L-3 Communications is trying to convince Taiwan to launch a competition to select a prime contractor for the planned refurbishment of 12 Lockheed Martin P-3C Orion anti-submarine warfare aircraft. Industry sources say Lockheed expects to receive a sole-source contract from the US government after Taipei and Washington sign a contract for the long-delayed procurement, but that L-3 is trying to convince Taiwan to instead consider its solution.
L-3 recently visited several Taiwanese companies including the Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) and Evergreen Aviation Technologies in attempt to line up a local partner.
Lockheed last year also visited the same firms, plus Air Asia and China Airlines (CAL), to determine which could help with the Orion refurbishment programme and sources say several companies could be involved to meet its offset requirements.
Air Asia says it elected against meeting L-3 in a bid to cement a partnership with Lockheed. “We don’t understand how L-3 will get involved in the project,” it says. The company hopes to lead fuselage refurbishment, but is willing to let government-owned AIDC head systems integration work and component manufacturing. CAL and Evergreen are also capable of working on the P-3 fuselages, but lack spare capacity or military aircraft maintenance experience.
AIDC, which specialises in aircraft and component manufacturing but lacks maintenance experience, has been hosting meetings with Air Asia, CAL and Evergreen to discuss which tasks could be outsourced to the three maintenance shops should it be named lead local company by either Lockheed or L-3.
The contract between the US and Taiwanese governments has been held up for nearly two years pending legislative approval, which is now expected later this year (Flight International, 16-22 August).
Sources say the US government’s original offer of 12 ex-US Navy P-3Cs expired last May, but that Washington is still holding these aircraft for Taiwan.
Source: Flight International
