Why is McCain pushing euro subsidized tanker on the Air Force?

July 6, 2010 06:51


For nearly a decade the Air Force has been trying to replace its Eisenhower-era fleet of refueling tanker aircraft. It has failed twice in rather spectacular fashion. And the double failures were due, in part, to the malign influence of Sen. John McCain (R?-AZ), who has been to the Air Force what malware is to your laptop.

By at American Spectator

For nearly a decade the Air Force has been trying to replace its Eisenhower-era fleet of refueling tanker aircraft. It has failed twice in rather spectacular fashion. Once because a senior Boeing executive bribed an Air Force procurement chief with a job offer. And once because the Air Force broke federal contracting rules to award the contract to Boeing’s competitor (then a Northrop Grumman–European Aerospace Defense Systems consortium) for a too-large and too-slow Airbus aircraft.

And the double failures were due, in part, to the malign influence of Sen. John McCain (R?-AZ), who has been to the Air Force what malware is to your laptop.

This time, my alma mater had bloody well get it right. There is no more room for error. The refueling tanker is the most urgent and crucial weapon system acquisition in among all the other things the armed forces need. And that’s because the aged fleet of 415 KC-135s is too old, frail, and worn out to perform the mission.

Our KC-135 tankers are on average 46 years old. Only about 38 of them were able to fly in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and though many have been re-engined and maintained at great expense, too many cannot fly the unfriendly skies and the number that are on “operational restrictions” continues to climb. If a class-wide problem develops that grounds the whole fleet, it would impose catastrophic limitations on almost everything our military does. The older the fleet gets — and the harder it’s used — the likelihood of such a class-wide problem grows every day.

According to an Air Force briefing given when the last tanker procurement failed, the plan to buy fifteen aircraft per year — a very ambitious plan — will still mean the last KC-135 will be eighty years old when it is retired. We need to buy the right new tanker, and get it in the air as fast as possible.

Without the tankers, fighters can’t fight, bombers can’t bomb, and transport aircraft can’t enable the deployment of American forces around the world in a matter of hours. In short, no tankers, no superpower. Buying replacements should be pretty simple. But it’s not, because the Europeans contend that any restriction of the tanker buy to U.S.-built aircraft — regardless of the reason — is protectionism.

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