How Airbus gambled and won a huge U.S. military contract - by David Herszenhorn and Jeff Bailey
Just hours before the U.S. Air Force announced the winner of a $35 billion contract to build aerial refueling aircraft last month, an Airbus plane lumbered off the runway in Getafe, Spain, and climbed to 27,000 feet to rendezvous with a Portuguese F-16 fighter. Then, in the skies south of Madrid, the two aircraft danced across the sky, edging closer and closer, until they were joined by a 50-foot, or 15-meter, boom hanging off the back of the big Airbus plane. The boom, operated by Don Cash, a retired boom operator for the U.S. Air Force who now works for Airbus, pumped 2,000 gallons, or 7,570 liters, of fuel into the other plane during several connections on its maiden mission.
The technology to pass fuel from one plane to another may not be rocket science, but it helped Airbus and its partner, Northrop Grumman, establish their technical bona fides. Hungry to penetrate the U.S. military market, European Aeronautic Defense & Space, the parent of Airbus, made several bold plays, perhaps none more dramatic than building the $100 million state-of-the-art refueling boom on speculation. The result is that Boeing, the pride of U.S. aerospace, was outmaneuvered on its home turf for a contract that could grow to $100 billion, becoming one of the largest military purchases in history.
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