Speaking of workforce, there is the natty problem that unions representing EADS employees have a record of rabid hostility towards the United States and its policies. The effect of entrusting one of the most important elements of our power-projection capabilities to foreign labor capable of production sabotage and/or work-stoppage could be catastrophic. That is especially true insofar as the reliance on EADS would not be confined to the manufacturing of the tankers. If past practice is any guide, the company that produced the planes would also be relied upon for maintenance over their expected 40-year service life.
Quite apart from the nationality of the source, there is the basic question of competence. Boeing is no newcomer to the business of building and supporting aerial refueling tankers. In fact it has been at it for 79 years and delivered a total of 2,000 tanker aircraft. It has delivered 1,800 operational refueling booms, the complicated piece of equipment used to move fuel safely and swiftly from the tanker to the recipient aircraft.
By contrast, the EADS team has been trying to develop a tanker business for just the last five years. To date, it has not delivered any aerial refuelers or operational booms. To repose confidence in such a team, to say nothing of its cost projections, entails a leap of faith that seems irresponsible in the extreme.
Finally, there is the matter of the mission. The Air Force, until strong-armed by a few legislators, rightly did not want as big a plane as the KC-30 for the simple reason that it is far better to have a larger number of smaller, more fuel-efficient aircraft capable of operating from many airfields. In the competition, the KC-767 was deemed to have 98 strengths (“discriminators”) to just 30 for the Airbus option, with only 1 assessed weakness versus 5 for the KC-30. If the decision to go with the inferior, but larger aircraft stands, the taxpayer will have to eat an estimated $30 billion in additional fuel costs and billions more in otherwise unnecessary military construction charges.
The new leadership of the Air Force – which reportedly will include as its Secretary Michael Donley, a well-respected veteran and national security official during several administrations – should shortly have an opportunity, thanks to the GAO, to revisit the Wynne tanker selection. If and when it does so, the service must make its decision on the basis of:
* its actual requirement, not one adapted to suit a competitor, EADS, that could not otherwise compete;
* real costs, not those artificially and arbitrarily inflated to make Boeing’s proposal less viable and low-balled to help EADS; and
* the nation’s interest in having an indigenous supplier of vital tanker aircraft, produced by a loyal work-force capable of not only manufacturing the planes properly and cost-effectively but of reliably supporting them for decades to come.