EADS wins £13bn RAF tanker deal

Airbus parent firm EADS has won a 27-year, £13bn ($26bn; 17bn euros) contract to provide new air refuelling tankers to the Royal Air Force (RAF).

BBC

I wonder if Boeing are going to protest this one as well? should be good news for the work force coming not long after winning the US aircraft order?

btw the caost for aircraft is the total life cost upfront - hence why its £13 bln NOW.

This competition was won quite a long time ago but, as ever, there was a delay in actually getting it signed. Nice to see this happening at last.

The name of the winning bidder is Air Tanker Ltd which is a consortium including EADS and Cobham, founded by Alan Cobham who invented and perfected the probe and drogue refuelling system with successful demonstrations in the 1930's from the likes of Handley Page Harrows etc (despite what Boeing might want you to think), among other companies.

They beat another consortium which included BAE and Boeing offering the KC-767, so they should be getting used to it by now


Also, slight gaffe from the beeb;

EADS is a pan-European company based in Germany, France and Spain

.......and the UK. And the USA. Doh!

[edit on 27-3-2008 by waynos]

Question:

Will these A330s be assembled in Alabama assuming the US get their internal squabbles sorted?


This kind of thing may result in more jobs for Americans, a good argument against Boeing's somewhat xenophobic stance.

Not as yet Kilcoo. But reports I've seen that have said that N-G will assemble the USAF ones are wrong. The plant in Mobile is EADS' own facility. There has been speculation that ALL A330 assembly might be relocated to Mobile eventually so I reckon its a case of 'if' and 'when'.



[edit on 27-3-2008 by waynos]

There was a story in the news here today that when they're not being used as tankers, the RAF was going to charter them as passenger planes and use that to help with costs.

TextNot as yet Kilcoo. But reports I've seen that have said that N-G will assemble the USAF ones are wrong. The plant in Mobile is EADS' own facility. There has been speculation that ALL A330 assembly might be relocated to Mobile eventually so I reckon its a case of 'if' and 'when'.


As stated elsewhere, EADS will own and maintain the facility that the KC-45s are assembled in while N-G will own the adjoining facility which finishes them out, installs all military and refueling equipment, and does final checking before delivery.

And, yes, I've read the EADS own speculation about relocating more contracts to the Mobile facility for customers other than the USAF.

If NG-EADS play their cards right, they could potentially wind up building 400-500 aircraft over the next several decades for a variety of customers with this set-up.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I think its the freight capacity that is to be offered for charter, rather than for passengers. While plenty of plane buffs would probably love the idea of going on their jollies on an RAF transport, their wives might be less enthusiastic.

Waynos

Will the new tankers come with coat hooks and pencil sharpeners for the "plane enthusiasts" to hang their anoraks and sharpen their note taking equipment?

Sorry off topic but couldn't resist. Go EADS :::LOL

reply to post by waynos


That's what I figured, but the article on Yahoo news was saying passengers. They were talking about how they were gonna be painted in a civil type livery. It didn't make sense that they'd haul passengers around in them.

this is going to be exciting... cobham and VT are both based near where i work so with any luck i should big fat airbus tankers rolling in for conversion soon!!

it wouldn't surprise me to find that they were going to try and make the planes multirole, its not hard to make fuel bladders removable through a large cargo door, FR aviation which is part of cobham do it already to the omega planes (omega are the worlds only private air-air refuelling company.)

www.fuelbirds.com...


they specify that they can change role from tanker to cargo or passenger in a matter of hours!

The fuel bladders aren't carried inside the fuselage. They're installed in cargo holds. They're usually permanently framed, so you can remove the bladder, but you don't get the cargo hold back because the framing for the bladder is there. They don't even have a cargo door to get into there. At least the KC-135 and KC-10 didn't.

reply to post by Zaphod58


ahhh... i've seen them do it! one plane i've seen on the ramp at FR for conversion has a large cargo door about 4 windows long and the bladders are inside the fuselage and removed via the door, unfortunately i don't know what plane that was. they look like cargo boxes but with rubber hung inside them and they just slot right on in there! they might have cargo hold mounted ones as well but i didn't see them!

i have it good authority (from someone who works at FR) that they also do a bladder system that lives in the fuselage that is so flexible it can be un hooked from a frame within the aircraft bundled up like a bouncy castle and taken out of a normal passenger door, then the frames disassembled and removed also... i can't help but wonder if the whole plane reeks of jetA!

Those are aircraft that started life as passenger planes, and were converted. Purpose built tankers, which these will be, as will the USAF tankers, will be modified to have the fuel bladders installed into cargo holds. The whole point of these tankers is to haul cargo AS WELL AS refueling aircraft. How are you going to haul cargo around if you have fuel bladders hanging inside the fuselage where the cargo is going to go?

reply to post by Zaphod58


I'm sorry, i wasn't aware that it was a requirement for them to do both at once..!


i'm not aware whether the ones i see have hold mounted tanks or not.

i'm just saying that it is entirely possible for a plane to be multirole - mainly responding to the post above that sounded sceptical. i'm also just saying there is more than one way to do it!

Yes, there is, and I've seen multiple ways of doing it. However, when you're deploying fighters, you can either move their parts and pieces on the tankers, or you can move their parts and pieces on C-17s, or C-130s, which adds more aircraft to the movement, more cost, etc. By having the requirement be to move cargo, and refuel at the same time, you are cutting down on the number or aircraft required. This way you move the crew chiefs, and essential spare parts on the tanker, and you have one C-17 moving behind you with everyone and everything else. As opposed to two or three C-17s to move everything, and having one go ahead of the deployment so the crew chiefs are there waiting with parts.

makes sense.

i generally only see tankers like the ones i mentioned before, or a couple from the omani airforce, which are a bac111 which is filled with tanks inside the fuselage and a hercules, which again has massive tanks in the cargo area.

i'll be interested to see what rolls in. we see all sorts, but i don't always get to talk to the boys from FR about whats going on (they eat in the same cafe as us!)

The ones you have seen ratty may well be the RAF's VC-10's as these do carry the fuel load in the old passenger compartment (where old passengers were carried ? ).

The VC-10 was a narrowbody single aisle transport, but the A330 is a widebody, or twin aisel, aircrat with a much more voluminous fuselage so it can carry more fuel under the floor than the VC-10 could carry in its entire fuselage. With these aircraft the upper level can be retained for troop or freight movement (but not at the same time).

Besides, if you filled an entire A330 fuselage with fuel I don't think it woud even fly.

Oman`s BAC-111`s arn`t tankers - there vip transported

btw i didn`t know that the Hawk 200`s of the Oman airforce are looking at being fitted with the AESA radar sets - they come with AN/APG-66H already