But the European Aeronautic Defence and Space, parent company of commercial aircraft maker Airbus, will have to overcome fierce political opposition here to its drive for the coveted contract.

The Brookley Industrial Complex in Mobile, Alabama was chosen over competing offers from Florida, Mississippi and South Carolina to host the "KC-330 Advanced Tanker" plant.

If it wins the contract, EADS said it would pump 600 million dollars into Mobile and hire up to 1,000 personnel with the aim of converting up to 20 Airbus A330 commercial jets into a military configuration each year.

But win or lose, EADS North America chief Ralph Crosby said the company was in Alabama for the long haul. An on-site "Airbus Engineering Center" plans to start recruiting gifted students from local states next year.

The US Congress last year froze a deal with Airbus's arch-rival Boeing to convert 100 Boeing 767s into refueller planes.

The move followed revelations that the Air Force procurement official overseeing the programme steered billions of dollars in contracts to Boeing before securing a job at the company.

According to the Government Accountability Office, the US Air Force's Boeing KC-135s 500 tankers have an average age of 42 years. The Pentagon has made clear that only a US-made plane will be in the running as a successor.

"EADS is trying to defuse political resistance to buying a foreign aircraft by teaming with an American company and by building a major industrial site in Alabama," said Loren Thompson, a military expert at the Lexington Institute.

"We are literally getting to the point that the planes are going to be older than the grandparents of the people flying them," he added.

EADS said that Mobile offers easy access to existing runways, a deep-water port on the Gulf of Mexico and a skilled aerospace workforce.

But at a press conference here attended by Alabama's political elite, Crosby stonewalled reporters when asked about the company's US plans if it fails to win the Air Force deal.

Nor would he comment on its ambitions to tie up with a major US defence contractor, after Northrop Grumman said last week that it had put any formal alliance with EADS on the back-burner.

European firms see alliances with US contractors as key to opening doors at the Pentagon. But because of the Airbus connection, EADS is in bad odour in Washington.

In late May, the US House of Representatives called on the Pentagon to deny military contracts to any foreign company receiving a government subsidy in a country that is a member of the World Trade Organisation.

Airbus is the subject of an angry US complaint filed at the WTO over state aid, which appears to have scared Northrop Grumman off hooking up with EADS.

The European Union has retorted with its own WTO suit against alleged US aid to Boeing.

EADS does have the strong backing of Alabama leaders such as Richard Shelby, one of the state's two Republican senators and a member of the Senate's powerful appropriations committee.

"Modernisation of the US Air Force's ageing tanker fleet is vital to America's defence and homeland security, and I am proud that Alabama is positioned to play a role as the future home of the KC-330 facility," he said.

Shelby said he would welcome "an open and fair competition" in the Pentagon's choice of a new air-to-air tanker.

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