Kansas Quietly Supports Boeing

The Boeing plant located in Wichita has a long and distinguished history of supporting that company’s military programs. It is safe to assume that if Boeing does win the KC-X contract that some of the work will be done there. That means that Kansas’ leaders are very interested in Boeing winning the deal. In the spirit of this it was reported that the Kansas Governor, Mark Parkinson, recently met with the Air Force Secretary. The former Governor of the state, Kathleen Sebelius, is now a cabinet secretary in the Obama Administration which certainly allows for some low key lobbying.

With the continued economic problems facing the country good manufacturing jobs are hard to come by and this means that mayors, governors and legislators will all be doing their part to support the different bidders in this process.

UK Budget Woes Affecting Eurofighter

The Eurofighter program is coming up for the next production buy. England, Germany, Italy and Spain are all planning to buy new aircraft with this batch. The original plan was to buy just over one hundred aircraft for about $180 billion. England was expected to buy sixteen. Now England’s budget problems is leading the Brown government to consider not participating in this purchase.

This decision is being fought by the other nations as a reduction in the quantity will increase the price for all of the them. England wants to negotiate a cheaper price for the aircraft. It doesn’t help that a great deal of high quality manufacturing jobs are based on this program across Europe. Few countries can face more unemployment in the current world economic situation.

The Eurofighter TYphoon is facing much of the same opposition that the F-22 is with some saying it is not the type of aircraft needed for today’s war on terror. The fact that it is the most expensive aircraft in Europe also is not helping. The European aviation industry is struggling right now with the A400M program and a possible cancellation of that. For England to back out of its Eurofighter commitment would only add to the problems.

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