L’analyste des questions a\u00e9rospatiales et d’armement Loren B. Thompson, du Lexington Institute, publie le 15 janvier<\/a> sur le site de cet institut, et le 16 janvier<\/a> sur UPI, un article \u00e9valuant la situation de l’\u00e9norme contrat des nouveaux ravitailleurs en vol<\/a> de l’USAF (programme dit KC-X opposant Boeing et son KC-767 \u00e0 Airbus associ\u00e9 \u00e0 Northrop Grumman avec le KC-30). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tThompson, qui est un commentateur avis\u00e9 des int\u00e9r\u00eats du complexe militaro-industriel, donne une appr\u00e9ciation assez neutre de la situation (sans prendre position pour l’un ou l’autre candidat). Il met en \u00e9vidence le caract\u00e8re extr\u00eamement pol\u00e9mique du march\u00e9, la tension qui l’accompagne, la difficult\u00e9 d’un choix qui sera accompagn\u00e9, dans un cas comme l’autre, de contestations s\u00e9v\u00e8res. Thompson signale la position de favori de Boeing, qui est effectivement l’appr\u00e9ciation la plus r\u00e9pandue<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abMany observers expect the Boeing plane to win, because it was the Air Force’s original choice to provide a future aerial refueler in an abortive leasing scheme, and it costs less to operate using the Air Force’s existing concept of operations. It also has greater domestic production content, which presumably makes it a political favorite. However, the modified Airbus commercial transport being offered by Northrop Grumman is newer and bigger. If Airbus follows its commercial practice of underbidding Boeing, it will be hard to explain why the Air Force wants to pay more for a less capable plane. Air Force experts respond that bigger isn’t always better, since the Airbus plane consumes more fuel and takes up more space on the ground.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbBeyond the operational merits of the two planes, a political minefield lies ahead for the Air Force and whichever contractor it selects. If the Northrop plane wins, buy-America sentiment will surge on Capitol Hill, potentially blocking a purchase. If the Boeing plane wins, legislators from the South whose region stood to benefit from tanker assembly will seek to split the buy between both teams. The Air Force will get its tanker in the end, but which contractor benefits may ultimately come down to a test of political skills, and there is no guarantee new tankers will reach the fleet before old ones begin failing.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tAutant l’analyse de Thompson qu’un bref commentaire de l’Air Force Association Daily<\/em> du 16 janvier<\/a>, laissent penser que le processus conduisant \u00e0 la production effective de l’avion pourrait \u00eatre frein\u00e9 ou entrav\u00e9 par des contestations. (Thompson: \u00abThe U.S. Air Force has tried to run a squeaky-clean acquisition process to make sure tanker modernization finally gets moving, but whoever loses the award is sure to protest, leading to further delays.<\/em>\u00bb AFA: \u00abUSAF anticipates announcing the winner around February, but officials have said the service will not rush its decision.<\/em>\u00bb)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tMettant \u00e0 part les sp\u00e9culations sur le choix de l’USAF, qui est important pour les relations transatlantiques puisqu’un avion d’origine europ\u00e9enne y est impliqu\u00e9, une chose appara\u00eet tr\u00e8s probable. La tension politique r\u00e9gnant autour de ce march\u00e9 a toutes les chances de conduire \u00e0 un enlisement du processus et \u00e0 des retards importants de programmation. Le destin du programme KC-X risque fort d’illustrer le climat de quasi-paralysie existant \u00e0 Washington aujourd’hui dans les cas des grands programmes d’\u00e9quipement du Pentagone. Il faut rappeler que le programme KC-X est en comp\u00e9tition, sous des formes diverses, depuis 2002<\/a>, qu’il a \u00e9t\u00e9 une premi\u00e8re fois victime d’un scandale majeur et qu’il a \u00e9t\u00e9 rouvert d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00e0 deux reprises. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \tMis en ligne le 17 janvier \u00e0 01H40<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" L’analyste des questions a\u00e9rospatiales et d’armement Loren B. Thompson, du Lexington Institute, publie le 15 janvier sur le site de cet institut, et le 16 janvier sur UPI, un article \u00e9valuant la situation de l’\u00e9norme contrat des nouveaux ravitailleurs en vol de l’USAF (programme dit KC-X opposant Boeing et son KC-767 \u00e0 Airbus associ\u00e9 \u00e0… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3191,3192,4215,7383,3473,3474],"class_list":["post-69612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-airbus","tag-boeing","tag-eads","tag-kc-x","tag-loren","tag-thompson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}