Pitching 777 for tanker contest could mean more jobs at Boeing Everett plant

PARIS — At the Paris Air Show on Tuesday, Boeing presented its new Air Force tanker strategy, including the option to offer a very large 777 jet instead of the midsize 767 it pitched last time.

If Boeing were to win the new competition with the 777, it would likely mean more jobs in Everett than first envisioned.

And there's one scenario Boeing is considering that could bring a radical change to the factory: have Everett workers install military systems and complete the tankers rather than fly each tanker airframe to one of Boeing's defense factories, such as in Wichita, Kan., for finishing.

But the 777 option also presents a conundrum. How will Boeing handle military 777 production mixed in with the building of commercial 777s?

Boeing's new approach to tankers is the latest installment in a long saga.

The company was awarded the first Air Force tanker contract in 2001, which was then killed after an acquisition scandal.

Last year, Airbus' parent EADS and U.S. partner Northrop Grumman won the second contest with their offer of an A330 tanker. The deal was worth initially about $40 billion for the first 179 jets.

Award canceled

But last fall, Defense Secretary Robert Gates canceled that award after Boeing protested the procurement process as unfair.

Boeing executives said Tuesday that final decisions on exactly which tanker they will use in the new competition, and how they will propose to build it, depend on the requirements and procedures to be laid out by the Pentagon next month.

Choosing from a spectrum of different-size tanker options, Boeing executives seem convinced they can pluck out the perfect contender to match whatever requirements emerge in the next round of this convoluted, unpredictable contest.

Once the requirements have been analyzed, program managers will choose among a range of base airplanes, from the smallest variant of the midsize 767 up to the 777.

Whatever U.S. wants

"We're ready to build America's next tanker in whatever configuration and to whatever requirements the [U.S. government] desires," said Dave Bowman, Boeing vice president of tanker programs.

Monday at the air show, the Northrop Grumman/EADS strategy laid out by Northrop Vice President Paul Meyer was a lot simpler: Let's repeat and don't change the rules — then the A330 will win again.

For Boeing, changing its entry to a 777 tanker would raise issues a 767 did not.

Military production lines with proprietary defense work are governed by federal rules known as International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), with requirements that include restricted access. No foreign national is allowed inside an ITAR zone.

In Renton, Boeing solved this problem for its 737-based anti-submarine P-8 Poseidon jet by creating a third production line in a separate, access-controlled building.

If the 767 were the tanker candidate, the whole 767 bay in the Everett factory could be designated an ITAR zone because commercial 767 deliveries are winding down.

Because the commercial 777 line will be rolling out five to seven commercial planes every month for years to come, it's trickier to isolate the military from the nonmilitary.

Boeing certainly wouldn't want to bar its mostly foreign 777 customers from coming in to look at progress on their airplanes.

But in Paris, Pat Shanahan, the Boeing Commercial Airplanes vice president in charge of all airplane programs, minimized the difficulty.

"We've got a lot of space" in the Everett plant, Shanahan said at a tanker briefing. "We have lots of flexibility at the site to isolate the airplane like we've done on Poseidon" to meet Defense Department access restrictions.

In conversations afterward, Shanahan elaborated that the wings and fuselage of a 777 tanker airframe could be assembled on the massive jig used to assemble the regular commercial 777s, then the completed airframe could be shifted to an access-controlled bay for more installation work.

That ITAR bay could potentially become a completion center where the tanker is finished, another Boeing official said.

However, all options are on the table, including the previous plan of flying the tanker to Wichita or another defense facility for finishing.

Though Bowman said his team has been studying all the approaches closely for the past year, developing a 777 tanker would be more costly and likely take longer.

A 767 tanker would be simpler because Boeing has been working on those for years. Three for the Italian Air Force are nearing the end of flight testing this summer.

The Italian planes are now four years late. They had been plagued by flutter, a vibration problem in flight, which Boeing has fixed.

And Boeing has finally delivered three 767 tankers to the Japanese Air Force. They were one year late but are at last in service.

In the competition against the A330 tanker, Boeing could say that having solved all the technical problems with the Japanese tankers, it was the only contender with a working aircraft.

The Airbus A330 tanker is still in flight testing with the Australian Air Force.

Switching to the 777 would lose Boeing that advantage.

Until the requirements come out, though, it's unclear where this contest is going. The Pentagon is expected to lay out the parameters in July and announce a winner next spring.

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com

This article was originally published June 17 and corrected June 18. The original story said Boeing was two years late delivering three 767 tankers to the Japanese Air Force. The aircraft were actually just one year late.