{"id":197063,"date":"2008-03-04T18:15:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-04T23:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/03\/04\/its-getting-ugly-over-tanker-decision\/"},"modified":"2008-03-04T18:15:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-04T23:15:00","slug":"its-getting-ugly-over-tanker-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/03\/04\/its-getting-ugly-over-tanker-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s Getting Ugly Over Tanker Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I do not doubt that the A330 was technically superior.<\/p>\n<p>The airframe and avionics are newer, the manufacturing techniques are more advanced, and the airframe is larger.<\/p>\n<p>The reason I did not expect it to win was because of the USAF generals who wanted sweet retirement packages with Boeing, and the inevitable outrage from Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Well, the sh%$ storm is here, care of Eisenhower&#8217;s military-industrial complex.<\/p>\n<p>You can get a good Cliff Notes version of what is going on <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/nm\/20080302\/bs_nm\/usa_airforce_tanker_dc_1\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, a few years back, Boeing offered a lease deal which was really pretty awful.  This deal was negotiated by a Pentagon official who was also negotiating with Boeing for a job as a VP.<\/p>\n<p>John McCain looked at the deal, and smelled a rat, and for once, and it&#8217;s rare for him, he was right, so the contract was canceled, and a new one was put out for bid.<\/p>\n<p>And now EADS has won with a clearly better plane, one that is already on order from a number of countries.<\/p>\n<p>This won&#8217;t stop the poo from flying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I do not doubt that the A330 was technically superior. The airframe and avionics are newer, the manufacturing techniques are more advanced, and the airframe is larger. The reason I did not expect it to win was because of the USAF generals who wanted sweet retirement packages with Boeing, and the inevitable outrage from Congress. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1007,998,970,1008],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-congress","category-corruption","category-defense-procurement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}