User Panel
Posted: 1/27/2021 4:16:07 PM EDT
https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2021/01/27/boeings-cost-overruns-on-kc-46-now-exceed-its-initial-contract-with-the-air-force/#.YBHEQzTamxQ.twitter Edited on 1/27/21 at 1:44 p.m. to provide more details on the cost overrun. WASHINGTON — With the Jan. 27 announcement of a new $275 million charge on the KC-46, Boeing has now paid as much in cost overruns for the troubled program as the U.S. Air Force invested in the tanker’s development. The new charge, which the company reported as part of fourth-quarter 2020 earnings, means Boeing has now paid more than $5.0 billion out of pocket to pay for the myriad technical problems and production issues that have cropped up since the company won the program in 2011. Under the firm, fixed-price contract signed then, Boeing is responsible for paying for any costs in excess of the contract’s $4.9 billion ceiling. The latest KC-46 overrun occurred “primarily due to production inefficiencies including impacts of COVID-19 disruption,” the company said. Steve Trimble of Aviation Week put together a list of KC-46 charges by year, finding that the program documented its largest overrun in 2020 despite seeing charges decrease to only $148 million in 2019. continued at link... View Quote |
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Let Space X start competing. They could probably deliver a working tanker for less than the original contract amout.
I'm saying that partly in jest, but Boeing has really been a clusterfuck lately.... |
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Quoted: All of the Welch acolytes ruining American industrial firms need to be sent to a prison camp. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsvaGLqVkAE3uzy?format=jpg&name=large View Quote "Pull up! PULL UP!!" |
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Quoted: All of the Welch acolytes ruining American industrial firms need to be sent to a prison camp. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsvaGLqVkAE3uzy?format=jpg&name=large View Quote What software is that? |
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Quoted: All of the Welch acolytes ruining American industrial firms need to be sent to a prison camp. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsvaGLqVkAE3uzy?format=jpg&name=large View Quote Lies. We just need more mandatory meetings, powerpoints, and synergy. Also inspirational quotes from https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/famous-quotes |
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Quoted: Quoted: All of the Welch acolytes ruining American industrial firms need to be sent to a prison camp. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsvaGLqVkAE3uzy?format=jpg&name=large "Pull up! PULL UP!!" MCAS says no. |
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Quoted: why can't gov contractors do anything right View Quote Campaign donations trump incompetence when it comes to politicians. They don’t care what the contract calls for or how it’s executed. Airbus was going to build a manufacturing site in Mobile if they won that contract. They won it in initially then the AF rebid it with multiple spec changes during the bidding process. Classic bid rigging, Boeing knowing ahead of time what the next change would be. |
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Boeings down almost 5% before close. Not like the .Gov has any other domestic choice but to use them anyway for aircraft like that. DJIA down almost 800 points before close overall.
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: All of the Welch acolytes ruining American industrial firms need to be sent to a prison camp. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsvaGLqVkAE3uzy?format=jpg&name=large "Pull up! PULL UP!!" MCAS says no. "Wait a...this isn't a business plan; it's an escape plan!" |
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Quoted: Lies. We just need more mandatory meetings, powerpoints, and synergy. Also inspirational quotes from https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/famous-quotes View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: All of the Welch acolytes ruining American industrial firms need to be sent to a prison camp. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsvaGLqVkAE3uzy?format=jpg&name=large Lies. We just need more mandatory meetings, powerpoints, and synergy. Also inspirational quotes from https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/famous-quotes Don't forget diversity and outsourcing. We are for to be writing the autopilot code that makes the aeroplane do the needful. |
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Maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't see how it costs even a fraction of that to put a big add fuel cell and a boom into an existing platform. Although I guess that the only 2 truly infinite things in existence are the outer reaches of space and the depth of the American taxpayer's pocket.
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Boeing 4th Quarter earnings are out ... its ugly, very ugly
And they deserve every bit of it |
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Quoted: Maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't see how it costs even a fraction of that to put a big add fuel cell and a boom into an existing platform. Although I guess that the only 2 truly infinite things in existence are the outer reaches of space and the depth of the American taxpayer's pocket. View Quote You would think so but with military procurement programs forget it. The AF kept adding on changes and adding mission stuff. People bitch about the 46 but if AB had won, the AF would be doing the same shit and we would be talking about cost overruns with the KC-45 instead. Boeing had issues with boom which was a big $ development disaster to the point of switching to MD type. That was %100 Boeing . They will get the issues worked out like pretty much every airplane. |
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It was the previous tanker contract where the USAF was to lease a bunch of 767 tankers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darleen_Druyun A Boeing executive was sent to prison as well and it led to the resignation of Phil Condit, the CEO at the time. Who was replaced with another POS Harry Stonecipher. Both her daughter and her Son-in-Law got a job at Boeing in St. Louis. Her daughter subsequently left Boeing, but the SIL was still at Boeing when I retired in late 2012. He had a good reputation by all accounts that I heard. That bitch is still getting a Federal pension - paid for by You-Know-Who. |
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Can someone explain to me what the problem is here? It seems to me that the Boeing 367-80 and the DC-10 were adapted to the refueling role with a minimum of drama. What is different this time?
@AeroE |
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How can they botch something like this THAT badly? It's a flying gas tank based on an existing airframe. It's not like they are building the F22
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Quoted: Maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't see how it costs even a fraction of that to put a big add fuel cell and a boom into an existing platform. Although I guess that the only 2 truly infinite things in existence are the outer reaches of space and the depth of the American taxpayer's pocket. View Quote The airplane isn't anywhere near that simple. You can find plenty of information around the internet that explains how the airframe is configured, then the various problems. Let's reel time back a little, before KC-46A, to the Italian and Japanese tankers. Which of those much simpler airplanes do you suppose were delivered on time? The best reads for the facts are USAF reports that lay out the deficiencies in black and white. Anyway, the video system for the boom operator sort of works now, that was the latest technical issue to sort out. The FO problem in the plant has been so bad that it's hard to understand why there weren't several empy offices, and lockers for the workers and inspectors in locations where foreign objects left behind shut down the program more than once. Part of the problem that the company will not drive out are the union employees that simply don't give a fuck. It's a problem in St. Louis, too. I know Druyun's son in law well, and have met her daughter a couple of times. Both are good folks. |
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I was told that the Boeing problems began when professional business men instead of people who build airplanes started running the company.
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Quoted: I was told that the Boeing problems began when professional business men instead of people who build airplanes started running the company. View Quote When Boeing bought MDA in 1997, Boeing was building commercial airplanes mostly at a loss, at least partly because the company did not know what they cost to build. That is a fact. However, I won't argue that anyone out of the GE/Welch pipeline, such as the current boss, should be allowed loose reins. Calhoun is a disappointment, and he inherited a show that he's not big enough to fix. The incentive is upside down, so he won't be hurt no matter how this shakes out if he stays to age 65. Some of the outsiders hired in to fix the organization have been hilarious with ideas from the auto industry that simply don't apply to low rate production hand built machines. One apparently thought any engineer could be slotted into any engineering position to fill the shortages, but I think his thinking was corrected immediately on that. Blaming the pandemic is weak, the shops are full. The financial problem comes from building ~400 white tail 737 Max's and trying to maintain a mothballed fleet so it's nearly ready to fly when restrictions are lifted, and now there's a raft of 787's sitting on the ramp undelivered due to the bolted composite joint problem in the fuselage splices - but don't worry, they are airworthy. The culture problem is something else, and that will continue to corrode the organization from the inside. |
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There is a lot of blame to be laid on Boeing, but, the real problem is the way government contracts are written. The incompetent military and civilian bureaucrats can screw up anything!
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Saw one in person a year or so ago. Pretty cool.
It has some interesting features, not sure what's public or not so I'll not mention them. |
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Sales is sales. Overrun counts as sales, too. Behind closed doors, our friends at BA are laughing.
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Quoted: How can they botch something like this THAT badly? It's a flying gas tank based on an existing airframe. It's not like they are building the F22 View Quote The defense side was so far apart from the commercial side, that the engineers missed very basic commercial certification design rules early on. |
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This... Thing has caused me a great deal of pain.
If I were president the first thing I might do would be to kill this thing and give the name Pegasus to a more deserving aircraft. |
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It's neat when you drive past BFI, you see how big the KC-46s look next to the P-8s. Then a little ways down the road you see how small everything looks next to the 777X
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Quoted: How can they botch something like this THAT badly? It's a flying gas tank based on an existing airframe. It's not like they are building the F22 View Quote The airframe itself is not the problem. They ignored 65 years of data from the KC-135/KC-10 which showed what worked and what doesn't. They re-engineered everything and are finding out now shit sucks.... |
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Is this the same tanker where airbus won the contract Ike 10 years ago then Boeing cried and protested and got it overturned? If so I’m torn. Fuck Boeing for screwing my town and Alabama (temporarily). On the other hand, I bought Boeing low last yr so it needs to go up so I can cash out with a tidy profit.
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Quoted: Maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't see how it costs even a fraction of that to put a big add fuel cell and a boom into an existing platform. Although I guess that the only 2 truly infinite things in existence are the outer reaches of space and the depth of the American taxpayer's pocket. View Quote |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: All of the Welch acolytes ruining American industrial firms need to be sent to a prison camp. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsvaGLqVkAE3uzy?format=jpg&name=large "Pull up! PULL UP!!" MCAS says no. Airbus say “retard” |
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there is no way in hell my projects at the chemical plants could double the initial contract with cost overruns.
I eat cost over runs These contracts need to be fixed lump sum. |
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Coulda just made an F-35D, the tanker version. Would have a 20-foot extension to the fuselage for fuel, and a spot for the guy running the boom at the back, just over the afterburner. Would have been just as over budget, but would have shared at least 3 parts with the other variants, so basically cheap to build and run, right?
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[Eisenhower]... something something Military Industrial Complex... [/Eisenhower]
And now we have the Big Brother/Big Tech monster to worry about too... |
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Quoted: there is no way in hell my projects at the chemical plants could double the initial contract with cost overruns. I eat cost over runs These contracts need to be fixed lump sum. View Quote Watch defense contracts, you'll find the contract that everyone believes they know about and understand, then lift the corner of the rug to find the "little" contracts for CRAD, modifications, different and new equipment, support, repair manuals and tech orders, spares, life extension, and on and on. _ |
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Quoted: Watch defense contracts, you'll find the contract that everyone believes they know about and understand, then lift the corner of the rug to find the "little" contracts for CRAD, modifications, different and new equipment, support, repair manuals and tech orders, spares, life extension, and on and on. _ View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: there is no way in hell my projects at the chemical plants could double the initial contract with cost overruns. I eat cost over runs These contracts need to be fixed lump sum. Watch defense contracts, you'll find the contract that everyone believes they know about and understand, then lift the corner of the rug to find the "little" contracts for CRAD, modifications, different and new equipment, support, repair manuals and tech orders, spares, life extension, and on and on. _ And then they’ll change the requirements AFTER a prototype has been built. |
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Quoted: there is no way in hell my projects at the chemical plants could double the initial contract with cost overruns. I eat cost over runs These contracts need to be fixed lump sum. View Quote Read. The contract is theoretically fixed price for the initial block. Just last week a new contract was awarded for 15 more at $2.1 billion. $140 million per airplane; that cost does not include government furnished equipment. |
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