[jonathankoren]

You would think right?

For a parallel, let's look at the state of the USAF tanker fleet ("Nobody kicks ass without tanker gas!") The workhorse of the fleet is the pride of 1957, the KC-135. They're old, and so the Air Force wants to replace them, with the KC-46, which is pretty much a Boeing 767 but with seats replaced with big gas tank, and boom off the back. The 767 isn't a new airframe, it's a 30 year old design. And aerial refueling isn't a new technology either. Afterall, the plane that's being replaced has been in service for almost 60 years. Proven airframe. Proven technology. This is a slam dunk right?

Well, no. The KC-46 keeps getting delayed.[1] It's essentially too complicated and too flashy. For exampe, Boeing is ditching the tried and true, and dirt simple system of guiding refueling booms by having a guy look at a window and put the boom into the receptacle, and instead go with some unproven system using an occulus rift and stereo cameras. Why? I don't know. I guess because it's "high tech".

And do you want to know the most damning part of all? Boeing currently sells the KC-767, a refueling tanker based on the 767 airframe, that not only works, but is cheaper than the KC-46, and available today!

It's almost as bad as the F-35 debacle, but not quite.

Honestly, I don't think the military knows how to buy anything, and the contractors take advantage of that. It's Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex writ large.

[1] http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/broken-booms-why-is-it-so-h... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-46_Pegasus

[antubbs]

The hilarious thing is that the KC-46 is basically a means of keeping the Boeing 767 production line open and operating and producing airplanes even though Boeing has replaced it with the 777 and 787 for commercial customers. They may be new production aircraft, but they are not modern in any sense of the word. See also: The POTUS being about the only customer actually interested in purchasing the 747-8i these days.

[engi_nerd]

Question: is Boeing pushing this high tech approach, or are they just designing and building to match a requirement?

In other words, is the government dumb enough to ask for it and pay for it, or is Boeing just out to lunch?

[jonathankoren]

That's a good question. Either way, it doesn't look good for the military. Either they're snowed or stupid.

[engi_nerd]

A lot of what I see large defense contractors get attacked for is just them simply giving the government what the government asks for. Now, that doesn't mean the big guys are or should be immune from criticism. But they're not going to ignore a big pile of money to do something, even if that something is dumb. The days of Kelly Johnson sending money back to the government because "we're building you a real dog" are (sadly) over.

[SHIT_TALKER]

Don't forget Eisenhower's original wording described it as the military-industrial-congressional complex. The KC-X would be flying if the original contract to EADS had not been scuttled by Congress:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC-X

[lotharbot]

The original contract to EADS was scuttled because of the Government Accountability Office, which found that the selection process had been handled improperly -- specifically, that the Air Force "did not assess the relative merits of the proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria identified in the solicitation", and that the Air Force "conducted misleading and unequal discussions with Boeing" [0].

I lived in Seattle at the time, and it was widely remarked by Boeing IDS employees that the protest Boeing filed was a remarkably unusual step. They lose out on contracts all the time and just move on to the next thing; it's generally considered bad form for a defense contractor to throw a fit about losing out on a contract. But there were a lot of shenanigans, as detailed in the GAO report, which is why the decision was ultimately reversed.

[0] http://web.archive.org/web/20080625201918/http://www.king5.c...