Actually, I wonder why the Democrats are not yet running ads introducing America to the real John McCain. They need to get started now. It takes dell latitude d800 battery,dell inspiron 5000 battery a while to “catapult the propaganda” as Bush says.

For Info, France isn’t anti american, americans are anti-world and have betrayed all their friends, especially UK, it’s a big difference

For the details, see:
“Fawning Media Ignores McCain’s Past France-Bashing.”

So, all these people want the Pentagon to buy an outmoded model which has much less of a cargo load than the Airbus and will be delivered at a trickle-down rate, probably well late even at that.

Of course that has been business as usual for decades. Even Dick Cheney, as secretary of defense in Bush I, wanted to cancel some defense purchases that weren’t up to snuff.

Bravo for showing that American chauvinism is alive and well at both sides of the political spectrum.

Look at all these crybaby commies who are whining because France and Europe gained a market on a free capitalist trade system and with american employees.
I knew the USSA being communists, now with all these crybabies in this board I’m definitaly sure they are.

You’ve discredited yourself with the first uttering of ‘commie’.

You want a money-grubbing free market? Lobby for it with your own resources, within the confines of your own country, and not at the expense of American workers.

BTW, Free markets don’t live up to the hype, neither does socially irresponsible capitalism.

So we criticize these contracts when they’re no-bid, but when there’s actual competition and a foreign company wins, we’re upset about that also? What’s wrong with this picture?

We’ve been consistent in our opposition to outsourcing. We don’t want a foreign company to win our jobs. Competition is fine with us, but keep the competition inside the United States. And it’s not certain that it was the competition factor yanking the contract from Boeing, but McCain having undue influence on result.

A couple more bits of info. The KC-45 order will not meet all the long term requirements so there is still a chance that Boeing will get the additional contracts. Maybe 767 (though the Air Force had better order before the line shuts down) maybe 777, maybe 787? Plus, the existing contract could be canceled.

All I’m saying is that it’s a bit early to cry “foul”, in spite of my own “America first” sentiments and distrust of anything McCain is attached to.

The gist of it was that one of the considerations involved the delivery date. Namely that the Northrop/EADS will be available sooner since it’s, virtually, “off the shelf” and time has become a constraint due to accelerated airframe wear of existing transports and tankers. It seems that the Air Force wasn’t planning on an indefinite commitment to an overseas occupation.

The same article also posited that the superior cargo capacity. of the Airbus, gained it some votes because the C-5’s and C-17’s are being worn out faster than expected. There’s that pesky indefinite occupation again. Politics aside, it does appear the Airbus is a more versatile airframe and has more room for development despite it’s airfield requirements.

As stated earlier, it’s a very complex issue with plenty of room for shenanigans on both sides.

Also, virtually any plane can become a tanker. The Navy is going to use the F/A-18 “Super Hornet” to replace KA-6’s and A-3’s. The jury is still out as to how wise it is to use the, fuel hungry, supersonic Hornets as “heavy lifters”.

maybe so..

okay, onward and upward to other threads. It’s been fun trading the merits of military-industrial complex products with you :D… a rare treat, we’ll have to do it again :D

I’ll close this topic with this:

Consolidated Vultee B-36 CONDOR: Did politics prevent it getting the TWO MORE ENGINES it REALLY needed to make it TOTALLY AWESOME?

later

“..and the YF-17 (F-18) did turn out to be a pretty decent aircraft, but the F-16 was a dog, built for an obsolete mission (knife-fighting) that was purchased solely to appease political interests… which is why I’m against the Airbus.”

Hence the saying: “Never bring an Airbus to a knife-fight!”

:D

That’s a good point about the F-16 though– it’s a great dogfighter, just in case the Sidewinders and Sparrows linked to the radar systems don’t do the trick!

The engineering fundamentals were good, but yeah, the major deal for the contract was to make a cheap adaptable JSF and then the USAF went one way and the USN the other, killing the economies and besides the F-15 Air superiority fighter turned out to be a decent MRCA too.