[Newsbot]

<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="/link.php?id=21996" target="_blank">Airbus urges Canada to buy its planes instead</a> (click to view)

<strong>Category:</strong> <a href="/news/topic/13-military" target="_blank">Military</a>
<strong>Posted By: </strong> <a href="/modules.php?name=Your_Account&op=userinfo&username=Arctic_Menace" target="_blank">Arctic_Menace</a>
<strong>Date: </strong> 2007-06-09 14:57:32
<strong>Canadian</strong>

[airborne]

OHohOhOH somebody is competing for a contract from the Canadian forces... makes me fell all good inside!

[ridenrain]

Airbus is failing and this is a last, desperate cry for a lifeline.

From the article:

$1:

The A400M is scheduled to fly in the beginning of 2008 and first deliveries for NATO customers will start in 2009, according to Airbus officials.

But supporters of the C-130J say the A400M program has been delayed because of technical programs, and it is unclear when the aircraft will be available.

Asking us to break one contract to buy something that has yet to be built, and like most of the other Airbus projects, was late and over-budget, is not a good deal.
Airbus is definately going to have to grease a whole lot of opposition palms for this to get off the ground.

[inverted]

This whole deal seems rather odd; I think Airbus has really F'ed up the math and logic. The idea put forward by Airbus was to get 8 new A400M's between 2010 and 2013; to offset the drop in airlift that only having 8 airframes would produce, Airbus says we could just keep our best 8 C130H's, a 20ish year old airframe.

So the plan (no the contract has yet to be signed, it a verbal agreement at this point) is to buy 17 C130J's for 3.2 billion, with another 1.7 billion set aside for a 20 year service contract. That works out to about 188 million per airframe before the service contract and 288 million after.

If we cut 2 billion out of the deal that means we would pay 2.9 billion for 8 A400M's (I'm assuming the quoted price included a service contract) that works out to 362 billion per airframe.

Why would we buy into a deal which would give us 8 new A400Ms and leave us flying 8 20 year old hercs, plus pay more for it? Not to mention trying to train and maintain air and ground crews for 3 different airframes, vice 2.

I understand that Airbus has to pull out all the stops to get its A400M off the ground, but come on, this idea is just plain dumb!!!