Alenia expects to complete a contract by year-end detailing Boeing's participation in the L-3 Communications-led Joint Cargo Aircraft programme, with this to end several months of off-and-on negotiations. In the meantime, the Italian manufacturer says it is moving forward with preparations to begin assembling C-27J Spartans in Florida, even if a deal with Boeing is not completed.
Alenia and L-3 announced in 2006 the planned addition of Boeing to their JCA team, but earlier this year Alenia said talks had ended without a contract. Subsequently the Italian company said it had resumed talks, but has yet to complete a deal.
"We believe we can get a final agreement with Boeing before the end of the year," says Alenia North America chief executive Giuseppe Giordo. "I don't believe we have any more business issues between Alenia North America and Boeing, so we are proceeding with legal and contractual negotiations to create a joint venture."
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Giordo stresses that having Boeing as a partner is not a necessity for completing the contract awarded last year by the JCA joint programme office, or in fulfilling its promise to shift production to Jacksonville, Florida. He says Alenia now has a team in Florida looking at the former NAS Cecil facility and working with the Jacksonville authorities.
"We're not waiting for Boeing to proceed with industrial development in Florida, it's not absolutely necessary to have another partner." However, Boeing could help with setting up the Jacksonville final assembly facility, the supply chain and the "overall industrial plan of Alenia in the USA", he says.
Alenia's original plan to deliver the first Jacksonville-assembled C-27J in March 2010 remains intact and does not hinge on when or if Boeing joins the team. If the army's current procurement schedule remains unchanged, the first US-assembled aircraft will be the 14th for the JCA programme, says Giordo.
The US Army plans to acquire 54 C-27J tactical transports, the first of which was delivered on schedule in September. Original plans also called for the US Air Force to acquire 24 C-27Js, but its first aircraft is not expected to be acquired until fiscal year 2010 at the earliest. There has also been growing speculation in recent months over a possible switch to Lockheed Martin's larger C-130J.
But Alenia remains confident that the USAF will proceed with the acquisition and says commanders have recently indicated that they remain committed to the acquisition. Alenia is meanwhile waiting for the Air Force Special Operations Command to establish a requirement and contractual model for the potential purchase of a gunship variant of the C-27J.
Giordo believes some of the recent doubts within the USAF over whether to proceed with the JCA acquisition are a result of officials not being familiar with the aircraft's capabilities. "We didn't have the opportunity to show the C-27J to the air force in the same detail as the army," he says. Only army officials were involved in four US demonstrations of the C-27J before its selection.
Source: Flight International
