On Feb. 29, the U.S. government surprised many in the aerospace establishment by awarding the long-awaited contract for the U.S. Air Force's next-generation KG-45 military midair refueling tanker (artist's conception at right) to a consortium headed by Northrop Grumman (Los Angles, Calif.) and EADS (Rijk, The Netherlands). The contract calls for development and procurement of up to 179 tanker aircraft for approximately 40 billion dollars (USD). The initial contract is for system design and development of four test aircraft for 1.5 billion dollars. This contract includes five production options targeted for 64 aircraft at 10.6 billion dollars.
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