How U.S. Defense Contractors Are Creating Their Own Competition
Saudi Arabia recently awarded a contract for U.S. made C-130 transport aircraft engine maintenance to a Greek company. Over the last few decades...South Africa May Be The First A400M Casualty
Filed under: Airbus, Business Line, Companies, Contract Awards, Countries, EADS, Events, Lockheed Martin, Military Aviation, Restructuring, South Africa, development program, production program
The A400M is one of EADS most ambitious military programs. The new tactical transport would be developed and built in Europe for several different nations and provide a possible counterweight to the C-130 for overseas sales. The aircraft has faced development struggles that has led to a two year delay in the delivery of the test vehicles and caused the customers to rethink whether to continue. This would have been harsh for EADS as they would have to pay penalties to the countries that invested in them.
In July it was decided to renegotiate the contract to allow EADS time to restructure it and meet its obligations. The A400M has also attracted some foriegn customers and now South Africa is considering canceling their order for eight aircraft due to a price increase of over 150 percent. If the contract was not canceled by the end of the month the nation must continue on with the program and pay the new price. This would be about $6.4 billion compared to the original estimate of $2.6 billion in current exchange rates.
Defense acquisition programs that run late or over budget are nothing new. Normally when an overseas sale occurs of this kind of system it is after it has been in production for a few years and the price stablized. In this case South Africa gambled that the A400M would be completed on time and cost without any serious issues. This has turned out not to be true and they are facing a price increase of starting over. The aircraft are considered key to their peace keeping capability.
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Iraq takes control of C-130s
AL-MUTHANA AIR BASE, Iraq, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- The Iraqi air force took control of C-130 air operations from the U.S. military as part of the gradual withdrawal of combat forces.
Goodrich To Refit Wheels And Brakes On C-130 Fleet
Filed under: Business Line, Companies, Contract Awards, Events, Goodrich, Military Aviation, Services, U.S. Air Force, logistics, production program
Goodrich Corp was awarded a contract by the U.S. Air Force to begin retrofitting the C-130 fleet of transport aircraft with new wheels and brakes. The contract is worth up to $400 million. Goodrich hopes that these products will also be sold to foriegn customers of the highly used aircraft.
The new system of boltless wheels and carbon brakes should improve the wear and reduce maintenance on the aircraft. C-130 transports tend to be used on rougher fields then the C-17 and face different issues. Anything that makes maintenance less common and improves the life of components like these should save the operator money in the long run. It also may raise the readiness rate of this aircraft critical to the United State’s efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Air Force contracts for brakes and wheels
CHARLOTTE, N.C., Sept. 1 (UPI) -- Goodrich announced it has received a contract to provide the Air Force's fleet of C-130 heavy lift transport aircraft with life-cycle maintenance services.
Joint Cargo Aircraft Loses Boeing
Filed under: Boeing, Business Line, Companies, Contract Awards, Countries, Events, Finemeccanica, Italy, L-3, Military Aviation, Restructuring, Services, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, commercial aviation, production program
The U.S. Army and Air Force plan to purchase about seventy-eight Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA). This is a light transport to supplement the C-130 primarily used for short haul missions in theater. The C-27J was selected to be the aircraft for the mission. This is a jet built by Finmeccanica in a joint venture with L-3 Communications. The team had been in discussions with Boeing to build an assembly plant for the originally European aircraft in the U.S. Now Bloomberg is reporting that Boeing is dropping out of the program due to the current world economic downturn. The plan is still to build a plant and assemble the aircraft in the U.S. but a new partner will have to be found or L-3 will have to spearhead the work. The JCA has had its issues mainly due to the Army and Air Force having different priorities for the aircraft but it had settled down with Low Rate Initial Production starting.
India seen as future large weapons buyer
Filed under: India, Lockheed Martin, Military Aviation, production program
Lockheed Martin has expressed their belief that India will be one of the largest, future weapon markets. See Reuters for a story from the Singapore Airshow. With a projected market of $20 Billion over the next decades Lockheed plans to bid on whatever work it thinks it can get. It recently won an award for C-130 aircraft. See this previous post.
Defense Logistics Agency – Ogden Selects Goodrich to Retrofit U.S. Air Force C-130 Fleet with New Boltless Wheels and Carbon Brakes
Filed under: Syndicated Industry News
DynCorp International Wins Contract Field Team Work at Pt. Mugu, CA
Filed under: Syndicated Industry News
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