PAUL LEWIS / HARTFORD
Meanwhile, proposals at the end of October for the Joint STARS competition to re-engine the E-8C
Boeing is lobbying the US Congress to support a proposal in the forthcoming defence appropriations bill for the US Air Force to lease up to 100 new 767 tankers. This builds on a trial leasing programme now in the final bidding phase to re-engine its fleet of Boeing E-8C Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) aircraft.
The $20 billion lease-buy plan calls for the USAF to spend $20 million a year per tanker over 10 years, at the end of which they would own the aircraft. The proposal would fast-track finding a replacement for the air force's ageing KC-135 tankers, effectively circumventing a planned KC-X competition, while providing an immediate boost to Boeing's waning civil aircraft orderbook.
Earlier proposed lease deals, such as re-engining the B-52 bomber, failed over the military's inability to commit future funds for a lease term and the liability faced by a lessor of equipment being returned. "It's a problem and not an easy one to solve. In any ordinary budget year it would not be possible, but these are extraordinary times and there is a recognition that acquiring these aircraft makes a lot of sense," says an aide to Congressman Norman Dicks from Washington.
Attention is now on the Joint STARS competition to replace the E-8's Pratt & Whitney JT3D-7 engines. Proposals are due on 24 October and centre on a nine-year lease and logistics support package across 17 aircraft with final selection due early next year. The Seven Q Seven consortium has teamed with P&W to bid the JT-8D-219, while General Electric and Boeing are proposing the CFM56-2, powering the re-engined KC-135R.
"This would be the first lease the air force has ever done," says Jason Chamberlain, P&W director airlift, surveillance and tanker engine programmes. "What's unique is there is no termination liability, which you couldn't do in the commercial world. The protection we have is that we'll give them only the engines they need and we have the advantage that if the air force wants to cancel the lease, theJT-8Ds would come off wing and we could utilise them for spares and recoup the cost."
Also watching closely is NATO, which expects to release a request for proposals in May to re-engine the alliance's fleet of 17 Boeing E-3 Airborne Early Warning & Control Systems aircraft and three 707 trainers. "We're looking at all options including lease, loan or buy," says Col Reinhard Unruh, chief of plans, NATO AEW&C Programme Management Agency.
Source: Flight International
