Airbus Industrie efforts to persuade Lockheed Martin to take a stake in the A3XX high-capacity widebody passenger aircraft have failed for the time being, with the US company effectively ruling out taking an equity stake in the project.
Micky Blackwell, president and chief executive of Lockheed Martin's Aeronautics sector, says that the company "-will not come on board the A3XX at the moment as an equity holder".
Blackwell says that Lockheed Martin wants to build a relationship at a strategic level with Airbus across a broad front of projects, despite deciding against an equity stake in the 450-seat-plus passenger-aircraft programme.
Senior Lockheed Martin managers have made it clear that they view a transatlantic strategic relationship as desirable, to provide the company with access to the civil sector and to provide a counterbalance to the pending Boeing/McDonnell Douglas merger in the USA.
Rather than leaping into an equity stake on the A3XX, however, Blackwell says that Lockheed Martin needs to "-get its feet wet first" in less high-risk areas.
At the aerostructures level, Lockheed Martin already produces the engine nacelle for the Airbus A330, and it is bidding to provide the nacelles on the A340-500 and A-340-600.
Lockheed Martin has been discussing its proposed New Strategic Airlifter (NSA) with Airbus, however, but continues to run into difficulty over resolving the clash between the C-130J Hercules 2 and the Airbus-run Future Large Aircraft project.
The NSA is designed to provide an eventual replacement for the US Air Force's Lockheed C-141 transport and Boeing KC-135 tanker aircraft. It could also meet European air forces' desires to deploy a limited number of strategic transport aircraft.
The US company is looking for a closer relationship with Airbus to provide mutual advantages. In the case of Lockheed Martin, it would give the company access to the civil-aerospace market which offers a greater growth rate than that of the military.
For Airbus, the value of establishing a strategic bridgehead in the USA, and of diluting the perception of being purely European, also holds obvious attractions.
A key issue for Lockheed Martin in pulling the two aerospace giants closer remains transforming Airbus from a consortium into a company.
Source: Flight International
