Stewart Penney/LONDON
Six companies have been selected by the UK Ministry of Defence to submit outline proposals for the Royal Air Force's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft requirement. The deal is potentially worth £9 billion ($14.6million) over 20 years and will be funded via a Private Finance Initiative.
British Aerospace, Brown and Root, Cobham's FRAviation with Thomson-CSF, Raytheon, Rolls-Royce, and Serco teamed with Spectrum Capital, are to present proposals covering the design, supply, management and operation of air-to-air refuellers to replace the RAF's BACVC10 and Lockheed TriStar tankers from 2004 onwards. New or used Airbus A310s or A330s, Boeing 767s and McDonnell Douglas DC-10s are being considered. Responses are required by mid-November and a further round of assessment will take place before a decision is taken in 2002.
Under consideration is the use of reserve crews, or a mixture of RAF personnel and reservists. The successful bidder will be allowed to use spare capacity to generate third party revenue, possibly by offering the aircraft to allied air forces.
R-R with "other service providers" is offering a managed fleet proposal similar to that offered as part of the abortive Short Term Strategic Airlifter (STSA) competition, abandoned last month.
Meanwhile, the MoD is talking to STSA competitors and others about its short term large transport needs. Boeing continues to offer options based on the C-17. It is believed the BAe support package could be dropped because of the expense of setting up a support operation for four aircraft.
Air Foyle is offering options based on the Antonov An-124. In the original competition, Air Foyle submitted a bid comprising An-124s with new cockpits based on Honeywell avionics and re-engined with R-R RB211s.
Source: Flight International
