Double Up

Double Up: Rebecca Grant, dire

ctor of the Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies, said yesterday that a simultaneous “dual buy” of two commercial tanker aircraft—now “on the table” in Congress—would be more affordable than the Defense Department suggests. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been steadfastly opposed to the idea of buying new tankers from more than one supplier, calling it “bad public policy,” “bad acquisition policy,” and a “bad deal” for taxpayers. Last month, he even claimed that such an approach would hike tanker recapitalization costs by $7 billion to $14 billion in just the next five years. Grant, however, speaking in Arlington, Va., at the rollout of the Mitchell Institute’s new paper, The Tanker Imperative, sees it differently. A dual buy, she said, would allow for the retirement of cost-intensive KC-135s faster and avoid a massive re-skinning of that fleet circa 2018. “A prompt tanker buy,” she continued, “hedges against a KC-135 [fleet-grounding] failure.” Grant distinguished between a dual buy, one that would produce more tankers faster, and a “split buy,” in which two companies would each compete to build a smaller share of aircraft, calling the latter approach inherently inefficient and wasteful. A dual-build would enhance price competition and offers more options for replacement of other widebody types, such as AWACS or RC-135, she noted.

—John A. Tirpak

5/1/2009

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.