Spurred on largely by interest from Japan and other nations, concept studies for a 767-based tanker/transport began at Boeing as far back as the late 1980s.
Japan's requirements were paced by the need for an airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft and, with the closure of the 707 line following the roll-out of the UK's final E-3D Sentry AWACS in 1991, Boeing focused on the 767-200ER as the obvious successor. Offering twice the floor space and three times the internal volume of the 707-based E-3, the 767 also appeared to be the best option for a next-generation tanker market currently estimated to be worth $10 billion over 30 years.
Definition studies of the new AWACS, designated E-767 by the Japan Air Self-Defence Force, began in December 1991, but it was not until February 1995 that Boeing first officially announced the 767T/T (tanker/transport), which was also aimed at Japan. Although Japan eventually went ahead with the purchase of fourE-767 AWACS, which were delivered by the end of 1999, budget pressures continually delayed the formal selection of the 767 tanker until December 2001. A firmcontract for the first of up to four aircraft was finally signed in March 2003.
Boeing, meanwhile, had put a permanent team in place for preliminary design of the 767 tanker/transport in 1999, and conducted proximity flight tests and windtunnel tests in 2000. In December of that year it submitted a proposal to the Italian air force, which took the lead in the programme by signing a contract in late 2002 for four aircraft.
Building on the work for both Japan and Italy, Boeing focused on a 1990 US Air Force "draft statement of need", which led to the definition of what was to become the KC-767A proposal. Boeing had delivered the original fleet of 732 KC-135s in the astonishingly short time of eight years between 1957 and 1965, and by the late 1990s was tracking the increasingly expensive task of maintainingthe older aircraft - some ofwhich were by then more than40 years old.
With KC-135 availability decreasing by around 1% a year and maintenance costs rising by 18% a year, Boeing believed the best way to mitigate the cost of obsolescence was not by offering further upgrades, but by developing an all-new tanker replacement based on the 767. The company submitted an unsolicited proposal to the USAF for 36 aircraft in February 2001 and, in the following month, formally set up the 767 tanker programme. In October of that year, the USAF first sought Congressional approval to lease 100 KC-767s, but the deal became bogged down in political controversy and remains in limbo.
Airbus, meanwhile, became interested in the tanker market in the early 1990s and in 1993 completed a survey indicating a demand, outside the USA, for 120 aircraft by 2010. The European consortium conducted proximity flight tests with an Airbus A310 in 1995, but did not begin marketing its Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) until 1996. In the same year, Airbus and Boeing met on the tanker battlefield for the first time when the A310 MRTT and 767T/T were offered to Singapore in a competition that did not produce a victory for either company.
In 1997, the UK Ministry of Defence launched its Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) private finance initiative, which initially saw the A310 pitched against the 767. A confusing three years followed, during which Airbus teamed with Raytheon to develop and market the A310 MRTT, while Lockheed Martin and Airbus partner Aerospatiale Matra signed a memorandum of agreement to study an A340-based tanker. Raytheon offered the A310 unsuccessfully in Australia and Japan, and eventually both agreements lapsed.
Airbus's tanker programme was finally launched in December 2000, when the German air force ordered four MRTT conversions for existing, ex-airline A310-300s. An order from Canada for two A310 MRTT conversions followed in 2002. The six aircraft are being converted by EADS Elbe Flugzeugwerke in Dresden and Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg, and flight testing of the first pod-equipped aircraft began in March.
Early in 2002, EADS responded to a USAF request for information by proposing the KC-330, a tanker derivative of the A330-200, as a replacement for the KC-135. After the USAF rejected the offer in favour of proceeding with the then-planned KC-767 lease, citing EADS's lack of tanker experience, the European company launched an g80 million ($95 million) internally funded effort to develop a refuelling boom.
In January this year, the EADS-led AirTanker consortium was selected over a Boeing-supported team for final negotiations of the UK MoD's £13 billion ($23.8 billion), 27-year FSTA contract. The team expects to provide a mix of around 16 new and used A300-200 pod-equipped tankers. This was followed in April by the selection of EADS to supply five pod- and boom-equipped A330 MRTTs to the Royal Australian Air Force, with deliveries beginning in 2007.
Source: Flight International
