February 29th, 2008. It was the day that Northrop Grumman Corporation announced that it had been selected by the U.S. Air Force to provide the KC-45A aerial refueling tanker for the KC-135 tanker replacement program. Most notably, this jet would be based on the A330 commercial airframe, produced by EADS – which, these days, would be Airbus’ Defence and Space division.