Tanker deal

The WSJ (subscription required) has just announced that Northrop and Airbus have won the $40 billion contract to build new tankers for the Air Force.

The tanker will be based on the Airbus A330 airplane. The Boeing plane would have been based on the 767 airplane.

While I would rather have had Boeing win, they deserved to lose because of their actions back in 2001. And because of their actions, the cost of the program has almost doubled, the planes still haven't been designed or built and the Air Force is still flying 40 to 50 year old KC-135s.