USAF Reiterates Stance Against Split KC-X Buy

USAF Reiterates Stance Against Split KC-X Buy: Changing the already approved strategy to crown a single winner in the KC-X tanker contest and pursue instead a split buy remains highly undesirable and the Air Force has no intention of doing it, a senior USAF official said yesterday (see above), reiterating the service’s staunch position throughout the competition. “If we are going to have a revised acquisition strategy, to start that and redo all of that, will take us anywhere from 18 to 24 months,” Kenneth Miller, special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition Governance and Transparency, told the Senate Tanker Caucus, during a briefing Feb. 14 on Capitol Hill. “If we are trying to get something fielded fast, the current strategy that has been approved is the best strategy we can get.” The Air Force has maintained that, given the imperative to replace Eisenhower-era KC-135s, the most cost effective and expeditious manner to get a new tanker on the flight line is to choose a single winner, either Boeing’s KC-767 or the Northrop Grumman/EADS KC-30, and not procure both. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), founder and co-chair of the caucus, agreed, saying a split buy only “drives up the cost” and “extends the procurement.” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the other caucus co-chair, also shared this view. “I think the answer is obvious,” he said. “We would have two production lines. It would be much more expensive.”

2/15/2008

Verbatim

Busy Year
"We've been to China twice to offer the helping hand of humanitarian aid, and we've delivered supplies to Burma following their devastating hit from Cyclone Nargis. We've provided medical care to the furthest reaches of this theater, and we've rescued countless injured civilians from the waters of the Pacific to the ice sheets of Antarctica. We've trained with international partners at Red Flag-Alaska and during multiple bi-lateral exercises, and our senior officers and senior NCOs alike have engaged with their Chinese military counterparts as we seek to better understand each other. It's been a year of building bridges while maintaining responsive combat airpower. We've done all this with a focus on precision and reliability. That's what our nation expects—anything less would be unacceptable. It's remarkable how our airmen step up time and time again to prove that we are indeed the finest Air Force in the world."
—Gen. Howie Chandler, commander of Pacific Air Forces, in a holiday message to his command, Dec. 29, 2008.

Verbatim

The Key
"The smaller the size of the [nuclear] stockpile, the more important it will be to have confidence in its reliability."
—The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States Interim Report, in which it advocates support to address the aging-out of nuclear weapons and loss of technological expertise, Dec. 15, 2008.