06 May 2020

I Am Baffled

In 1975 when defense budgets were suffering from the downsizing from Vietnam...

We managed to convert an existing passenger aircraft into a tanker and put it into service in just six years.

The KC-10A is still in service.

In 2001 we decided that we needed a replacement for the KC-135 (when the newest one was 36 years old) and KC-10.

It took ten years to just pick the plane and going on another ten to actually enter service.

Even more astonishing is the same company makes a tanker on the same airframe as the KC-46 which is in foreign service right now.

It makes you wonder why we didn't just buy that and call it good.

3 comments:

  1. There's a right way, a wrong way and the Air Force way?

    Or just typical government procurement in general?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Something has changed in our procurement process since the cold war ended.

      Delete
  2. Several repeats of the competition between Boeing and Airbus. Several prosecutions for malfeasance. Federal Acquisition Regs are Byzantine...go try reading them; there's even a "University" to teach those in .mil and .gov how to apply them. I could go on....

    ReplyDelete

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