Hacker News Reader

Comment by H8crilA | Hacker News Reader

At some point this becomes a national security concern - the Air Force would never accept Airbus-based tankers or AWACS platforms should Boeing go under. Then perhaps I'm exaggerating, a restructuring bankruptcy can sometimes do magic to rotting corporations.

View on HN

> the Air Force would never accept Airbus-based tankers or AWACS platforms should Boeing go under.

Really? Because the Airbus A330 MRTT originally won the KC-X competition (before Boeing filed a challenge):

> The USAF issued the KC-X request for proposal in January 2007,[2] then selected the Northrop Grumman/EADS team and their Airbus A330 MRTT-based tankers in February 2008.[3]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC-X

Nothing proves my point better than the fact that Airbus won the competition but ultimately this happened:

> The Air Force selected Boeing's KC-46 bid on 24 February 2011.

PS. purchasers around the world seem to like Airbus' MRTT platforms a lot, they are probably better at the purely technical level.

I don't think that even comes close to proving they wouldn't use Airbus should Boeing go under.

Boeing would split up before things got worrisome, BDS would be the bulk of the defense stuff, would likely get bought at some point depending on price, because BDS is doing . . eh, less awful, let's say, than other Boeing divisions. So it wouldn't precisely be a bargain for, say, Raytheon or NG.

BCA would, if things go on their current trajectory, get hoovered up by someone for cheap. Karma option would be Embraer.

In the event of a split, the nine million dollar question is how they handle their debt. Boeing took on a gargantuan debt load (for their sector, anyway), and that was before the MAX problems even hit - before COVID too, obviously. How Lockheed juggled their debt in the L3 selloff was a big part of how Lockheed survived into the 1990s, and it'll also be the theme of a Boeing breakup.

Aviation safety for FAA airworthiness generally follows SAE ARP4761, which requires risks of Catastrophic severity to have a quantitative failure rate of 10^-9 incidents per hour or less. The Air Force follows MIL-STD 882E, which generally requires risks of Catastrophic severity to have a quantitative failure rate of 10^-6 incidents per hour or less. In short, the military accepts more risk than commercial aviation. That being said, military aircraft usually are also rated to ARP4761 levels of safety so they can fly in US airspace.

The lives of coldiers are cheaper than those of civilians?

Or they’re giving themselves more of a margin for error so it’s easier to install guns.

Then why US allies should buy US technology, but not the other way around? Allies only when it suits US?

Yes, obviously.

There is the cynical answer, but there's also the fact that the US equipment is actually pretty damn good and can be delivered in large quantities, though it it usually more expensive. You also have to consider alliances, if you buy equipment from country X then that country will be able to provide spares/ammunition/trained personnel if shit hits the fan. And the US is not blocking allied countries from purchasing equipment elsewhere or from developing their own industries. In fact it is usually angry at countries like Germany for not pulling their weight in domestic production.

Military sales are more politics than business. The French behave much like the US, they'll buy foreign kit only as a very last resort. It is a strategic decision that a country has to make based on manufacturing capabilities, ability to generate orders (domestic and foreign) and the planned purpose for their military forces.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com