Anyone hear about these news articles:
March 3rd 2007 Boeing puts out a press release stating once again that the C-17 plant will close if no new orders are placed, putting the jobs of x thousand people at risk etc....
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...eingc1703.html The same day, a company called "Global Heavylift Holdings LLC" (not related to the old "Heavylift" company) throws a monkey wrench in Boeing's ploy when it claims it wants to purchase either 30 new Boeing BC-17s or 60 used C-17s to start an oversize carrier. It says it has a 10.8 billion dollar letter of intent from Oppenheimer & Co.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aLruD6.HPifA On March 8th 2007 Boeing specifies that such commercial orders are not enough and that it still needs military orders to survive
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...obemaster.html On March 9th 2007 Global Heavylift Holdings releases another press release to clarify the position of Oppenheimer & Co.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...4543348&EDATE= I read part of the CAMAA report
here based on a 2000 study.
Is it realistic for a commercial cargo carrier to make money based on operating commercial BC-17 freighters? They way I understand the CAMAA paper, in 1999, it was determined that to make money, the BC-17s would need to be chartered at 16,000$ a block hour and would not need to cost no more than 125 million dollars. How can they compete against AN-124s, which are larger, carry twice the load and which were all purchased under 50 million dollars? Would it not make more sense to invest in a JAR-25 certified AN-124-150 which would certainly cost less to produce and certify than Boeing C-17s?