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Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

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Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#71

Post by p_l »

tremon wrote: post #45
shevy-java wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - the mass casualties with regards to Max, changed things a lot. Boeing used to be about enginering; that quality dropped indeed decades ago. Not sure why or how.

Not sure why or how There's plenty of documentation to be found on the why and how, especially following the 737Max issues: https://team-fsa.com/insights/what-happened-to-boeings-cultu... > Following the 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas, Boeing’s robust culture eroded. Subsequent safety issues with the Boeing 737 have put the company under international scrutiny and underscored the profound impact of a weakened cor…

The best and understated part about it is that the culture change was pushed from Boeing side, and at least some people from McD side of the merger were pushing internal memos warning about actions pushed by Boeing-lifer CEO exemplified in then ongoing 7X7 program (future 787)

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#72

Post by p_l »

sschueller wrote: post #6

Meanwhile Switzerland is being taken to the cleaners. F35s that had a fix cost in contract with Lockheed are no longer fixed cost because the US says so. Patriot systen permanently delayed and price going up and up. Stop payment resulted in the US pulling from the pre payment for the F35s...

Foreign Military Sales from USA all go under a very ugly kind of contract where you could argue you're not sure of delivery until after the gear was decommissioned and turned into razor blades. You can't (officially) negotiate it, you can't demand accountability on actual deliveries, the real delivery time is "whenever we get to it", and so on.

It's just that until recently USA at least pretended to care to not use those provisions too much.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#73

Post by onetokeoverthe »

FabHK wrote: post #64
tim333 wrote: post #48

There's probably going to be ongoing attempts to be less reliant on the US while Trump is going on about needing Greenland and the like. His last odd 'truth' about it was six hours ago https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1166240468099...

"Truth Social is currently unavailable in your area" Pity, in Hong Kong I cannot read the wise words of the king.

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Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#74

Post by dghlsakjg »

whatevaa wrote: post #69
866-RON-0-FEZ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're stringing random facts together to try and make a point, Airbus was found guilty two days ago of manslaughter in the 2009 Air France crash that fell into the ocean. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czd2qmdvmq6o It's the same airplane as the MRTT, A330.

If you actually read into the case it's more complicated than just it's Airbus fault. It was caused by one of the confused pilots input. Why they were confused is a complicated story.

That particular failure mode would have been impossible in most other planes including all Boeings. 1. Pretty much only Airbus doesn’t have linked controls 2. Pretty much just airbus changes what the controls allow you to do (the “law” as they call it) without input from the pilot.

No other airliner make on earth could have suffered that accident. It would have been extremely obvious what the issue was, and how to solve it on any other aircraft I can think of. This was like a car crash caused by the computer changing how the steering wheel worked mid drive.

I still have no idea how Airbus didn’t catch more flack for that design.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#75

Post by kergonath »

whatevaa wrote: post #69
866-RON-0-FEZ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're stringing random facts together to try and make a point, Airbus was found guilty two days ago of manslaughter in the 2009 Air France crash that fell into the ocean. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czd2qmdvmq6o It's the same airplane as the MRTT, A330.

If you actually read into the case it's more complicated than just it's Airbus fault. It was caused by one of the confused pilots input. Why they were confused is a complicated story.

Indeed. See here for a decently in-depth analysis: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-long-way-down-the-cr... .

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#76

Post by joe_the_user »

tcgv wrote: post #4

> Several defence analysts point out that although the KC-46 is the standard tanker of the USAF, it has suffered technical problems and delays that have slowed its competitiveness abroad, to the benefit of the A330 MRTT, which has already been adopted by many NATO and non-NATO allies. In this sense, the Italian choice is seen more as an industrial victory for Airbus than as an American “political defeat”. The politic…

Yes, but the decline of Boeing also imo demonstrates relentless American short-term-ism. Gutting the engineering side of the company, optimizing to avoid testing a new plane model (the 737 Max debacle) and so-forth is very characteristic of America today.

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#77

Post by 8note »

tokai wrote: post #8
Quarrel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop payment resulted in the US pulling from the pre payment for the F35s... Which Switzerland then reluctantly agreed was allowed under the terms. As you say, totally being taken to the cleaners, and it is unclear how they escape in the short term. The more this happens though, the more deals like Italy's make senese, irrespective of the performance comparison of the two planes. If the US is going to be an unrelia…

I don't understand why US weapons manufactures are not lobbying harder. They are losing the European market just as the largest rearmament since ww2 happens. Maybe they are and its just a lost cause with the US administration.

itll be hard for US weapons manufacturers to win when a big part of the rearmament is going to be around deterring the US just as much as deterring Russia

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#78

Post by newtonianrules »

krior wrote: post #44
newtonianrules wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to understand that the smartest people in the US didn’t vote for this administration and are just as horrified as everyone else with how inept and pathetic this administration is. Unfortunately we’re a minority, the senate’s design (Wyoming has the same number of senators as California even though a small city in CA may have more people than the whole state) and the US is so ridiculously gerrymandered. Sorry…

> Sorry everybody but we just have to wait this stupidity out. And the rest of the world has to suffer the consequences. It has been incredible watching americans shrugging off any responsibility. Insufferable hypocrites.

[dead]

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#79

Post by newtonianrules »

mmooss wrote: post #49
newtonianrules wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to understand that the smartest people in the US didn’t vote for this administration and are just as horrified as everyone else with how inept and pathetic this administration is. Unfortunately we’re a minority, the senate’s design (Wyoming has the same number of senators as California even though a small city in CA may have more people than the whole state) and the US is so ridiculously gerrymandered. Sorry…

> the smartest people in the US didn’t vote for this administration Trump has support from SV and Wall Street leaders, and the whole Republican Party. > gerrymandered Trump won the popular vote, and iirc the GOP got more total votes for the House of Representatives. What about for the Senate? Sure NY and CA are big, but so are FL and TX.

[dead]

Re: Italy moves to Airbus A330 tankers

#80

Post by ungreased0675 »

netsharc wrote: post #11
ungreased0675 wrote: post #5

Italy probably didn’t want to wait 12 years for delivery. Good choice.

They probably also didn't want a President Vance, Rubio, Junior or Ivanka, to use the availability of parts and tech support as a way to ensure their compliance..

Italy is a big supplier for the F-35 and other major US programs, so that knife cuts both ways. I don’t think that was a consideration at all.
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