In a new diatribe on Pentagon foibles, the Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson hammers the decision to stop producing C-17 airlifters. He calls it the “dumbest weapons decision of the decade.” (He may be right.) In describing how the Pentagon could be so wrong about airlift, Thompson asserts that Pentagon officials simply made up assumptions to produce desired results for last year’s so-called Mobility Capabilities Study. He then says, “And, just to be on the safe side, you keep almost everybody from the Air Force’s mobility community out of the room.” Ouch.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.