WASHINGTON — Even by Pentagon standards, it’s an eye-popping prize: a $35 billion contract to build 179 giant airborne refueling tankers. And the decade-long brawl by two defense-industry titans to win it has been just as epic.
In a matter of weeks, if not days, the Pentagon will announce whether Boeing or European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. will build 179 new tankers to replace the Air Force’s Eisenhower-era KC-135 planes.
The competition is far more complex than a case of the U.S. against Europe. If Boeing wins, the air tanker would be built in Everett, Wash., and Wichita, and in several other states. If EADS wins, the tanker would be assembled in Mobile, Ala., at the former Brookley military base that was shuttered in the 1960s.
Either way, about 50,000 jobs would be created in the U.S. And $35 billion could amount to a mere first installment on a $100 billion deal if the Air Force pushes ahead and buys more tankers.
The contract has touched off some of the fiercest and costliest lobbying that Washington has ever seen. The companies have spent millions on advertising and hired dozens of lobbyists to do their bidding. Lawmakers are relentlessly pressing Defense Department officials.
Replacing the KC-135 planes is critical for the military. The first aircraft — the equivalent of a flying gas station — entered the fleet in 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower occupied the White House, and the last one was delivered in 1965, when Lyndon Johnson was president. Today, the Air Force is struggling to keep them in flying shape.
The tankers are the one aircraft the military cannot go to war without. They allow jet fighters, supply planes and other aircraft to cover long distances, crucial with fewer overseas bases and operations far from the U.S. in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
With so much at stake, the companies and their backers are pursuing every edge and taking the struggle to places that military contractors don’t normally go: radio and subway ads in the nation’s capital among them.
“Our warfighters deserve a proven tanker — the KC-45 — that’s already flying and refueling today,” screams the full- page ad from EADS in one of the dozen inside-the-Beltway publications that cater to the government and Congress.
The company has delivered a version of the tanker to Australia and bases its design on the commercial Airbus aircraft built in Europe.
