Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

174 • Air Mobility Alternatives for a New Administrationthat we recommend, there are significant additional resources for tankers. Nevertheless,we believe there are numerous approaches to innovation that would increaseeffectiveness and reduce cost. Finally, we are discouraged that there are only twoalternatives – either spend significantly more money or just spend less money on thesame plan. Either will usher in failure.Based on the discussion above, we make the following recommendations:1. Reduce the total number of strategic tankers to approximately 420 total aircraft.2. Limit the buy of KC-X to about 100, regardless if the final selection is EADS,Boeing or a combination because they are too big and too expensive.3. Immediately begin a new competition for a smaller, cheaper commercial derivativetanker – the KC-Y regardless of the outcome of the final KC-X selection.4. Develop innovative and effective “out-of-the-box” ideas for additional capability(e.g. contract air refueling, new transfer technology, etc.).5. Develop new concepts of operations that will permit a smaller refueling forcebut also one that has the needed capability. Such options would factor in theconsideration that new air refuelers will be able to capitalize on each tankerbeing able to refuel others, as well as being able to refuel itself, and each newtanker will have boom along with hose and drogue capability.6. The KC-X, especially, could provide a hedge in the strategic airlift becauseeach air aircraft will be significantly better for handling and carrying cargoand passengers compared to KC-135Rs.7. To alleviate the continued fallout with the tanker scandal, simplify and reformthe acquisition system with “fly-before-buy” competition of the actual aircraftto be competed.One of the outcomes of our recommendations will be a reduction of the cost offuture strategic aerial refueling plans by approximately 30 percent. 24A reasonable person might ask: Why take risk in strategic airlift? The answer isthat because of the U.S. Air Force’s emphasis on strategic airlift since the mid-1990s,our capabilities have increased significantly in the last seven years, and our allies arestarting to increase their capabilities as well (e.g., Australia (4 C-17s), United Kingdom(8 C-17s), Canada (4-C-17s), NATO (6 C-17s estimated), Japan (4 C-17s estimated), etal.). 26 Additionally, many of our allies have pledged to purchase the A-400M (which