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Northrop, citing Kyrgyz action, touts its tanker
Northrop Grumman Corp said on Thursday that mounting headaches related to supplying U.S. forces in Afghanistan argued for buying its aerial-refueling aircraft, not a smaller 767 built by rival Boeing Co. About 20 percent fewer Northrop KC-45 tankers, to be built in partnership with Airbus parent EADS would be needed than Boeing's KC-767s if midair-refueling operation were based in the United Arab Emirates or elsewhere in the Gulf, Northrop said.A new competition between Boeing and Northrop to supply an initial 179 tankers to the U.S. Air Force is due to get under way in coming months. Boeing offered a version of its 767-200 in a competition it lost to Northrop's modified Airbus A330 last year. The U.S. Defense Department decided to rerun the contest at the urging of the Government Accountability Office, which upheld a Boeing protest that the selection process was flawed. Northrop noted that Kyrgyzstan's parliament voted earlier in the day to evict U.S. forces from Manas Air Base, a key transit point for U.S. forces fighting insurgents in Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan, in central Asia, has played an important role in U.S. refueling operations over Afghanistan. "With the closure of Manas Air Base, long-range tankers providing greater fuel-offload and time-on-station capabilities are needed now more than ever," it said in an emailed newsletter. "That tanker is the Northrop Grumman KC-45." If political constraints forced refueling operations further afield to Diego Garcia, about 30 percent fewer KC-45 tankers would meet refueling requirements over Afghanistan than if using Boeing KC-767s, Northrop added. "As the distance between the air bases and Afghanistan increases, the Northrop Grumman KC-45's greater capabilities compared to the KC-767 prove more valuable," it said. Dan Beck, a Boeing spokesman, suggested Northrop's premise was flawed because specifications for the new tanker have not yet been published and Boeing has not yet specified which aircraft it might offer this time. "Large tanker? Medium tanker? Long-range or able to operate out of a larger number of forward bases?" he said in an email. "The Boeing KC-767 offering in the first competition had a distinct advantage in base denial situations like this because the medium sized tanker was more versatile in its ability to operate out of a mix of forward bases, many of which might not be able to ... accommodate a larger plane," Beck said. The Northrop tanker is based on the Airbus A330, which entered commercial service in 1993, more than a decade after Boeing's smaller 767. A year ago, the Northrop-EADS team had won a potential $35 billion U.S. Air Force contract for an initial 179 tankers with a plan to assemble the KC-45s at a new plant in Mobile, Alabama. Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to launch a new competition this year with a contract to be awarded in early 2010. The U.S. tanker fleet's average age is nearly 50 years old. Posted by: ryuge 2009-02-20 |
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