The Simple Flying Podcast Episode 231: Cathay’s A350 Issues, SWISS First Class Too Heavy

February 29th, 2008. It was the day that Northrop Grumman Corporation announced that it had been selected by the U.S. Air Force to provide the KC-45A aerial refueling tanker for the KC-135 tanker replacement program. Most notably, this jet would be based on the A330 commercial airframe, produced by EADS – which, these days, would be Airbus’ Defence and Space division.Unfortunately, the celebrations wouldn’t last long for Airbus and Northrop Grumman.Just days later, Boeing would launch a full-scale counteroffensive to convince the Air Force that it had selected the wrong aircraft. In the end, Boeing was successful in overturning the Northrop Grumman deal, having its 767-based tanker win instead. It’s been quite awhile since this whole ordeal took place – long before our website and YouTube channels existed. So we thought it would be interesting to take a look back for today’s video!