Proposed Split Tanker Buy Stirs Argument

摘要

Splitting the work to supply new aerial tankers between Boeing and Northrop Grumman would likely increase the Air Force's developmental costs by "somewhere around S7 billion to $14 billion" in just over the next five years, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates told reporters April 14 at Ft. Rucker, Ala., during a tour of the Army aviation center and each service's war college. Gates has steadfastly opposed a split buy, telling an audience on the following day at Air University, Maxwell AFB, Ala., that he was laying his body "down across the tracks" in opposition to that approach.