Boeing Looks To Get Into Vehicle Maintenance

February 16, 2010 by Matthew Potter · 1 Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Business Line, Companies, DLA, Events, Proposal, Services, U.S. Army, logistics, production program

Using their vast amount of experience supporting aircraft — both military and civilian — Boeing (BA) submitted a proposal to the U.S. Army to provide maintenance management and support at two depots primarily concerned with vehicle and weapon maintenance. The Industrial-Product Support Vendor (IPV) contract is worth over $190 million. The work at Anniston Army Depot in Alabama and Red River Depot in Texas is to repair, reset and recapitalize vehicles like the M1 tank, the M2 IFV and the Stryker ICV.

Boeing does not make many of these types of vehicles but at the depots the contract will provide support, forecasting and inventory management. This is all work that Boeing is experienced in with aircraft and they work with the Army already on helicopters such as the CH-47. The bid was submitted to the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA).

Tags: anniston army depot, ba, Boeing, CH-47, defense logistics agency, inventory management, M1 Tank, maintenance management, Proposal, red river, stryker, types of vehicles, u s army

Canada Plans To Award $728 Million Of Contracts Due To C-130J Buy

January 14, 2010 by Matthew Potter · 1 Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Business Line, Canada, Companies, Contract Awards, Countries, Events, Lockheed Martin, Military Aviation, logistics, production program

The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) purchased seventeen C-130J aircraft from Lockheed Martin (LMT) two years ago. As part of that contract offset rules require Lockheed to invest money into Canada’s economy. Because it ended up that little or no of the production money would flow into Canada it was decided that the bulk of the Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) money would go into Canada’s economy.

The Ministry of Defense announced in December that contracts valued at over $700 million would be executed through the Industrial Regional Benefits (IRB) framework. This is only the first part of the awards as it only covers support for the first seven years. Further contracts may be awarded that will provide CLS until the end of the useful life of the Hercules aircraft.

Canada is facing the cost of operations in Afghanistan which demands significant amounts of tactical lift. The U.S., Britain and Canada all are investing in new Boeing (BA) CH-47 heavy transport helicopters. The C-130J aircraft will aid this mission as well.

Tags: CH-47, contractor logistics, heavy transport, hercules aircraft, Lockheed Martin, production money, rcaf, regional benefits, royal canadian air force, transport helicopters

England Plans to Buy More CH-47 Aircraft

December 15, 2009 by Matthew Potter · 1 Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Business Line, Companies, Countries, England, Events, Military Aviation, logistics, production program

In the budget details released by the British Government they plan a major investment in more Boeing (BA) CH-47 Chinook aircraft to support operations in Afghanistan. Unfortunately in order to pay for these twenty-two helicopters major cuts will have to be made in other areas. The British Ministry of Defence is facing major shortfalls in funding due to the economic woes of the country and the cost of combat operations.

Reportedly the MOD will close some bases and redistribute aircraft to help pay for the new heavy lift aircraft. These are much in demand in Afghanistan due to the flying conditions and the need for lift to support operations. Britain faces a dilemma where the lack of funding means that they may have to eliminate resources not directly related to Afghanistan to support their troops there. This means that the Royal Navy and Air Force may see major cuts while the Army gets the equipment it needs. In the long run this policy will seriously degrade the capability of England’s armed forces especially as there may not be funding down the road to rebuild it.

Tags: british ministry of defence, budget details, CH-47, chinook, combat operations, economic woes, heavy lift, ministry of defence, royal navy, shortfalls

Eurocopter Gets English Contract To Extend Life of Puma Medium Transports

September 30, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Business Line, Companies, Contract Awards, Countries, EADS, England, Events, Military Aviation, Services, U.S. Army, logistics, production program

The current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to demonstrate the need for personnel and cargo lift by helicopters. The English military operates a mixed fleet of Boeing CH-47 and Eurocopter Puma aircraft to perform this mission. Over the last eight years all components of their transport aviation have seen heavy use. The English government announced that they have awarded Eurocopter a contract to perform significant upgrades and life extensions for the Pumas.

The contract will be worth about $400 million and will add a new cockpit, avionics and engines to the aircraft. The work to upgrade twenty-eight aircraft should be completed in five years. The new engines will improve performance in high altitude and temperature conditions faced by units in Afghanistan. Like the United States Army which is upgrading their CH-47 and UH-60 fleet with new more powerful engines to face conditions in South West Asia the Puma will get a boost in performance. This will improve capability and provide better support to operations there.

Tags: boeing ch, CH-47, english government, english military, high altitude, new engines, south west asia, temperature conditions, transport aviation, united states army

Canada Buys CH-47 Helicopters

August 11, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Business Line, Canada, Companies, Congress, Contract Awards, Countries, Events, Federal Budget Process, Military Aviation, United States, logistics, production program

Canada awarded Boeing a contact for fifteen CH-47 helicopters. The contract has a value of over $1 billion and requires and equivalent amount of offsets in the Canadian economy. Boeing already is selling the latest version of the heavy lift helicopter so valuable in Afghanistan to the U.S. and Great Britain. Canada being the third most heavily involved country in that war will certainly be able to use them.

The aircraft will be delivered in either late 2013 or early 2014 as they fit in to the current production. Canada has been requiring significant offsets in their latest round of contracts and this favor many U.S. companies as they have either Canadian subsidiaries or already buy parts and support from that nation.

So far the Obama Administration has made little changes to the existing plans for U.S. Army aviation modernization with the UH-60M, UH-72A and CH-47F. The replacement of the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) original canceled contract is also on current path for continuation at this time.

Tags: 1 billion, armed reconnaissance helicopter, army aviation, Boeing, Canada, canadian economy, canadian subsidiaries, CH-47, great britain, heavy lift, helicopter, helicopters, modernization, offsets, u s army

India Releases Helicopter Requests For Proposals

May 27, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Business Line, Companies, Countries, Events, FMS, India, Military Aviation, Proposal, production program

India has released this week two separate Requests for Proposals (RFP) for new helicopters. The first one is to purchase twenty-two advanced attack helicopters. The second for fifteen heavy lift aircraft. India faces many of the same problems that the Allied forces in Afghanistan do because of the high, hot environments that aircraft must fly in.

The country had released a RFP last year for attack helicopters but withdrew after receiving non-responsive bids. India has looked at major upgrades to its armed forces by broadening the base of whom they buy from. Rather then relying primarily on Russian or British equipment Israel and the United States have begun to make inroads into the market. India also had invested heavily in domestic development and production but to get more technology faster has started buying overseas in greater amounts.

With the new proposals Boeing is considering a bid for each. They make the AH-64 Apache and CH-47 Chinook both heavily used in Afghanistan by the U.S. and Allies. Boeing is also looking at taking major hits in the Obama budget and will try to counter that with sales overseas.

Tags: afghanistan, ah 64 apache, allied forces, allies, armed forces, attack helicopters, Boeing, budget, CH-47, environments, fly, heavy lift, inroads, Israel, market india, requests for proposals, United States

US Air Force to award CSAR-X recompete soon

August 16, 2008 by Matthew Potter · 1 Comment
Filed under: Agusta Westland, Boeing, Contract Awards, GAO, Military Aviation, Northrop Grumman Corp., Proposal, Protest, Sikorsky, U.S. Air Force, UTC, commercial aviation, development program, production program

In a contract that has fallen to the back burner recently due to KC-45 events, the Air Force announced that they would complete the recompete for the CSAR-X by September. Contract award would be soon after. The CSAR-X contract to replace the HH-60 PaveHawk aircraft was originally awarded to Boeing with a variant of the CH-47. Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin protested and won with the GAO ruling that the Air Force did not apply the selection criteria properly. The whole contract was recompeted with Boeing, Sikorsky and Lockheed resubmitting bids.

For more see this article at www.pressconnects.com for the Binghamton area.

Tags: air force, Boeing, CH-47, contract award, csar x contract, gao, Lockheed Martin, pavehawk, selection criteria, Sikorsky

Poorly written contract grounds UK CH-47

June 3, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, England, Military Aviation, production program

In 2001 the British military purchased 8 CH-47 Chinooks to support special operations. Unfortunately the contract did not buy access to the aircraft source code for the software. This meant that the UK military could not certify the aircraft for any but day operations. See a story here. This has meant that the aircraft have sat for seven years not being used. At one point the UK government planned to convert them to regular cargo CH-47 aircraft but used the money for other things in the end. Obviously a clause to allow access to the technical data would have driven up the price a bit, but it would have allowed the military to certify the aircraft for night and bad weather operations. As it is there has been little gained by buying these aircraft, at really no fault of Boeing.

Tags: bad weather, british military, CH-47, chinooks, money, seven years, source code, special operations, uk government, uk military, weather operations

CH-47 said vandalized

May 20, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Military Aviation, U.S. Army, crime, production program

Bump – Boeing employee arrested for vandalizing aircraft. Story is here.

In a way this is good news. If it had been a quality issue then it might delay restarting the production line as they worked out new procedures and where they had gone wrong. The other good thing is they discovered the damage before they were fielded. The CH-47 is being used a great deal in Afghanistan and Iraq, as are all Army aviation assets, but in Afghanistan it is key due to the high altitude which limit smaller helicopters.

Tags: afghanistan, army aviation, assets, CH-47, helicopters, high altitude, Iraq, quality issue

3 companies submit new proposals for US Air Force CSAR-X

January 9, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, GAO, Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky, U.S. Air Force, development program

Boeing, Lockheed, and Sikorsky all submitted new proposals for the CSAR-X. See an article here. The contract had originally been awarded to Boeing for a varient of the CH-47, but the GAO upheld a protest by Lockheed and Sikorsky and required new proposals be allowed. More coverage of the CSAR-X fiasco here. The new aircraft will replace the current fleet of Black Hawk aircraft used to conduct search and rescue operations. The Air Force has also invested in a small number of V-22 aircraft that can carry out the same mission, but is primarily to be used for Special Operations missions.

Tags: CH-47, V-22

VT Group Wins Contract for Support to U.S. Army Program Management Office for CH-47 Cargo Helicopters

March 21, 2010 by Business Wire Defense: Contracts News · Comment
Filed under: Syndicated Industry News

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--VT Group U.S., an industry leader in the delivery of customer-critical services to government agencies and U.S. arm of U.K.-based VT Group plc (VTG.L), has been awarded a contract to provide logistics analyses, maintain and update logistics information management systems and provide logistics support related to the operational objectives of the U.S. Army Program Management Office for CH-47 Cargo Helicopters. This contract was awarded by the Army Aviation and Missile