Air Force justified in playing
'tanker chicken' with Congress
By Scott Hunter
(for Mobile Bay Times)
The U.S. Air Force is now justifiably playing "tanker chicken" with Congress over the Government Accountability Office's ruling for Boeing and against Northrop Grumman/EADS in the $40 billion refueling tanker competition and possible future "funding" issue if some members of Congress are not happy with the eventual outcome.
*See the announcement below made yesterday by Air Force's Air Mobility Command (currently commanded by the designated next Chief of Staff of the Air Force).
Sudden Early Retirement: Air Mobility Command disclosed June 25 that it plans to retire all its
remaining KC-135Es by the end of
September. As recently as February,
the plan had been to ask Congress to
let just 38 of the oldest tankers go,
with the rest serving out their time
until retirement by about 2016 or so --
about when the first KC-X tankers
were to have reported for duty to
replace them.
AMC did not immediately provide an explanation as to why it had so sharply moved up the timetable on the KC-135E's exit. There are 86 E models in the total active Inventory, including active, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve aircraft.
A spokesman for the command said that KC-135E personnel will be shifted to the KC-135R to help that aircraft "mitigate the shortage of tankers" until the KC-X begins to come on line. AMC said it will have to endure "a temporary shortage of tanker aircraft in inventory."
The spokesman said the decision to retire the KC-135Es was
irrespective of the
recent delay in the
KC-X contract.
The GAO last week
recommended setting
aside the KC-X
contract, upholding
Boeing's protest that
the competition was
fraught with mistakes
that unfairly favored the winner, Northrop Grumman/EADS. The Air Force has until Aug. 15 to declare its intentions about how it will proceed with the tanker replacement process.
Congress can gum up the tanker acquisition process through the recent GAO ruling, but they can't order the Air Force to fly "unsafe" airplanes.
I flew in and was given a turn at the controls of a KC-135 several years ago (I'm a 3500+ hour Instrument Rated Pilot). On the pre-flight walk around the crew chief and I noticed an inspection plate was missing from the wing leaving a six-inch hole. I shook my head in disbelief as the crew chief covered it with duct tape to, as he told me, "legally" get us off the ground (I must admit that I thought about that "hole in the wing" as I made very gentle turns and banks while piloting).
The KC-135's cockpit had the same "old, obsolete and worn-out" look I observed on a Russian Tupelov Aeroflot airliner I flew on in early 1990's on a Sister City visit to Rostov-on-Don in the then-Soviet Union. Frankly I had a more modern looking cockpit and instruments in the 1980 Cessna 182RG I owned at the time than the either the KC-135 or the Russian airliner.
Delaying the tanker is turning into a dangerous game for the nation's security, the crews flying them, and more personally the pilots, such as my son-in-law who is flying F-16's with the 187th Fighter Wing AL Air National Guard unit in Montgomery. The fact that he is refueling his fighter from old and possibly unsafe Tankers does not comfort me when I think about daughter Mary Scott (who is a JAG Major in the same unit and knows the risks) raising my three grandchildren without a husband/father because of some mishap caused by aged out Eisenhower era tankers.
I believe the Air Force is making the right move by finally using this "chicken" strategy to force Congress to address this tanker issue immediately and get the replacements coming.
At this point, if I could wave the Wizard of Oz "magic wand," my decision would be to put the competition aside and immediately contract with both Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS to build tankers at the fastest possible pace. This would allow the Air Force to start replacing the aforementioned KC-135E's being retired ... before we have another incident like the Missouri Air Guard F-15 that broke up in flight ... except this time it could could involve a tanker crew and its refueling recipient (possibly a brand new F-22, F-35, or expensive B-2) and crew ... and civilians on the ground.
Perhaps Secretary of Defense Robert Gates already has a "magic wand" idea in mind to resolve this issue. Let's hope so because I'm just not a "critic." I've got some skin in this serious game of "tanker chicken."
(Scott Hunter, an account executive with Raymond James Financial here in Mobile, served with the Alabama/Wisconsin Air National Guard/1970-1976; was a recent attendee of the Air War College National Security Forum at Maxwell AFB (nominated by U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions); and is the father/father-in-law of two Air Force Majors both with 10 years of active service and both now serving in the Alabama Air National Guard.)
