 Airbus says military certification advances US tanker bid Washington (AFP) Oct 7, 2010 - European giant Airbus said Thursday that military certification of its new aerial refueling tanker moves forward its bid against Boeing for a huge US defense contract. "In preparation for delivery to the Royal Australian Air Force, the Airbus Military A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) -- which is being offered to the US Air Force as the EADS North America KC-45 -- has obtained government certification to operate as a military aerial refueling tanker," the US unit of Airbus parent EADS said in a statement. The certification was obtained this week from the Spanish military certification authority, Instituto Nacional de Tecnolgia Aerospacial, the company said. The military approval paves the way for delivery of the first two MRTT aircraft to the Royal Australian Air Force before the end of the year, it said. "Government certification of the A330 MRTT as a fully capable military tanker is important evidence that our tanker is real and ready now," Ralph Crosby, EADS North America chairman, said in the statement. "We're proud to offer America's men and women in uniform a proven, more capable aircraft, not an untested concept aircraft," he said, referring to rival Boeing's proposed NewGen Tanker, based on a Boeing 767 commercial airplane. Airbus and Boeing are in a bidding war for a 35-billion-dollar air force contract to replace 179 aerial refueling tankers in an aging Boeing-built fleet. The Pentagon is expected to announce the winner by mid-November. An EADS spokesman told AFP that the Spanish certification of the aircraft "is a good indication of how it would perform under the US certification" process. "The US Air Force would not certify the aircraft until it has been purchased," he added. France-based Airbus, a unit of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), overtook US arch-rival Boeing to become the world's largest manufacturer of commercial aircraft in 2003. |
"There is a point where you are no longer cutting fat; you're cutting into muscle, and then into bone," he will say in a speech in Brussels on NATO's new "strategic concept" that was partialy released on Thursday.
NATO's 28 members are currently looking at the outline of the strategy ahead of a Lisbon summit November 19 and 20 that is due to adopt it.
Most European nations, including Britain, which topped the continent's defence budgets, have decided to slice into military spending in line with austerity programmes.
"We need reform," Rasmussen said. "Taxpayers need the best return for their investment in defence.
"In NATO we will streamline our command structure so it delivers what we need but costs less. We will also need to look at pooling scarcer resources together."
"But cuts can go too far," he warned.
Rasmussen said Europe could not afford to end up in a situation where it could no longer pull its weight, leaving the United States to look elsewhere for a security partner.
Last month, France warned that drastic defence budget cuts would leave the continent under Sino-American domination.
French Defence Minister Herve Morin said he had told European Union counterparts at a meeting in Ghent, Belgium, that plans to step up European military cooperation would falter without proper budgets.
"Most European states have given up on a simple ambition, which is that Europeans obtain a military tool allowing them to weigh on world affairs," he told reporters on the sidelines of a two-day meeting of EU defence chiefs.
"At the pace we're going, Europe is progressively becoming a protectorate, and in 50 years we will become a game in a balacing act between new powers in which we will be under a Sino-American dominion," he said.
Morin warned that "every country in the world is re-arming" while European states that already had weak military budgets before the economic crisis were proceeding with new cuts.
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