Bye-Bye For Now, KC-X

Bye-Bye For Now, KC-X: Defense Secretary Robert Gates has decided to terminate the current KC-X tanker competition and leave it in the hands of the next Administration to decide how to replace the Air Force’s fleet of Eisenhower-era KC-135s, the Pentagon announced Wednesday morning. Based on talks with senior defense and Air Force officials and with Boeing and Northrop Grumman representatives, Gates said it is no longer thought possible to complete the solicitation process and award a contract by January, especially given the “highly charged environment” surrounding the multi-billion-dollar tanker contest. Rather than hand over “an incomplete and possibly contested process,” the best course of action is “to provide the next Administration with full flexibility regarding the requirements, evaluation criteria, and the appropriate allocation of defense budget” for the new tanker, he said. In making this decision, Gates said DOD had determined that the KC-135 fleet “can be adequately maintained” to satisfy Air Force missions in the near term. Budget adjustments will be made in Fiscal 2009 and beyond “to maintain the KC-135 at high mission capable rates,” according to the announcement. But funding for the KC-X program will remain for the period from Fiscal 2010 to Fiscal 2015 in the budget presently under review.

9/10/2008

Verbatim

Preemptive Action
"Since the [Defense] Department's acceptance of the independent estimates last fall, we've been, in just about every respect, acting as if the program were in a Nunn-McCurdy breach. ... We've been taking all of the mitigating and corrective action that we would take as if there were a Nunn-McCurdy breach."
—Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, discussing with reporters the restructure of the F-35 strike fighter program announced in February 2010 and the probability that the program will soon exceed Nunn-McCurdy cost-monitoring thresholds that would necessitate, per US law, a program review and corrective steps, Washington, D.C., March 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Message for Grandma
"She has working for her as a citizen in the United States an Air Force Reserve that has some very talented, capable, patriotic, and willing individuals doing the business to keep this nation free. Just like her generation—the 'Greatest Generation'—was, I am very proud of the folks that we have got. If not the second greatest, then they are an extension of the greatest generation and they are ready, willing, and able to do the things that she would want them to do to make sure we keep our freedoms."
—Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, Air Force Reserve chief, responding to a reporter's question on what the reporter should tell his 85-year-old grandmother to convey to her the importance of Air Force Reservists to the nation's security, Orlando, Fla., Feb. 19, 2010.