EADS/Airbus Spins Wheel Of Deceit. Again.

Who says fact is better than fiction?

Certainly not EADS.

With the WTO lambasting Europe for the illegal subsidies poured all over the Airbus portfolio, it comes as very little surprise that once again, Airbus and parent EADS have been caught short – and no, that doesn’t mean someone emulated Jean Pierson’s alleged trouser-dropping antics to win an airplane order.

 

This time, the respected author at Lexington Institute, Dr. L. Thompson dissects Airbus’ numbers that the likes of the (inept) aerospace media seldom seem to ask.

 

On the KC-X tanker competition, Airbus says that “45%” of the proposed tanker is US-sourced, but then in Les Echos, it claims the figure is 21% (for the A330 model to be used as the tanker if selected).

 

Track-back a couple of years and Airbus claimed that 76% of the A380 was produced in Europe.

 

Contrast that then, with Airbus’ other claim that stated the A380 had 50% US-made content.

 

This ambiguity serves only to undermine the rationale behind Airbus and Northrop Grumman’s bizarre shot-gun wedding style arrangement,

 

Here we have two contractors that have never (I repeat, for clarity’s sake, never) worked with another yet Northrop somehow presumes the mantle of “prime contractor” of an airplane type whose success in the military field is, at best, dubious.

 

One only need look at the “success” the Royal Australian Air Force is having with their untested booms (click for story) on their A330MRTT’s to understand that skewed PR policy or ethical distortion will not be categorized as a recipe for winning over policy makers on Capitol Hill.

 

On the contrary, they will be acutely aware of this spate of European deception so long as it secures jobs in Europe at the expense of the USA. Does Northrop Grumman really believe a win for them will secure/support “48,000” US jobs while Airbus seeks yet more aid on the A350XWB to distort the marketplace and ship jobs to France and Germany?

 

It’s high time this sort of political mischief was brought into the KC-X tanker competition, as well as the direct ruling and indictment by the WTO against Airbus because without such posturing, the A330 would have never have existed.

 

It is solely down to the success of the 767 that has seen over 1000 examples ordered along with successful demonstrations of boom/fuel transfer in the 767 tankers that has Airbus and Northrop worried about whether they will be able to deliver a workable boom by the time the USAF aims for delivery of its first new tanker.

 

Until then, we’ll see more of this sort of PR-activity skewing fiction ahead of fact, much to the delight of the blind-sided anti-Boeing lobbyists.

 

Thankfully, there are a few smart people like me that don’t buy into this proverbial advertising gimmickry from Europe. Neither should anyone else.