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EADS Still Eyes USAF Tanker Bid, But Entry Point Remains Murky
The U.S. KC-135 tanker replacement program may be in limbo, but EADS is keeping its eye firmly on the developments in the hope of jumping back into a competition it had been sidelined from.
The KC-X program is currently on hold after Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld requested a series of studies before deciding how to proceed. The latest twist is that House and Senate defense authorizers just decided to include $100 million for Fiscal 2005 in the Pentagon's budget, with a suggestion U.S. industrial base concerns should be considered as a supplier choice is made. However, in a bit of good news for EADS, the report stops short of mandating a KC-767 solution.
EADS North America chief Ralph Crosby says the company's A330-based tanker offering is moving ahead. Moreover, with recent wins internationally "our credibility as a supplier continues to grow," he adds. The digital fly-by-wire refueling probe system the company is devising should begin test flights early next year.
What's less than clear is if EADS will have a shot of the first 100 aircraft, after Boeing was given the nod before the program stalled. Crosby concedes there is no definite entry point visible at the moment, although one could emerge once the ongoing analysis-of-alternatives is complete.
EADS is keeping quiet about some of the details of how it would bid the U.S. program. The company has said it would assemble the tanker in the U.S., but KC-767 supporters have charged the assembly work would be menial labor. Crosby says EADS is aware the U.S. would expect to get "meaningful work" and that any bid would accommodate that. How, he won't say, citing "competitive pressures." However, he hinted there could be a big role for a U.S. systems integrator because the tanker is supposed to be a node in the U.S. Air Force's emerging network-centric warfare concept.
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