Voice of Watergate Past: Tanker date may be “inoperative”

It never ends. Reuters has this story that the tanker award date may slip from the November 12 dated, but we shouldn’t be surprised, since we suggested as much quite a while ago. What caught our attention is… Read More

US appeal of Airbus WTO ruling aimed at A350, future of A320

There is been some perplexed reaction to the appeal by the US Trade Representative to the World Trade Organization that the USTR and Boeing claimed only a few months ago were sweeping victories in the complaint that Europe… Read More

Indian cargo airline says A330Fs delayed because of–USAF KC-X competition

The saga never ends. Now a start-up Indian cargo airline, Flyington Freighters, says it may sue Airbus over delays in delivering the A330-200F, for which it is a launch customer, because Airbus is waiting to win the USAF… Read More

US Aerospace’s AN-112KC

When a small company called US Aerospace announced it teamed with Ukraine’s Antonov to offer an aerial refueling tanker called the AN-112KC, observers from all over the industry scratched their heads in puzzlement. First, few had heard of… Read More

O’Keefe, son survive Alaska plane crash

Update, August 11: Full details of the survivors and dead may be found in this Anchorage Daily News article. This article also has a description of events leading to the crash and rescue. The Mobile Press-Register spoke with… Read More

O’Keefe fate unknown; assessing impact on tanker competition

The fate of Sean O’Keefe, CEO of EADS North America, who was among those on the de Havilland DHC-3 Otter than crashed and killed five of the nine people on board, remains unknown. Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens,… Read More

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… Read More

Tanker award to slip to 2011?

Update, Aug. 6: Here is a Pentagon spokesman reacting to the US Aerospace protest over being rejected for its KC-X bid because it missed the filing deadline by five minutes, as reported by The Dayton Business Journal: In… Read More

Farnborough/Wednesday

Note: We have updated the Tuesday posting at the end of that column. Update, 8:00 PM BST: Day 3 orders are now included toward the end of this post. Another day, another set of aircraft orders are expected…. Read More

Tanker face off at Farnborough

Boeing and EADS held tanker briefings this week–Monday for Boeing, Tuesday for EADS. Boeing offered up top program officials while EADS offered up two American crewmen from its test flight program, a pilot and a boom operator. Boeing’s… Read More