By Alan Dron
Boeing has reversed plans to shutdown of the C-17 strategic transport aircraft assembly line and will invest its own money to keep the line open.
The saga of the production line has raged for a couple of years, with the manufacturer warning repeatedly it would have no option but to shut it if no new orders were forthcoming. In March it told suppliers to stop work producing long-lead items.
The US Air Force has 190 of the type on order, with 166 delivered.
Initial US defence budgetary plans for FY08 contained no provision for further orders. However, on the basis of the House of Representatives’ armed services committee adding a recommendation for 10 more aircraft and the US Air Force formally stating it was interested in at least another 30, Boeing has decided to take a risk on the additional batch surviving the summer’s budgetary deliberations.
Resume production
On Tuesday the company told long-lead suppliers to start acquiring materials to resume production, said David Bowman, Boeing vice-president, C-17 programme manager. Bowman warned before the show that he was concerned that long-lead suppliers could move to other industries or lay staff off which would prohibit the line ever opening again.
If the House’s recommendation survives, the 10 aircraft, worth around $2.4 billion, would give Boeing around a year’s breathing space in which to firm up further orders.
One factor in Boeing’s calculations has been that the cost of fully restarting the line rises with every month that passes and the Congressional deliberations will not be finalised until October.
It is already assuming that a delayed Nato order for “up to four” C-17s will materialise and there are varying degrees of interest from several other air forces – although the numbers involved are very small.
Asked if orders for the mooted BC-17 civil variant were any closer to fruition, Bowman repeated that while there were “real customers, with real money” interested in the civil version, orders for a BC-17 alone could not save the line.
This was partly because engineers would need two-and-a-half to three years to receive FAA certification for a civil version.
He warned that if, over the summer, it became apparent that a further US order was unlikely, Boeing would again halt the supply chain.
Source: Flight Daily News
