EADS/Northrop Grumman KC-45

The EADS/Northrop Grumman KC-45 was a proposed aerial refuelling tanker and transport aircraft, an adaptation of the Airbus A330 MRTT put forward by EADS and Northrop Grumman for the United States Air Force's KC-X programme to replace its ageing Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker fleet. The Department of Defense first selected the design in February 2008 and the Air Force designated it the KC-45A, with 179 aircraft ordered in the first stage, but Boeing's protest was upheld by the Government Accountability Office in June 2008 and the contest was reopened. Northrop Grumman withdrew in March 2010, EADS re-entered with its own bid in April 2010, and in February 2011 the Air Force chose the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus instead. The first four aircraft would have been converted at Dresden, with final assembly planned for Mobile, Alabama, but that production line was never set up.