Despite continued complaints from one of the two likely competitors for the KC-X tanker program, Gen. Norton Schwartz, USAF Chief of Staff, maintains that the forthcoming request for proposals is on the mark. He told a Washington, D.C., conference Wednesday, “I believe we got the requirements right.” He expects the RFP to hit the street within a month of release of the 2011 defense budget, now slated for the first week in February. The Northrop Grumman-EADS team has said it will pull out of the competition if the final RFP did not reflect major adjustments over the draft version. Most recently, new EADS North American boss, Sean O’Keefe asserted the “replacement program” RFP would not give his team a “fair” chance.
The KC-Z4, a blended wing body tanker concept being developed by startup JetZero, could fuel larger groups of aircraft at longer range to hold more targets at risk, company officials say.