So a month or so ago, a very senior Canadian Air Force officer and I were chatting about Canada’s purchase of new military aircraft. One of the things Canada is buying will be some tactical airlift capacity — machines that will replace the aging fleet of CC-130s made by Lockheed Martin. The conventional thinking is that Lockheed Martin will win the multi-billion dollar deal to supply Canada with the latest version of its C-130 (right) . 
(Some in Canada’s fleet over 40 years old and are no longer safe to fly.)
This Air Force officer, though, told me I shouldn’t rule out Boeing, which just won the contract for Canada’s strategic or long-haul airlift and for medium-lift helicopters.
Boeing for tactical lift? Seems odd. So I ran this suggestion by some other bloggers who know a lot more than I do about military matters. They had some interesting responses.
One of the reasons I thought this just might make sense was that the Canadian military was floating this Boeing rumour as a means to keep Lockheed Martin honest during the negotiations.
Of course, then I got the bright idea: Hey, I’ll just phone up Boeing and ask if they’re bidding on the tactical airlift. Here’s the response from Boeing’s spokesperson in Ottawa: “They did not, nor do they have plans to, submit a proposal for the tactical contract.”
Well, that’s that, then.
For what it's worth, I just read that Boeing has cancelled producton of the Globemaster, once current orders are fulfilled.