Boeing, Northrop backers trade tanker jabs

Published 12:45 pm Friday, February 26, 2010

The Air Force’s $35 billion aerial refueling tanker contest is no stranger to controversy or flared tempers.

Supporters of either the Boeing Co. or duo Northrop Grumman and EADS like to poke fun at the rival’s tanker.

This morning, J.D. Crowe, cartoonist with Alabama’s Post-Register, gets in a dig at Boeing and its this cartoon.

Northrop and EADS would assemble their tanker in Mobile, Ala. The Northrop-EADS tanker is based off an Airbus A330 jet. Airbus, of course, is headquartered in Toulouse, France.

And that was the source of jesting by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., at today’s Prosperity Partnership luncheon in Seattle.

Inslee said he’s pleased with the rules laid out by the Air Force this week.

“The Air Force did not buckle under to the entreaties of the French,” Inslee said.

“I look forward to giving the French the silver medal while we take home the gold” in the tanker contest, he said.