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

No Dog, Just Concern
"You know it concerns me that we keep hearing, 'Well this is something that the military doesn't want. They didn't ask for,' and all that. Then I go over there [Southwest Asia theater], and that's not their attitude at all. They have needs over there. Our lift capacity is in dire straights. … Now on the F-22—just yesterday we read about the T-50 … a fifth generation [fighter] that the Russians have. … I'm concerned about this. And I guess, you know, if we're down to 187 F-22s, and I think out of that only—what 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat. … I look at our committee—the Senate Armed Services Committee—and on these two vehicles I mentioned—the F-22 and the C-17—in Oklahoma. I don't have a dog in that fight. We don't have any parochial interest there. But it's the capability that we're going to need."
—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), speaking during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Fiscal 2011 defense budget, Feb. 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Taming Expectations
"Every QDR disappoints those who look for radical reallocation of resources. The current fiscal environment is compounding that trend."
—Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefing reporters in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2010.