Boeing Wins $35 Billion Air Force Tanker Contract

Yeah this isn't biased or anything..

Sure it is I mean it is an american based company doing a job for america. Sound a little biased to you. It sure does to me.

Across the world, USAF mechanics are breathing a huge sigh of relief.

What is so wrong with the U.S. Air Force purchasing a product from a U.S. Manufacturer. You better believe that in times of economic slowdown, such as these days, there is nothing wrong with buying at home. While all of the components may not be made here in the U.S., at least they're not 100% foreign and imported. I'm sure if a EU country were to replace their tankers, they would opt for the Airbus product. Nothing wrong with it either way. I personally think the A330 is too much plane to replace the KC135. The B762 is rightsized. Perhaps the A330 could replace the aging KC10s, but I would personally rather see the B772LR do that. So is it bias? You're darned right, and nothing wrong with it either.

Proud that Boeing will be building another fantastic Air Craft for the military.

American aircraft for the american military!

Isn't this the same sort of government support for Boeing that the US accused European nations of doing for Airbus?

HERE, HERE!

Indeed politics and "buy-only-a-locally-made-product" attitude prevails and sometimes this backfires with awful consequences and a terrible example is that monster called the Airbus 400 which the Europeans concocted to avoid buying C-130s and C-17 from Lockheed and Boeing. The European governments that ordered them are complaining bitterly -albeit behind closed doors- that nobody not even the manufacturer EADS itself knows how much it is going to cost nor if contractual performance guarantees are going to be met and they would like to cancel the damn thing altogether but they have already dumped down the drain tens of billions of Euros not to mention losing face.

The Boeing aircraft have proven them self to be roughed aircraft. The Kc-135 have been around since the 50's. Airbus aircraft are like bic lighter disposable. You can't have a strategic resource like your tanker being built outside the country. Could you imaging the problem you have if the Euporeen community was in control of the part supply for your Tanker fleet?

I am still amazed that anyone here in the US would question the award of the tanker bid to Boeing. I flew KC-135's while in the USAF during Viet Nam conflict. The plane was just awesome even though in the 60's it was long in the tooth. Boeing has supplied the USAF with many great planes, and it is fitting that the replacement of the KC-135's should be done with an American company. EADS has done everything to minimize Boeing's aircraft and ANY cost. Stuart's comments don't even begin to reflect on how European countries have subsidized Airbus while Boeing has to compete on its own. What would you have, our forces using EADS just to prove a point, that is just DUMB. Here to Boeing and the thousands of folks that will build this great new tanker.

Why would anybody even thinking in buying aircraft from a European company. The money comes from the US Taxpayer, and it will employ a lot of people in the US for quite awhile.

On paper, the fuel capacity and range of the A330 tanker is superior to that of the 762. However, if you want durability and reliability for the decades, Boeing is the only way to go. Perhaps Britain will purchase the A330 tanker?

Just be glad Wal-Mart didn't win the bid, the planes would be built in China!!!

Correct, we couldn't have the plane built in China. We'll just import all of the electronics from them. Hopefully, we'll get a good deal.

If it lasts half as long as some other Boeing products (KC135, B52) then it will be around a long time.

Well done for this! You have got to look after your own folks at home, before your whole production base heads to China and you lose control! I write as a Brit from the UK, as I doubt that if we ordered Airbus tankers -we could control costs with so many contributing nations.
Our present government has finally just plugged the plug on, and stopped a £38 BILLION (about $60 billion) overspend on our ancient RAF Nimrod defence planes. If we had simply bought production AWACS from the USA it would have been much better value and we would not now be cutting our defence programme to pay for such crazy overspends. Well done to the Pentagon for looking after home industry in the USA. Yes - open competition has maybe helped you to get better value for your dollar spend, but in the end common sense has prevailed. Well done to you, and congratulations!

It's is a global economy. But the bottom line is a replacement that actually flies needs to be added to the inventory, not another 20 year battle over the which airframe is more American.

I could see us, ten or fifteen years down the road, getting into some conflict somewhere in the world, that the French disagreed with. Do we really want another country to be able to even attempt to dictate policy by let's say, cutting off the parts supply at Airbus? For this one reason I'm happy Boeing won this. Over and above my feeling that Boeing airplanes are more structurally robust, and are built to last.

KauaiGolfer your concerns are ill founded for some 70-80% of the Airbus 330 tanker would come from within the U.S. as for the rest there are a lot of companies around the world and that includes the U.S. who can copycat parts, and really good ones, and meet the needs of the USAF, see this is a global economy times

KauaiGolfer's point is well-taken, but seeing how many our current enemies were armed by us when we didn't care for others, it is seeminly inevitable. Look at the F-35 being marketed being needed for U.S. air superiority is and yet is being concurrently designed and sold to at least 10 other nations. How does that make it our "premier" fighter? And who of the 10, currently our allies will be our enemies. The period of 1750 - 1850, one needs a program to know who was enemy to whom and when.