Airforce-Magazine.com: Online journal of the Air Force Association

Daily Report Archive

Almanacs

Perspectives (Articles by Topic)

Enola Gay Controversy

Send Letter to Editor

Air Force photo by A1C Laura Suttles

As the Air Force and Office of the Secretary of Defense gear up to announce the path forward on the KC-X tanker program, lawmakers favoring the Northrop Grumman/EADS KC-30 aircraft are criticizing a bill introduced by supporters of Boeing’s KC-767 that would steer the multibillion-dollar contract award Boeing’s way. Here, six KC-135s, the Eisenhower-era tankers that the KC-X will replace, taxi down a runway during an exercise at McConnell AFB, Kan., Aug. 5, 2007.

Verbatim

To Be Clear
“Just like in my business, the issues that go badly get all of the attention. I think, to be clear with you, there are many things that are managed well every day in the Air Force.”
—John Young, Pentagon acquisition executive, speaking to defense reporters on the state of Air Force acquisition, Washington, D.C., Nov. 20, 2008.

Verbatim

F-22 Options
“They have two choices. On January 21st, they can obligate the $90 million and decide there's some chance ... that they will buy the airplanes and they'd rather preserve the option to buy [them] at no additional cost to the taxpayer. Or, they could chose not to obligate the $90 million and accept that they still have a decision to be made between then and March 1st. But that decision may cost the taxpayer more money.”
—DOD acquisition czar John Young on how releasing only $50 million of the $140 million authorized by Congress to keep the F-22 production line active until March 2009 still preserves options for the new Administration, Capitol Hill, Nov. 19, 2008.