This was not unexpected.
A political football for years, this struggle has left a string of bodies in its wake, not the least of which was one of the finest 4-stars (scroll down to Para 5) I ever had the distinct pleasure to work with. Alas, he got caught in the kill sack between the Pentagon, Air Force and the *cough* Congress.
Both sides have legit issues and the whole thing was a chocolate mess from the start--and trust me, I'm no friend of Boeing--but the Airbus, in my humble opinion, couldn't do all the things it should have been able to do.
Finally, and I'll do a little more digging to back this up, but I wouldn't trust a French company any farther than I could throw their headquarters building when it comes to maintaining any semblance of security on the KC-30s vulnerabilities. That little list would be emailed to Moscow, Beijing and Teheran before the first jet was on the ramp.
A political football for years, this struggle has left a string of bodies in its wake, not the least of which was one of the finest 4-stars (scroll down to Para 5) I ever had the distinct pleasure to work with. Alas, he got caught in the kill sack between the Pentagon, Air Force and the *cough* Congress.
Both sides have legit issues and the whole thing was a chocolate mess from the start--and trust me, I'm no friend of Boeing--but the Airbus, in my humble opinion, couldn't do all the things it should have been able to do.
Finally, and I'll do a little more digging to back this up, but I wouldn't trust a French company any farther than I could throw their headquarters building when it comes to maintaining any semblance of security on the KC-30s vulnerabilities. That little list would be emailed to Moscow, Beijing and Teheran before the first jet was on the ramp.
Then at least, Euro-taxpayers will be subsidizing *our* defense expenditures...
They did.
Geez, Dusty - I'm just looking for the silver lining, not making recommendations!
Snerk!
Damn, dipped out again.