The KC-767 Advanced Tanker developed by Boeing was sized to meet the aerial refueling requirements of the U.S. Air Force’s mission and exceeded performance requirements to replace the aging, yet storied fleet of KC-135 medium tankers.

Despite the fact that the stated parameters for evaluating the aircraft said no extra credit would be assigned for exceeding certain requirement objectives, the Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) team received such credit. As a result, the oversized Airbus A330-based KC-30 was selected. Boeing has protested the decision to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

According to the Statement of Objectives for the KC-X program, the primary mission of the new tanker would be aerial refueling rather than hauling cargo or transporting passengers. In order to meet the documented mission requirements, Boeing offered the KC-767, which efficiently fulfills the vital mission of a mid-sized aerial refueling fleet while also exceeding the highest requirements for airlift, passenger and aeromedical evacuation capabilities.

“Tanker flight crews are asked to bring the right amount of fuel to the fight in the most efficient, reliable manner, and the KC-767 meets that fundamental requirement,” said Mark McGraw, vice president, Boeing Tanker Programs. “Asking these aircrews to fly longer missions in larger, less survivable planes with more fuel capacity than needed and vast amounts of unused cargo and passenger space just doesn’t add up.

“The Boeing KC-767 exceeded the requirements in a manner that still kept the plane right-sized and efficient,” McGraw said. “Our competition likes to talk about offering more, more, more — but in reality, the KC-30 will cost more to operate, more to maintain, and more to house, with the U.S. taxpayer footing the bill.”

A larger plane — like the KC-30 tanker offered by Northrop Grumman and EADS — simply results in wasted capacity, wasted efficiency and wasted taxpayer dollars.

Northrop Grumman asserts that it has built and passed fuel through its boom refueling system for the KC-30. The company goes on to say the aerial refueling boom system it offered has also performed in-flight refueling.

But do the facts fully support these claims?

First of all, Northrop Grumman has NEVER built or tested an aerial refueling boom. All of the KC-30 refueling boom technology resides in Spain, inside the offices of European, Aeronautic, Defense and Space Company.

What’s more, EADS overstates its experience and its achievements in the world of military refueling booms.

Fact No. 1: Contrary to the impression NG/EADS has attempted to create, EADS has never passed fuel through a boom attached to its A330 aircraft –the platform upon which the KC-30 would be built – while in flight. EADS has been flying a boom on an A310 demonstrator that company engineers were hoping to have fully qualified by the end of 2006. That didn’t happen. The first dry contact with an F-16 was made in late 2007 and it finally passed fuel to an F-16 in late February 2008. What’s more, questions persist about how the boom actually performed in flight as only still photography had been released from the flight, until 43 seconds of edited video were released by Northrop two months after the test flight.

Fact No. 2: The first A330 tanker for the Australian Air Force has been flying with its boom stowed. It has yet to deploy the boom in flight. And the only time fuel has been passed through the boom was when sitting on the ground.

Fact No. 3: The tanker competition assessment of the EADS boom expressed concerns that it may never work. In fact, it identified three “weaknesses” with the approach. In contrast, Boeing has successfully built, tested and delivered 5 generations of refueling booms. Its 6th generation boom, the baseline in its Air Force tanker bid, is an incrementally improved derivative of the 5th generation boom flying today on the KC-767J tankers that were delivered to Japan earlier this year. Boeing successfully tested the 5th generation boom first with a B-52 and then moved onto day- and night-time operations with fighter aircraft.

Fact No. 4: Clearing a boom requires extensive flight testing at different refueling aircraft weights, airspeeds, altitudes and lighting conditions such as daytime and nighttime. What’s more, one of the most challenging parts is fielding a boom that can safely maneuver quickly when needed in situations like an emergency breakaway and also be able to be precisely controlled to be guided into the receptacle. This challenge gets harder as the boom gets bigger. With thousands of tankers built and generations of boom-building experience, Boeing has proven repeatedly it knows how to get this job done.

Boeing released a new tanker ad last week. This latest ad makes a compelling case by highlighting the decision inconsistencies in the areas of production risk, cost risk, and experience/schedule risk under the continuing theme “The Tanker Decision. Why It Doesn’t Add Up.”

When a Boeing KC-767 and an EADS/Airbus KC-30 are flying side by side, the KC-30 is burning 24% more fuel than the KC-767. That’s physics, as the KC-30 is a significantly larger aircraft. The KC-767 fuel savings over a 40 year period, and these aircraft will likely be used longer, is approximately $30B at today’s fuel prices. And we all know the direction fuel prices will be going in the future. By burning this extra fuel, the KC-30 will also have significantly higher greenhouse gas emissions, a fact that should not be ignored.

In response to these facts, Northrop Grumman likes to reference the Aerial Refueling Efficiency (AFE) metric, which is a very different metric. The AFE metric was an attempt by the government to compare different sized tankers and was calculated as:

AFE = (Fuel Off-Loaded) ÷ (Fuel Off-Loaded + Fuel Burned)

Fuel off-load in the above is the actual amount of fuel transferred to aircraft in flight, what are called “receivers”. The key to the formula though is what is the assumed fuel off-load? Decades of tanker operations show that a typical off-load is in the 60,000 – 70,000 lb range. Using this as the assumed off-load; the KC-767 has a higher efficiency metric. One could also use the off-load requirements as defined by the government in their requirements for this competition as this also reflects reality of actual operations. At any point on the range/off-load curve defined by the government, and even above it, the KC-767 has a higher efficiency metric. Finally, if one looks at the actual results of the real life refueling scenarios that were part of the Integrated Fleet Aerial Refueling Assessment, the typical off-load from either the KC-767 or KC-30 were in line with history, and the requirements, and again the KC-767 has the higher AFE metric. The KC-30 only generates the higher efficiency metric when it flies to a range and off-loads a full load with just enough fuel to get back to base, an extremely rare event.

An analogy would be that Northrop would argue a Chevy Suburban carrying 8 people is more fuel efficient than a Chevy Malibu carrying 2 – 3 people as the fuel burn per person might actually be less. But we all know that the Suburban is burning more fuel than the Malibu as they drive side by side down the road. With 1 or 2 people in the Suburban, the most likely scenario 98% of the time, the “right-sized” Malibu is more efficient.

The super-sized capacity of the KC-30 is not capability, it is just waste.

Mark McGraw