Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: mora on November 24, 2004, 05:27:39 AM
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5301-2004Nov22.html
AIRBUS will surely get it, or no?
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Link needs extra secret user access.
It's pry proprietary info. Drippy will have to kill you if he tells you how he might guess how to join 747 wings the the fuselage.
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So I should register for reading that article?
Thanks but I'll pass.
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Short version: Because a single unethical act by a Boeing executive, Boeing's previously sewed up bid for 100 air refueler tankers is now open to take other bids from other companies (Airbus).
As to Mora's question, possibly, but off the backs of the taxpayers that make up EADS...keep in mind that Airbus underbids (at a loss) Boeing consistently, since it is government subsidized, in order to take business away from Boeing, but at a cost of your tax dollars. Could be the reason why EADS countries' taxes are so high? I don't know...however competition is good, since our taxpayer dollars will be less impacted by competition.
The European military contractor EADS, the parent company to Airbus, has received a helping hand from the U.S. deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz, in its efforts to compete for a U.S. Air Force aerial refueling contract that its rival, Boeing, is also seeking.
It is yet another maneuver in a political battle that has pitted the air force and Boeing on one side against critics who have raised questions and, for the moment, halted Boeing's bid to replace the aerial tankers with specially outfitted Boeing 767 aircraft. The tanker replacement contract could ultimately be worth more than $20 billion.
Writing to Senator John Warner, Republican of Virginia, who is the chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Wolfowitz said that once the studies under way made recommendations for replacing the tanker fleet, "we intend to require competition."
Wolfowitz prefaced this sentence with the phrase "let me be clear" and also noted that a financing plan in which the air force would lease the tankers from Boeing rather than buy them was "not an option" without congressional approval. The leasing option has faced stiff opposition in the Senate.
Wolfowitz's letter, written Friday and widely circulated in Washington on Monday, sets up a possible competition between Boeing and Airbus for a deal that Boeing once appeared to have secured. At the moment, the tanker replacement program is on hold, pending numerous studies.
Boeing has sought the contract as a way to keep its aging 767 manufacturing line alive, while Airbus, which has sold its version of an aerial tanker to other countries, has long been trying to enter the U.S. military market. Lockheed Martin, the largest U.S. military contractor, has said it may consider working with Airbus on a tanker bid.
A Boeing spokesman, Douglas Kennett, said the company would not comment on correspondence between the Pentagon and Congress but said Boeing "looks forward to the competition."
In reality, the Pentagon is studying other options for modernizing the aerial tanker fleet. Among them are leasing tankers from commercial services like Federal Express, repairing and upgrading the existing fleet of KC-135 tankers or buying a limited number of new planes from Boeing, Airbus or both.
"Any competition is good news for the taxpayer," said Keith Ashdown, a military analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government watchdog group. "Even if Boeing is ultimately chosen, competition will reduce the cost Boeing will charge the air force."
The circulation of the Wolfowitz letter came after Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who has long criticized the lease deal, on Friday introduced on the Senate floor e-mail messages suggesting a pro-Boeing bias at the air force, particularly on the part of James Roche, the air force secretary who resigned last week.
In the e-mail messages, Roche was shown orchestrating public relations campaigns on behalf of Boeing, talking to air force officials about how he hoped they would "torture" European Aeronautic Defense & Space, writing "Go Boeing!" and referring to "the fools in Paris and Berlin." EADS is a French-German business consortium.
Roche also talked about wanting to "quash" a Pentagon official critical of the Boeing deal and expressed animosity toward Ralph Crosby, the EADS North American chief executive, who once competed with Roche for the position of president of Northrop Grumman. Neither got the job.
The air force-Boeing tanker proposal was derailed last October after a former air force weapons buyer, Darleen Druyun, admitted to favoring Boeing in the tanker deal while she was negotiating a job contract with the company.
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Cheaper overseas, you voted for Bush, you should be all for outsourcing.
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Originally posted by Sixpence
Cheaper overseas, you voted for Bush, you should be all for outsourcing.
Not sure how you came to that deduction. I'm curious as to your thought process.
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Originally posted by Sixpence
Cheaper overseas, you voted for Bush, you should be all for outsourcing.
IIRC the production plant will be here in the USA!
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
IIRC the production plant will be here in the USA!
And there we have the gist of it all. We also have "insourcing" of jobs from foreign companies such as Toyota, BMW and Honda. Honda has been employing Ohioans for 25 years. We have 6.4 million insourced jobs in the United States in the last 10 years.
On paper, it appears that insourcing has been hugely successful in counterbalancing outsourcing: From 1988 to 2001, the number of American jobs lost to outsourcing was matched by an almost equal number of jobs, 3.4 million, attributed to foreign companies coming to the United States. And these jobs tend to pay on the high side of the pay scale.
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That's all good and well when you ignore what types of jobs being exported vs those being imported.
Get a degree in Computer Science, you primarily use a screwdriver at work.
-SW
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Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
That's all good and well when you ignore what types of jobs being exported vs those being imported.
Get a degree in Computer Science, you primarily use a screwdriver at work.
-SW
well what else do you THINK a computer science grad would be doing other than fixing computers?
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That's not what I meant, but actually - computer science degrees are primarily software related.
-SW
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Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
That's not what I meant, but actually - computer science degrees are primarily software related.
-SW
so instead of installing and cleaning hard drives they'll be installing and cleaning windows instead! ;)
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Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
That's all good and well when you ignore what types of jobs being exported vs those being imported.
Get a degree in Computer Science, you primarily use a screwdriver at work.
-SW
As soon as the Prime Minister in India declared in 1990 that "India will become the software capital of the world" and began programs where even the poor could get free college educations in Computer Science degrees, that industry had its long-term tombstone written on it in advance.
The jobs that come in tend to pay on the high side of the wage scale compared to what goes out, if you consider all jobs from textiles to chips.
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It doesn't matter what they pay if you aren't skilled in the imported jobs compared to the exported jobs.
-SW
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Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
It doesn't matter what they pay if you aren't skilled in the imported jobs compared to the exported jobs.
-SW
Doesn't matter what they pay you if you don't have a job because the company can no longer be globally competitive. It will soon be out of business if it fails to be globally competitive.
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Ohhhhhkay... it's not greed, indeed it's "being globally competitive". Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
-SW
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Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
Ohhhhhkay... it's not greed, indeed it's "being globally competitive". Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
-SW
Those are your words, not mine. While I'm confident that restoring shareholder value ranks right up there when making business decisions, there are plenty that do it to prevent to go under... Do you want an example? I have plenty to reference from.
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Humans are irrevocably competitive by nature. Whether within a nation that values free enterprise or between socialistic nations there will always be a scrambling to improve one's position. Those fooled into thinking we can all be equal if we simply give up greed or our instinct to compete will find themselves at the bottom of the struggle to survive.
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It doesn't matter how many examples you cite Ripsnort, you tried to downplay the outsourcing of certain jobs by saying that imported jobs pay more.
I clearly stated that it doesn't matter what they pay if you can't do the job while the one you could do and were good at is exported.
-SW
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Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
It doesn't matter how many examples you cite Ripsnort, you tried to downplay the outsourcing of certain jobs by saying that imported jobs pay more.
I clearly stated that it doesn't matter what they pay if you can't do the job while the one you could do and were good at is exported.
-SW
I've had 4 major career changes (involving going back to school, and training) in 26 years in the work force. Its better to know alittle about everything, than alot about one thing...
Bottom line is, you must be flexible in todays workforce. There is no "job for life" and its certain what you do today is not what you will be doing 10 years from now.
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Anyway, back to the subject matter...my prediction is that the US Government need for Aerial tankers will be reduced, and that Airbus will get some of the orders (out of a "Nation mending" mentality on behalf of the U.S. with France) and Boeing will get some orders. Either way, Boeing is the loser since we're talking that the original contract would have amounted to 20 billion!
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Cripes ammighty.
If they don't buy all Boeing tankers, they're absolutely nuts.
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I agree.
Airbus is just France's way of saying to the world "why buy US made planes when you can buy European ones. (Forget the ones that crashed at the airshows, we have figgured out those problems)."
The day the French airforce flys Boeing made tankers the US should consider Airbus. The game is seriously flawed and dirty. Boeing does not stand a chance in getting any business from France so why give France US government business?
Having said that I think there is not a chance in hell the US will taint it's airforce with an Airbus. I think this is just a tactic to get a better deal out of Boeing.
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Originally posted by Toad
Cripes ammighty.
If they don't buy all Boeing tankers, they're absolutely nuts.
Why?
:confused:
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I agree. They have to buy boeing tankers. Get a better deal from boeing by "competing" but buy boeing.
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
As to Mora's question, possibly, but off the backs of the taxpayers that make up EADS...keep in mind that Airbus underbids (at a loss) Boeing consistently, since it is government subsidized, in order to take business away from Boeing, but at a cost of your tax dollars. Could be the reason why EADS countries' taxes are so high? I don't know...however competition is good, since our taxpayer dollars will be less impacted by competition.
Under a 1992 transatlantic agreement covering government support for the two aircraft manufacturers, European governments were allowed to finance up to 33 percent of Airbus's development costs for new aircraft.
The Japanese govt. is going to give the Boeing 7E7 program (a key industrial partner) substantial support through financing japanese companies which are to build 35% of the aircraft structure.
Airbus consider that only this Japanese and US govt. support makes the 7E7 project viable.
Tronsky
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
Anyway, back to the subject matter...my prediction is that the US Government need for Aerial tankers will be reduced, and that Airbus will get some of the orders (out of a "Nation mending" mentality on behalf of the U.S. with France) and Boeing will get some orders. Either way, Boeing is the loser since we're talking that the original contract would have amounted to 20 billion!
The original deal was nothing more than "Corporation Welfare". The taxpayers were gonna get screwed to the tune of $20 Billion for the luxury of leasing some B767's from Boeing. Now don't get me wrong, I believe that Boeing should get the contract, just not at an over inflated cost to me, the taxpayer. The original deal stunk to high heaven and also showed the corporate corruption/influence peddling that is prevalent in the pentagon (cost a deputy director of the Air Force , procurement official I believe, her job and a federal conviction to boot). The book "Boyce" by Robert Coram gives a pretty good look at the disconnection between the Pentagon and the troops in the field.
Just my $.02 worth Source (http://www.avweb.com/newswire/9_36a/briefs/185597-1.html)
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
As to Mora's question, possibly, but off the backs of the taxpayers that make up EADS...keep in mind that Airbus underbids (at a loss) Boeing consistently, since it is government subsidized, in order to take business away from Boeing, but at a cost of your tax dollars. Could be the reason why EADS countries' taxes are so high? I don't know...however competition is good, since our taxpayer dollars will be less impacted by competition.
This issue will be decided by the WTO in the near future, and it might well be that AI is not the only losing party.
If anyone's interested in this subject it has been debated to the death in this (http://www.airliners.net/discussions/) site.
Staga, I didn't register and the link shows just fine.
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They should replace those POS F-16's with Rafale's while they are at it.
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Originally posted by Habu
I agree.
Airbus is just France's way of saying to the world "why buy US made planes when you can buy European ones. (Forget the ones that crashed at the airshows, we have figgured out those problems)."
Originally posted by Toad
Cripes ammighty.
If they don't buy all Boeing tankers, they're absolutely nuts.
Are you implying that Airbus aircraft are somehow worse aircraft? Both are pretty much equal products in almost all areas, some Airbus products are better than competing Bpeing products and vice versa. Too bad there's only 2 manufacturers these days.
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Does anyone find it ironic that the US Government would put illegal (by WTO standards) tarrifs and subsidies in place to protect the US Forestry, Steel, Lamb, and Beef industries but when it comes to these aircraft they actually think about giving the order to France?
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Well I'd say there's more than two; Tupolev is manufacturing a narrow body Tu-200 series and Iljushin is selling their widebody Il-96 passengerplanes.
AFAIK both can be fitted with western avionics and engines.
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Originally posted by CavPuke
The original deal was nothing more than "Corporation Welfare". The taxpayers were gonna get screwed to the tune of $20 Billion for the luxury of leasing some B767's from Boeing. Now don't get me wrong, I believe that Boeing should get the contract, just not at an over inflated cost to me, the taxpayer. The original deal stunk to high heaven and also showed the corporate corruption/influence peddling that is prevalent in the pentagon (cost a deputy director of the Air Force , procurement official I believe, her job and a federal conviction to boot). Just my $.02 worth Source (http://www.avweb.com/newswire/9_36a/briefs/185597-1.html)
We're in 100% agreement.
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Originally posted by Habu
The day the French airforce flys Boeing made tankers the US should consider Airbus.
The French purchased 12 KC-135F's from Boeing in 1963-64. http://www.uswarplanes.net/kc135.htm France also purchased several E-3A Sentry AWACS aircraft. http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/infoelect/awacs/fre3.html
Ironically, Air France is one of Boeing's best customers for the 777.
Regarding an EADS sourced Tanker for the US military, it is highly likely that only the basic airframe will be built in Europe. They will probably partner with a US supplier (Lockheed? Northrop?) who will perform a tanker conversion in the US. Such a bid would be competitive since Europe is unlikely to subsidize a US company with European tax dollars. Such subsidies are usually given to companies as incentives to help keep Europeans employed.
MiG
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The tankers were purchased in the days before there was a French alternative to American made tankers.
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I'm against buying our next tankers from Airbus. My reason is that I don't trust the French. What if the US was to go into a conflext, war that the French doesn't support? So would they contenue build and sell our new tanker fleet and well as part for support? I don't think so. Look at the way they have been under cutting us just depo-ly, I cann't spell it). When Iseral went to war in '67, they had 5 Mirage fighters built,painted and paid for but France impargoed the aircraft.
If we couldn't use what we have because we couldn't get parts for the tankers, the taxpayers wasted alot of money.
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Originally posted by firbal
I'm against buying our next tankers from Airbus. My reason is that I don't trust the French.
Airbus is not just the French. It's a cooperative of many European companies. Spain, United Kingdom, and Germany also share in 15 some manufacturing and assembly sites. Many other European countries have companies that share in subcontractor roles.
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Ripsnort
Liberalism's crowning achievement was the New Deal and its last hurrah the Great Society. But those were decades ago, when the Democratic Party's liberalism reflected the values and hopes of most Americans. In the years since, it has drifted ever farther from the American middle class. To be a liberal in America today, you might think, is not to be an American at all. As one conservative has written, there are Americans and there are liberals. Which is to say: If you are American -- a real American -- then, by definition, you are conservative.
George W. Bush--draft dodger, deserter
George McGovern--DFC
Any questions?
"While it is true that not all conservatives are stupid people, it is also true that most stupid people are conservative." John Stuart Mill
http://www.****thesouth.com
replace the asterisks with a fourletter word that starts with 'f'
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Short answers, can't sit long.
Boeing has by far the most experience in building aerial refueling platforms. They've been the innovators from the start.
Boeing builds a "belts and suspenders" airplane. They are overengineered; there are backups to the backup to the primary. I can't tell you how many times in my career I blessed Boeing engineers. OTOH, Airbus tends the other way; they're built to meet the minimum requirements.
Lastly, my brother was on final, in the WX a PHL in a US Air A-330. The Captain was the pilot flying; inside the marker, the Captains EFIS screens all went blank. My brother assumed control. About 30 seconds later, my brother's EFIS screens went blank. By the book, this is "impossible". It just can't happen. Just as the "oh SHIRT!!" echoes died out in the cockpit, my brother's EFIS came back to life.
Neither the Airbus or Maintenance guys could explain how that happened....... so it was eventually ignored.
Sorry guys. Boeing only for me. They're overbuilt, overengineered and they always brought me home.
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Nice post Toad. Yeah, they have alittle engineering background in building tough aircraft that always get you home.
(http://www.daveswarbirds.com/b-17/galloway.jpg)
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Hey Toad!
Nothing on topic to comment on, but just happy to see a post from you.
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Well it looks to me like Boeing and the USAF got caught kissing behind the barn.
Let both companies compete for the contract. I tend to favor Boeing but let the best plane/concept win.
Skip the Boeing/Made in the USA bias for once.
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Boeing might have to cut some middle management pork to stay competitive and not rely on corporate welfare, corrupt politicians and espionage, the irony.
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It makes no sense for the USA to buy outside it's borders for defence equipment. Ok you may save a few bucks short term on the price but you're sending that money overseas - then perhaps having to pay welfare to redundant Boeing workers ??? That makes no sense. AND it's mostly French workers who will benefit. AND when you want that urgent modification or new widget you have to wait for the EADS meeting machine to go through it's processes to get agreement from all the parties involved in triplicate and not in August coz the're all on holiday ..........
Get real - if you're going to spend the money - spend the money at home.
As for competition - well the UK government is NOW of the opinion that single source tendering is best ..... why ?? well surprise surprise when you have competition price is the major factor and once the contract is signed companies suddenly find they can't build what they said for the price and so they cut corners (there's a shock) - then you have poor quality equipment defending your country and the companies who built it going bust and having to be bailed out using money no-one had planned on spending (look up Nimrod 2, EuroFighter, Trident etc etc.). So better to pay more and get the job done right - another blinding flash of the bleeding obvious .....
Toad Lastly, my brother was on final, in the WX a PHL in a US Air A-330. The Captain was the pilot flying; inside the marker, the Captains EFIS screens all went blank. My brother assumed control. About 30 seconds later, my brother's EFIS screens went blank. By the book, this is "impossible". It just can't happen. Just as the "oh SHIRT!!" echoes died out in the cockpit, my brother's EFIS came back to life.
Neither the Airbus or Maintenance guys could explain how that happened....... so it was eventually ignored.
Unfortunately a known problem - thing is all these displays are not dumb CRT's - they are smart units with addresses on the databus. now one PFD coughs and loses it's address - all the others then say "hang on - xxaa446 has gone so who the hell am I now ??" . A PFD being smart but not THAT smart decides it doesn't know and reboots to tell the FMGC to give it a new address - as do all of it's mates - result black cockpit for 3 minutes. Seems like approach is the favourite time - airline I have been with from July to Nov has had 2 or 3 occurances this year on A320/321. Airbus released new software in summer that was " the fix of all fixes" and then it happened again. When I left at end of Oct they were waiting for another S/W release.
I have got other S/W tales of a Boeing type as well ;) - there are certain holding pattern entries into heathrow that produce "interesting" results on auto.