Fifty-Three Delta
CH-53D Sea Stallion (BuNo 157736) of
HMH-363 "Lucky Red Lions" arriving at West Wetlands park in Yuma,
Arizona during a noncombatant evacuation drill supported by MAWTS-1 as
part of Weapons and Tactics Instructor course 2-10.
However, the operational need for new tankers has been eclipsed by controversy surrounding how the tanker competition is being run. The World Trade Organization recently ruled that the Airbus unit of EADS has received illegal subsidies throughout its history that have enabled it to compete unfairly with U.S. producers of commercial transports. The biggest recipient of these illegal subsidies was the Airbus A330 transport -- the same plane EADS now proposes to use as its platform for a future Air Force tanker. Having seen both of its domestic rivals forced out of the commercial-transport business and its own global market share cut in half by competition from Airbus, Boeing and its backers are incensed that EADS is being allowed to bid. The Air Force says it needs EADS in the bidding to get the benefits of competition, and it is refusing to factor Airbus subsidies into its evaluation -- even though the past predatory behavior of Airbus is a key reason why it must go abroad to find a second competitor.I read aviation blogs everyday and never heard this before. Wow. Time to find new blogs....EADS is acting like the Chinese nation...they're attempting to prey on our industry.
Congress is not so detached from the economic consequences of letting EADS bid. In fact, it probably will refuse to fund a tanker built by EADS, given what the World Trade Organization has said about the European company's unfair trading practices. EADS has elected to bid anyway, but its only hope of prevailing is to tap the same subsidies that the trade organization condemned since its plane typically sells for $50 million more than the competing Boeing 767 and burns over a ton more fuel per flight hour.
Lockheed flew the ninth of the initial 13 flight-testing jets recently, counting the original prototype, which has already been retired.
By week's end, the test program had completed 146 flights this year compared with the 128 planned, a pace that, if, sustained, would enable the full-year goal of 394 flights to be met or exceeded.
Another measure of progress is the number of specific tests (test points) achieved: 1,438 completed compared with 1,255 planned.
All of which means that if F-35 testing continues at the current pace through the rest of this year, it will be just about where it was supposed to be at the end of 2009