months.
But reality is reality, and LNA’s focus on commercial aviation must look at things from this perspective—narrow as it is in the context of human tolls underway in Ukraine now. In the dark cloud of the Ukraine crisis, we must look at what the impacts might be on commercial aviation.
Pontifications: Advice for Boeing in the coming KC-Y campaign
Part 6: The KC-X competition from Boeing’s perspective
By Scott Hamilton
Feb 21, 2022, © Leeham News: Jim Albaugh, the former president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and of Boeing’s defense unit, retired from the company in 2012. He oversaw the first competitive bid at the defense unit for the US Air Force KC-X refueling tanker. That was lost to Northrop Grumman-EADS (Airbus) in 2009.
As CEO of BCA, he oversaw commercial efforts to get Boeing’s cost down on the 767-200ER, which formed the basis for what became the KC-46A tanker. Defense won this round against a solo EADS bid. Boeing’s winning price was about 10% below the EADS bid for its A330-based MRTT.
Years removed from Boeing but nevertheless an interested observer with experience on the losing and winning bids, Albaugh has some observations and advice as Boeing prepared to compete against Lockheed Martin-Airbus for the KC-Y campaign that already has unofficially begun.
Pontifications: Rerunning the KC-X campaign as Technically Acceptable, Lowest Price process
Part 5 in a Series: the Boeing perspective in the last KC-X campaign
Feb. 14, 2022, © Leeham News: After the Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld Boeing’s protest over the US Air Force contract award to Northrop Grumman-EADS, the parties regrouped to consider whether or how to compete for the KC-X contract again.
By Scott Hamilton
Boeing was discouraged after the Northrop win. According to press reports at the time, US Rep. Norm Dicks, a Democrat from Bremerton (WA) since retired, encouraged Boeing to make another bid. The US Air Force recast the new procurement to a pass-fail process on the requirements, emphasizing the price. The process was known as Technically Acceptable, Lowest Price, or TALP. Northrop decided to drop out. EADS, despite concluding the odds were long that it could win, went ahead.
In September 2009, the Air Force began the new procurement process. The same month, Jim Albaugh moved from Boeing’s defense unit, where he had been president and CEO, to Boeing Commercial Airplanes, in the same position. Although no longer involved day-to-day in the KC-X campaign, Albaugh nevertheless was in a good position to recall how Boeing approached this round.
Pontifications: KC-X aerial tanker competition becomes a pass-fail RFP
Part 4: The Boeing perspective
By Scott Hamilton
Feb. 7, 2022, © Leeham News: After Boeing lost to Northrop Grumman-EADS for the KC-X US Air Force tanker contract, Boeing filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The Air Force, Boeing complained, gave Northrop extra credit for the larger A330 MRTT’s fuel capacity and range. This possibility had not been in the Request for Proposals. Boeing, therefore, felt its tanker, based on the 767-200ER airframe, was properly sized for the USAF requirements.
The GAO upheld Boeing’s protest. For the third time, the Air Force now had to issue an RFP and run another competition.
Northrop decided to sit this one out. But, as previously reported in the Sean O’Keefe series of the Airbus perspective, Airbus elected to bid again.
This time, the RFP was tightened. It took a Pass-Fail approach.
Pontifications: “The mother of the last pilot on the 707 tanker hasn’t been born yet”
Part 3 of the Boeing focus for the USAF Aerial Refueling Tanker
Jan. 31, 2022, © Leeham News: Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, Boeing offered the US Air Force a lease deal for 100 aerial refueling tankers based on the 767-200.
By Scott Hamilton
The concept of leasing tankers had been floated before. Boeing at one point proposed creating a 747-based tanker and leasing it to the Air Force. The idea went nowhere, but this one gained traction.
The leasing concept formed just before Jim Albaugh arrived at IDS, but he was president as it progressed and through the subsequent competition, called KC-X, against Northrop Grumman-EADS (Airbus) after the lease deal was canceled.
“You go back in history, and it started out with the need for the Air force to replace the 707s which were their tanker fleet for a long time, and they were getting old,” recalls Albaugh, the CEO of Boeing’s Integrated Defense Systems unit at the time. IDS is now called Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS).
Pontifications: A retrospective of the KC-X refueling tanker competition from Boeing’s perspective
Part 2 of the Boeing focus for the USAF Aerial Refueling Tanker
Jan. 24, 2022, © Leeham News: Jim Albaugh was president of Boeing Integrated Defense System (IDS), now known as Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS) during the competition for the US Air Force’s KC-X program.
By Scott Hamilton
After 9/11 (2001), Boeing was reeling as US airlines canceled or deferred orders in the aftermath of the terror attacks in New York City and Washington (DC). Terrorists hijacked four airplanes (all Boeing, as it turned out) operated by American and United airlines. Then, US carriers dominated the world market as customers for Boeing and Airbus. Boeing was disproportionately affected, as it was the USA’s two biggest airlines that were victims of the terror attacks.
Pontifications: COTS and the KC-46A Aircraft Production Systems
Part 1 in a Boeing series about the USAF refueling tanker
By the Leeham News Team
January 17, 2022, © Leeham News: COTS is an acronym meaning Commercial Off the Shelf. It’s often a requirement for certain types of aircraft to be used by the US Air Force.
The title is a bit misleading in that in most cases, there is no directly usable off-the-shelf product, but instead, a jumping-off point that saves a tremendous amount of development. In aircraft procurement, many things have been bought this way. The advantage to the Air Force is that they get a known flyable aircraft that is for the most part debugged and has an operational history that allows the Air Force to estimate the maintenance burden and training requirements. It shaves years off the acquisition process and can be a very cost-effective way to gain new capabilities.
Pontifications: Teaming with Lockheed Martin for the KC-Y tanker competition
Last in a Series
Jan. 10, 2022, © Leeham News: Sean O’Keefe retired from EADS/Airbus in 2014. Boeing won the re-bid contract for the US Air Force aerial refueling tanker in 2011. The third round of the tanker competitions was every bit as bitter as the second round, which Northrop Grumman/EADS won.
By Scott Hamilton
Boeing is in the process of producing 179 KC-46A tankers, with about half delivered. Beset by delays, technical issues, and cost overruns, Boeing nevertheless has the presumed advantage of being the incumbent supplier.
Lockheed Martin/Airbus will offer the A330-200-based MRTT tanker. Most have Rolls-Royce engines. The remainder has GE Aviation power plants. The LMXT, as the new tanker version is currently called, will be assembled in the US. If RR engines are chosen, these, too, will be assembled in the US, Lockheed says.
Although O’Keefe is no longer associated with Airbus and he is not a consultant to or otherwise advising Lockheed and Airbus, LNA asked him what he would advise if asked after benefitting from the Round 3 competition.
Pontifications: Assessing the advantages Boeing, Lockheed Martin-Airbus have in KC-Y tanker competition
Fourth in a Series
By Scott Hamilton
Jan. 3, 2022, © Leeham News: As the US Air Forces gears up to solicit bids for its KC-Y aerial refueling “bridge tanker” competition, Boeing is now the incumbent tanker supplier.
Having won the KC-X competition against Airbus, Boeing is supplying a total of 179 tankers based on the 767-200ER. The KC-46A, however, has been plagued with problems, delays, and cost overruns.
As the incumbent, Boeing would seem to have an advantage in the KC-Y competition. But on the other hand, the problems that Boeing has had in technical compliance categories, failures, and delivery delays, and foreign object debris issues, could work against it.
Sean O’Keefe was the president of EADS North America, Airbus’ parent when Boeing won the KC-X contract. He also worked for the government as the NASA administrator and on The Hill. He was friends with Bob Gates, the Secretary of Defense during parts of the Bush 43 and Obama administrations. This gives him a special insight from government and industry perspectives to weigh the advantages and disadvantages Boeing faces in the anticipated KC-Y contest that will likely pit the incumbent against the Lockheed Martin-Airbus team that will once again offer the A330-200-based tanker called the LMXT.