The DEW Line

Spotted: Rare Optimism for BC-17X

Download 2_alexey_isaikin.ppt

We don't post two-year-old power-point presentations just willy-nilly, but this one that we just got our hands on is really interesting.

Boeing's concept for a commerical version of the C-17 -- the BC-17X -- has always struck us as a somewhat flighty (er, so to speak) venture.

What does it mean then, we wonder, that an executive at Russia's Volga-Dnepr (of all places) has come up with a surprisingly optimistic market forecast for something called the BC-17X?! Volga-Dnepr leases the Antonov AN-124 transport for commercial and military use, including with the US Air Force, in fact. This makes them something of a competitor to the BC-17X concept.

Hmmm....

FY08 Unfunded Priority Lists

SOCOM needed only one page. The navy and the army each required three. The air force -- God bless 'em -- burned up 426 pages.  Go figure.

• US Navy: Download USN_FY08_UPL.pdf
• US Special Operations Command: Download SOCOM_FY08_UPL.pdf
• US Army: Download USA_FY08_UPL.pdf
• US Air Force: Download af_unfunded_priorities_list_2007.pdf

The Sky Is Falling (Part 1) ...

This new academic paper claims Boeing, Airbus and Bombardier are well-along on a path to "strategic destruction".

To sum up, outsourcing to Asian companies is bad because one day they will become stronger than the Western companies that now employ them and we will all become their slaves.

Or something like that.

The DEW Line detects a slight bent towards industrial xenophobia in this paper, but perhaps it's just being frighteningly rational. Your thoughts?