Boeing lost because their fuel tank was smaller

[ensho]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JC11Dj08.html

Why Boeing lost the $40bn tanker deal


-long background info snip-

This is what I believe led the Bush administration to forsake Boeing. The company's own data states that the Northrup-Grumman and EADS contender for the KC-45 had a fuel cargo capacity almost 25% greater than Boeing's. How many more bombing runs over Iran, over Syria, over Pakistan, or any other Muslim or other country that gains investiture to the "axis of evil" could you do with the extra bomber flight distances implied by the added capacities of the Northrup-Grumman and EADS refueler?

And unlike Britain and its coaling stations, using refueling tankers as imperial force projection multipliers means you don't even have to put your young soldiers' boots down on these foreign soils, separating them from their beloved cultural icons of Taco Bell and flush toilets, making them susceptible to all those yucky diseases that all "those people" always have.

An aircrew can leave on a mission from a base in Middle America, get refueled a few times in mid-air, drop a few dozen tons of ordnance on some dusty corner of the Middle East, and still get home in time to watch their kids' soccer game, or to vote on that night's American Idol.
-snip-
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the neo cons fly ever onward. there are places to bomb and things to do before dinner.

[northzax]

1. well, maybe

you can argue about whether or not to purchase tankers, but if you have two similar models for similar prices, and one is 25% better at doing what it is supposed to do (which is carry fuel for other planes) seems like a good reason to make that decision.

[MadAndy]

2. I'm amazed at the ways people find to use race to denegrate their own country.

They couldn't have lost the contract simply because the other plane was a better design.

[Igel]

4. But the OP cites a Hong Kong paper for whom

no denigration of the US is too improbable and no assumption of foul motives too difficult.

[MadAndy]

5. The author of that slanderous nonsense is a college professor.

What garbage do you think he is teaching his students?

[Javaman]

3. See! Size does matter! nt