South Africa May Be The First A400M Casualty

October 16, 2009 by Matthew Potter · 1 Comment
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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New EPIRB Model Launch Sparks Largest Ever Single EPIRB Order for Digital Angel’s McMurdo Unit

March 12, 2010 by Business Wire Defense: Contracts News · Comment
Filed under: Syndicated Industry News 
SO. ST. PAUL, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Digital Angel (NASDAQ: DIGA), an advanced technology company in the field of animal identification and emergency identification solutions, announced today that its McMurdo unit has received an order worth £824,000 (approximately $1.35 million at current exchange rates) from its Australian distributor AMI Sales, for the supply of a new 406 MHz EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon), the SMARTFIND™ A5. This represents the largest order t

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