Sir Isaac and the Airbus

Human Events, Jul 28, 2008 by Babbin, Jed

The Airbus cannot be eligible for the contract award if it can't fly the mission. That's what the Air Force proposal terms said and that's one of the big reasons GAO tossed out the contract award.

And there's a third problem. This one is simple geometry.

Most airfields don't have runways as wide as Dulles International. The NATO standard runway is 147.6 feet wide. When an aircraft breaks down, or if another aircraft has to take priority landing or taking off, a tanker will have to be able to be turned around on the runway.

To do that, one of those small tractors you see at airports is attached to the nose gear, the pilot turns the nose wheel all the way over, and the tractor pulls the bird around 180 degrees. According to Boeing, their 767 tanker can turn around in about 129 feet, which can be done on a 147-foot wide runway.

There are no public data now on the Airbus's turning radius, but one source says that the Airbus website used to state that the turning radius of the A-330 was 143 feet. If the runway is a few feet narrower than the NATO standard, if the Airbus isn't lined up with its right wheels on the farthest edge of the runway and if a lot of other ifs, the U-turning Airbus gets its nose off the runway and probably gets stuck.

Which means you have a runway out of operation until-minutes or hours later-the too big, too heavy aircraft gets unstuck.

It's just like good old Freddie Furst used to say: The laws of physics are the same wherever you go. If F still equals ma-and it surely does-the Airbus 330 can't perform the Air Force tanker mission.

jbabbin@eaglepub.com