Following some comments on yesterday's jet noise post, notably the point that the Colombians and others are flying Boeing 767 aerial tankers while our own Air Force is still using mostly KC-135s, I started looking into procurement times.
KC-135: Three years from the time that the AF said "we want a jet tanker" to the first one in service.
KC-10: Nine years from the AF first doing trials with jumbo jets to initial service, though the RFP for the program came out three years after the flight tests, so maybe six years is fair.
KC-45A: If Boeing makes them on time, it will be at least seventeen years.
In all cases, no new airframes were developed, though the KC-135 was based on the "Dash 80", of which one was flying at the time and which hadn't gone into production.
Based on that, given that the AF won't/can't buy enough KC-45As to replace their KC-135/-10s, they're going to have to buy another tanker. And given that the AF has planned retirement dates for the KC-135s and KC-10s of 2040 and 2043, respectively, they need to issue the RFP for the next tanker right the fuck now. Because it's going to take them thirty years to go from handing out the RFP to accepting the first one and they're already late.
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3 comments:
They won't be able to get it done, not in the current environment...
To be somewhat fair, the first round of RFP and responses for a new tanker was conducted about 10 years ago. Boeing was awarded the contract, but the whole thing imploded when it turned out that the woman at DOD responsible for the program instantly left the Pentagon for a sweet gig at Boeing after she awarded the contract. Airbus objected to such an obviously flawed process, and the whole thing was invalidated.
Thus the big delays in getting the replacement tanker on track.
When you compare the KC-45 acquisition project to other aircraft acquisition projects, the timeframe is not out of line. It's shorter than the F-22/35, V-22.
Hell, the T-6II program took almost ten years to go from "let's think about building this" to IOC. And that program has been cited for massive cost overruns.
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