Boeing Confirms Use Of Wichita Facility If KC-X Won

November 18, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Congress, KC-X, KC-X Tanker News, Kansas, Syndicated Industry News 

Boeing’s (BA) Wichita, KS plant has supported may of their military programs over the years. In their last bid for the KC-X proposal the 767 aircraft would have been modified to become the new tanker there. In October the company would no longer make that commitment to using the Wichita plant. The company had discussed using a lower cost plant to do the work with an eye to lowering their overall cost. This obviously was a blow to the employees and the political supporters of the work being done there.

Now Boeing announced yesterday that at least some of the military conversion of the aircraft will be carried out in Wichita. This will gain them even further support from some key Senators and Congressmen as well as there unions. In many ways the company had no real choice. The Wichita plant has long been established, can do the work and needs it. The announcement makes sense at this time.n

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Wichita Waits On The KC-X

October 14, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Syndicated Industry News 

Boeing has maintained a facility at Wichita, KS for years. In their last proposal for the KC-X Boeing planned on using this plant to do the military conversions of the aircraft as it has for so many others in the past. Unfortunately with the new proposal Boeing no longer makes that guarantee. They are trying to minimize their total cost and that may require the use of another site then Wichita. Unfortunately this will be bad for the Wichita plant as it has been looking for work to keep it open in the future.

As the proposals come in things like this will be interesting to look out for.

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Reaction to the KC-X award

February 29, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Northrop Grumman Corp., U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics 

Here are some links that are commenting on the win by Northrop Grumman and EADS.

http://www.aero-news.net/ – KC-45A Wins Deal Over Boeing’s KC-767 Note: I think no matter what aircraft was chosen it would be called the KC-45A.

Wichita, KS News on MSNBC – Key phrase from Sen Roberts of KS: “”I am deeply troubled by the Air Force’s decision to award the KC-X tanker to a French company that has never built a tanker in its history. We should have an American tanker built by an American company with American workers. I can not believe we would create French jobs in place of Kansas jobs.”

Seattle Post-Intelligencer – “Tanker award caps tumultuous period” – Good round up of the history of the KC-X program.

Leeham Company LLC Analysis by Scott Hamilton – “Boeing will be out of the tanker business for the next 20-40 years if it loses the KC-45A
award, its spokesman predicted, which helps explain why Boeing is fighting so hard to win the competition.”

Oh yeah, how they feel at Northrop Grummand and EADS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX5oqEfAydg

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Kansas pulls for Boeing

February 24, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Federal Budget Process, Northrop Grumman Corp., U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics, production program 

Another article in a local paper, here the Kansas City Star, about the economic effect of the KC-X contract. The article spells out the economic effect of the win to the Wichita, KS area. Similar articles have been running in the Alabama papers about how great the win by Northrop-Grumman and EADS would be to the Mobile area. Read more

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