Going With One Tanker Vendor?

Aug. 4, 2006

The Air Force may want to award only one contractor to build its new fleet of air refueling aircraft, so Boeing VP for tankers Mark McGraw told reporters Wednesday. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, McGraw gleaned that insight from reading USAF’s preliminary systems requirements. The Post-Dispatch also notes that “top Pentagon officials” had been considering splitting the buy between Boeing and the Northrop Grumman-EADS team. However, we noted this past spring that the Air Force’s top military acquisition official, Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, said it would be less expensive to have just one vendor, at least for the first 100 aircraft.

Related Content

Air Force Projects Halted by Continuing Resolution Now Move Forward

Jan. 22, 2021
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…

Next F-35 Contracts Under Negotiation, Deal Expected by Late September

Jan. 22, 2021
Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon are negotiating the next three lots of F-35 production, expecting a contract by the end of the fiscal year, the Joint Program Office reported. The negotiating strategy calls for a "base year" contract followed by two options, likely to allow time for development to be…

New Paint Job for Air Force One Not on Biden’s To-Do List, Yet

Jan. 22, 2021
Want to know what the next Air Force One Will look like? You’ll have to wait. Deciding on the color scheme for the VC-25B, which is under development to replace the current VC-25As that serve as Air Force One, is not on the immediate to-do list for President Joe Biden.…

30 Years After Desert Storm: Jan. 23-25

Jan. 22, 2021
In commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, Air Force Magazine is posting daily recollections from the six-week war, which expelled Iraq from occupied Kuwait.

COVID-19 Delays Pentagon’s New Joint Warfighting Plan

Jan. 22, 2021
The coronavirus pandemic has delayed release of the Pentagon’s new joint combat guidelines until the spring, complicating efforts to put the armed forces on the same path to better communication and faster decision-making, the military’s No. 2 officer said Jan. 22. Gen. John E. Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint…

Austin Becomes 1st Black Defense Secretary

Jan. 22, 2021
The Senate on Jan. 21 confirmed Lloyd Austin to become the nation’s first Black Defense Secretary, one day after approving a waiver allowing him to lead the Pentagon just about five years after retiring from Active Duty. Austin, who retired in 2016 as the four-star commander of U.S. Central Command…

DARPA Changing Directors Again in Third Recent Shuffle

Jan. 21, 2021
The Biden administration is reportedly tapping Stefanie Tompkins to run the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, spurring the third leadership change at the secretive Pentagon organization since January 2020. Defense One first reported Tompkins’s “pre-decisional” appointment to the post on Jan. 19. The White House did not respond to a…

Thousands of Guardsmen Remain in Capital Region After Inauguration

Jan. 21, 2021
The National Guard Bureau is working with states to drawdown “close to 15,000” of the nearly 26,000 troops still in the nation's capital following President Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration. Of that total, about 10,600 were still on duty as of the evening of Jan. 21, NGB wrote in a…

30 Years After Desert Storm: Jan. 22

Jan. 21, 2021
In commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, Air Force Magazine is posting daily recollections from the six-week war, which expelled Iraq from occupied Kuwait.