Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) doesn’t want EADS involved in the KC-X tanker contract, he said Thursday. “I hope they don’t bid,” the newly minted chair of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee told reporters following an Aerospace Industries Association event in the Capitol Building. Dicks said the Air Force’s requirements for a new tanker clearly indicate a need for a “smaller airplane” than the A330 derivative Airbus might propose. The A330, he said, is “too big,” and with rising fuel costs, will be “too expensive to operate.” Boeing, the only confirmed bidder for the tanker, has a major production facility in Washington state.
The advanced F-47 sixth-generation fighter remains on track to fly in the next two years, the senior Air Force acquisition officer overseeing the program said Feb. 25, as the service continues on its ambitious schedule to debut the air superiority-focused fighter by 2028—only three years after the contract was awarded…
