New Tankers for RAF
 

According to the Rumours and News forum, the RAF has selected the Boeing option for FSTA.

According to the Rumours and News forum, the RAF has selected the Airbus option for FSTA.

Not sure the RAF had any choice in the matter!

Did I hear that one K Filbey (former Stn Cdr of a secret Oxon AR base) has recently taken a post at Air Tanker? Coincidence......?

You may find Brian Poulton (also ex station commander Brize Norton) there too.

Excellent job on selling the A330 - doubles and triples all round

Somewhat old news....

Brian Poulton has been with Airbus for years. Primarily with the A400M programme.

However, there are restrictions which normally apply to retired Air Officers such as Keith Filbey which prevent them working in the defence industry for a certain minimum period after they retire.

And Brit bus driver, the A310 MRTT programme for the GAF/CF is coming along quite nicely. First one flew about a month ago; ground integration tests on the new equipment items start shortly......

BEags

You are of course right about restrictions on Air Officers but the purdah period (minimum 3 months regardless of next job maximum of 18 months if you've been associated with a particular procurement project) is not that long in most cases.

The galling thing is you have to write to the civilian Personnel Director to get his permission!!

Does that make you PPRuNe's first (known) ex-Air Officer then, eh Impiger?

Best you do a virus check sharpish then Mike.....:E

......and don't forget to check all your orifices(on your PC), you just never know what you might find.........:p

Reuters this morning 23/1/04
 

Serco falls on report to lose out on air contract
Fri 23 January, 2004 08:33


LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Shares in British services firm Serco Group SRP.L fell on Friday on a press report that it was among a consortium set to lose out on a 13 billion pound ($24 billion) air tanker contract.

The Financial Times newspaper reported that Britain was set to award the contract to a consortium led by Franco-German defence group EADS EAD.PA over a rival consortium including Boeing BA.N , BAE Systems BA.L and Serco.

"The announcement is still outstanding and we're not going to speculate on the potential of the announcement," said Kevin Johnson, Serco's head of media and public relations.

Boeing, BAE Systems and Serco each has a 31.67 percent stake in the consortium, with Spectrum Capital as a minor partner.

By 0830 GMT Serco's shares were down 2.3 percent at 185 pence, having earlier fallen to 172p.



Orion says
Buy RR and BAE, and SRP when the S$$t has settled as ther are an excellent long term bet
:ok:

It seems that an announcement is expected on Monday 26 Jan, according to the Financial Times:

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentSe...=1012571727085

The timing would certainly be sound, as the end of the week will see top-up fees, followed by the Hutton report.....folowed by the exit of the odd politician, perhaps?

Monday is also Australia's Foundation Day anniversary. Perhaps a suitable occasion to announce the winner of their new tanker contract as well?

Methinks EADS shares might be worth a punt.....;)

Interesting to see all the celebratory messages prior to an actual announcement.

It's perhaps worth noting that Serco's share price could be fluctuating as a result of other matters than FSTA. I'm not sure what EADS price has done this week, but sometimes share prices even go down on winning a contest.

I guess you're not on the city slickers editorial team, Orion, as you are proudly advocating purchasing shares in RR (the engine supplier to AirTanker and TTSC) and BAE (team member on TTSC and wing builder on AirTanker). Hardly rocket science, is it?

sprucemoose, you're absolutely right. Share prices are hardly truly indicative of the FSTA contract award likelihood.

And I agree that any 'celebratory messages' are indeed premature. What's that phrase about a Fat Lady singing...??

Mind you, I don't think that I'll be buying any Serco shares just yet ;)

Beagle/impiger I think you will find that KF's extended "gardening leave" had more to do with Tanker Transport muttering darkly about unfair competition during the bid process, than any govt edict! Can now be found during office hours in offices close to a very large M&S store, North of Bristol!

edited following BEagle's kind advice!

The only comment I would venture to make upon your post, newswatcher, is please remember that there is such a thing as libel...

from todays BBC news site

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3429111.stm

AIRTANKER WINS FSTA PRIZE!!

It's just been announced that AirTanker, the A330 team, has indeed won the RAF's FSTA competition. News came through on Bloomberg about 3 minutes ago!!

Someone must have been reading PPRuNe!!

Hooray!

A PFI!!

Now the government can lease back the planes from the winning consortium. G&Ts all round please.

Fantastic news. :)

Is this now the 5th Air Force to have Airbus tankers in their fleet?

Apart from the CF and GAF who are modifying their A310s into A310 MRTT and CC150T multi-role tanker-transports, who are the other 2 air forces you think have Airbus tankers, GrantT?

And yes, it is indeed excellent news!

Perhaps the RAAF and FAF will soon be on the phone to Toulouse?

Before everyone gets too carried away with the thought of around 18 shiny Airbus tankers sitting on the line with roundels akimbo it is worth remembering that whoever won the contract the aircraft would remain their property. I believe that means the RAF will be allocated just enough aircraft each day to meet the pre-agreed contractual tasking, all other frames will be at the beck and call of the contractor and if the RAF want more they will have to pay extra and may have to join the queue with the bucket and spade trade. It could end up in a more complex situation than that in force with the C17, only time will tell. The only good thing about the decision is that at last it has been made.

These are the Air Forces I thought were going to get the Airbus tankers/conversions:

RAF
Canadian
Luftwaffe
Spanish
French

Maybe I shouldn't get confused with transports and tankers. :p

Ah - see what you mean now.

A310 MRTT: CF and GAF
A330 MRTT: RAF
A310 Transports: CF, FAF, GAF and Spanish AF.

Known potential A330 MRTT cutomers: FAF and RAAF......and even, possibly, the USAF?

Art Field, my commiserations to Keith A-J, John B et al. at TTSC. But I do think that on a strictly platform v. platform playing field and ignoring politics, the A330's extra capability must have had some bearing on the decision. Not fitting the extended centre tanks or an AR probe to the 767 and limiting it to 73.5 tonnes was a bit of a mistake.

Regarding the number of A330s available to the RAF, you are undoubtedly correct. HM will need to have some skilful contracts in place to augment the number every time the sate of tension increases. But perhaps the demand for civil airline seats is inversely proportional to the state of tension in any case?

I wonder what'll happen to the bmi Malvinas trooping contract once the PFI negotiations are concluded, assuming that AirTanker does get the ultimate PFI go-ahead.....? A quick paint job, I would bet!

Er, that'll be a first then.

I wonder if British waste of space can screw this one up as well?

I mean they build the wings which will have to be modified for Tanker pods lights etc. So shall we start a book on how long they can delay the project;)

BEagle

How come if you're so integral to the Airbus bid, you seem to spend all day glued to Bloomberg and posting on PPRUNE?

What a great job you have ;)

PS. I think the best bid won.

Yeah! and they'll probably put sugar in the fuel tanks too, just to make sure nobody makes any money...

fesc - I am not connected in any way to the 'Airbus bid' of AirTanker (except as an enthusiastic supporter). My 'Airbus' work is as a part-time consultant on Konsortium fur MRTT, the A310 programme for the CF/GAF.

Perhaps unsurprisingly my TV has had Bloomberg on in the background today in anticipation of this important announcement which was widely expected. Most of my work I do on a PC; always-on ASDL means the not infrequent dipping into PPRuNe between hourly-paid work periods is quite straightforward, since you seem to be so keen to know what I do.

Back to the thread. To see AirTanker's press release, go to: http://www.airtanker.co.uk/airtanker...tanker50.shtml .


Converting the A330 wing to take AR pods is a relatively straightforward design problem; they will be mounted on the outboard pylons hardpoints which exist on all A330/340 wings - they'll go where the A340 has its outboard engines! Neat engineering solution. A310MRTT, A330MRTT and A400M will probably use a common FRL 32-907 AR pod design - all of which is indeed good news for the European aerospace industry.

Nurse

BWoS will indeed build the wings. Luckily the A330 shares the same wing as the A340, the only difference being the redundant outboard engine mountings points will be used for the pods, thus removing any additional structural "Modification" in its construction. Any mods required from a refuelling point of view should all be taken care of by Cobham. BEagle will correct me if wrong ;)

Congratulations to AirTanker. Lets hope that the deliverables are achieved on time and budget, and give the whole of the defence industry something to aspire too! :ok:

Ah.... BEags got there before me!:{

A certain part of Oxfordshire is going to become a quieter place :(

Will it be a 3-point hose unit or just wing-podded?

If only the latter when are they going to look at a Tactical Tanker option?

Damn, that French plane won.

Beagle
Which will fly first, the tanker or the big bad A400?

A number of A330 tankers will be 3-point hose-and-drogue tankers.

As for tactical AR, particularly for helicopters, Sir might be interested to know that the A400M Common Standard Aircraft has to be capable of being re-roled into the AR role in less than a day. Extra cargo bay tanks can be fitted, but with those on board it doesn't leave much grunt space!

A330 MRTT 111 tonnes of fuel
A310 MRTT 72 tonnes of fuel
A400M (2 x CBT) 62.1 tonnes of fuel
A400M (1 x CBT) 56.4 tonnes of fuel
A400M ( Basic ac) 50.6 tonnes of fuel

And some lucky lads and lasses currently going through ME training will have the fun of flying them! Enjoy!

Hi Westie! At a guess I'd say the European A330 MRTT will fly first. Incidentally, our A310MRTT has already flown, shall be casting an eye over her this week.

emitex/NURSE,

I would suggest that you don't know WTF you are talking about.
It so happens that BWoS perform pretty well on the Airbus manufacturing side,probably because they don't have to contend with the Government moving the goalposts every few days.
If you want to have a dig that's fine but get your facts straight first.
emitex, I note that you live in the U.S. - not with Boeing are you ?

Ah yes.... roger that, the European plane..gotcha.

How much content is US made in the basic A330? Or rather non European made?



If you had a gun to your head and was told you had these three options, what would you do?

A) Kiss a Frenchman and shout viva la France

B) Kiss an Americans beer belly and shout "if it aint Boeing, I aint going"

C) Pull the trigger

BEagle!!!

Handbags away............... only asking:}

Westie,

Not B) - he might ask for other favo(u)rs whilst I'm down on my knees.....

Not C) - no point really.

Probably A) - so long as there were no tongues involved! But I'd say "Vive la France" rather than 'viva' in order to avoid offence. The we'd have a couple of glasses of cognac and take the pi$$ out of the fat Yank's beer belly!

;)

Chaps

I don't wish to sound pessimistic but.......

I suggest a look at the full announcement before popping too many more champagne corks (sadly all I could find was at):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...portaltop.html

If the link doesn't work the salient section is:

Mr Hoon said the MoD would now hold "single bidder negotiations" with the European consortium aimed at concluding a PFI contract as soon as possible.

"A final decision on whether or not to proceed with a PFI contract will not be taken until these have been satisfactorily concluded," he said.

So no actual winner yet then!!

Methinks the " cousins " may have the proverbial hump!!!