Dog Ate My Homework

The cabaret known as the U.S. Air Force’s KC-X tanker competition is getting in some serious high-kicks now, baby. This summer, a rather unknown company with 30 employees called U.S. Aerospace, which had changed its name from New Century only last March, and has had some recent questions surrounding its debt situation, announced that it plans to furnish the Air Force with its next aerial refueling tanker.
As you might guess about a 30-person company, U.S. Aerospace has no airplane of its own. It plans to offer the Antonov An-70, a cargo plane manufactured in Ukraine. The Russian and Ukranian governments have been turning their nose up at the An-70 for two decades. The first prototype was destroyed in a mid-air collision with a chase plane in 1995. The second prototype was damaged in an emergency, wheels-up landing during cold weather tests in 2001. No production models have come off the line, but Ukraine’s Air Force hopes to take delivery of the first An-70 in 2011, and the second one in 2012.
With egg beaters like these, who needs turbofans? An Antonov An-70 spools up.
It gets better, according to this story in Aviation Week. The proposal deadline—which U.S. Aerospace ...