By Bryan Corliss
Herald Writer
The Boeing Co. is closing in on one of the largest orders ever for a commercial airplane program — as many as 400 767s to be converted into aerial tankers for the U.S. military.
The order, if it comes, won’t arrive soon enough to reverse any of the layoffs now under way in Boeing’s Commercial Airplane Group. Boeing already has launched the program with the tentative sale of four planes to the Italian air force, and those will roll out the factory door in 2004.
Long-term, the tanker project would cement the future of the 767, said Tom Crawford, senior manager for international development of the tanker. Boeing sees a potential market over the next 20 years for as many as 600 767 tankers in the air forces of the United States and its allies.
"Combined, that could have a pretty significant impact on Everett," Crawford said.
In the 20 years since the 767 was launched, Boeing has sold and delivered 851 of the midsize, twin-engine jets to commercial airline customers.
The tanker deal has been in the works a while.
Building the 767 tanker
The basic airframe for the Boeing Co.’s 767 refueling tanker will be built in Everett. The airframe would then be flown to Wichita, Kan., for eight to 12 months of modification. Modification work on tankers bought by foreign governments would be done in those countries with Boeing kits.
Boeing’s Military Aircraft and Missile Systems Group would buy the planes from the company’s Commercial Airplane Group, modify them and lease or resell them.
The cost is about $175 million per airplane.
The 767 models are more fuel-efficient than current refueling tankers, so they can get more fuel off the ground and deliver more to combat aircraft. The Air Force is expected to need about 400 new tankers.
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The United States and its allies for the most part now use tankers based on Boeing 707 airframes. They’re designated KC-135s by the U.S. Air Force.
Their problem is age, said Michael Sirak, who analyzes defense appropriations issues for Jane’s Defense Weekly. "Some of these frames are 40 to 50 years old. The planes are corroding."
The 767 is a natural to replace the KC-135, given that it was designed as the 707’s replacement in commercial airline fleets, according to Boeing’s Crawford.
There are a number of advantages to the concept, Sirak said. Adapting the 767 to military use would be cheaper than developing a new model. The 767’s engines are much more efficient than the KC-135’s, so it could stay up longer. Since it burns less fuel, it would have more available for the combat planes it supports. And since it’s a new plane, it would require less maintenance.
That’s a big plus, Crawford said. When it was designed, planes such as the 707 were taken out of service every five years or so for a year of major maintenance. But commercial airlines can’t afford to do that any longer, so now planes like the 767 are designed so they require only three months of heavy maintenance a year.
Given that, an air force would get more mileage out of a new 767 aerial refueler, he said.
The 767 also would be flexible, Crawford said. Boeing could outfit them with belly tanks — such as those used to stretch the range of the commercial Boeing Business Jet — to carry maximum fuel. Or they could double as cargo jets or personnel transports, while still carrying enough fuel in the standard wing tanks to refuel combat planes, he said.
There’s even a proposal to outfit the tankers with electronic eaves-dropping devices so they could gather intelligence data during refueling missions, Shirak said.
Boeing started peddling the plane to the military prior to its 1997 merger with McDonnell-Douglas, he said. Several air forces were interested, but "nobody was able to pull the trigger."
In the United States, that in part was because of all the money and attention Congress was pouring into sexier Air Force programs — the F-22 Raptor fighter jet and the Joint Strike Fighter, Sirak said.
As this year opened, the program was promising but slow moving. The Air Force was plowing through the paperwork, looking to go to Congress to buy new planes around 2004, Sirak said.
Overseas, American allies continued to show interest, and in July the Italian government became the launch customer for the 767 tanker, with a tentative order for four and options for two more.
The Japanese government also is deciding whether to buy eight 767 tankers or go with a competing Airbus bid, according to Aviation Week. The Australian government is expected to ask for bids early next year for a number of planes, and the British Royal Air Force is considering Boeing and Airbus proposals for leasing between 18 and 30 tankers.
The tanker project has grown in importance to Boeing since Sept. 11, when the airline crisis prompted it to announce huge layoffs. Lockheed-Martin’s win in the competition for the Joint Strike Fighter contract also was a setback.
All that, Sirak said, has led to a feeling that "we want to keep Boeing viable. Congress really has been pushing this."
And the Air Force, which wanted the 767 tankers anyway, "is saying, ‘If we can accelerate this, let’s do it,’" Sirak added.
Currently, both the House and Senate are considering a defense spending bill that would include between $16 billion and $20 billion over the next decade for the Air Force to lease 100 767 tankers.
The leasing plan was designed as a way for the Air Force to acquire the planes quickly without having to tap into the Pentagon’s new aircraft budget, which already is strapped.
But the plan has encountered strong objections from some officials at the Congressional Budget Office and at the House and Senate budget committees. They contend it is a ruse to sidestep previous balanced-budget agreements.
Supporters, including Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., are pushing hard for the bill.
Murray recently escorted Boeing chairman and chief executive Phil Condit to a meeting with fellow Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle of South Dakota and Sen. Daniel Ionouye of Hawaii, who chairs the defense subcommittee on the Senate’s Appropriation Committee.
Murray also took Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief Alan Mulally to a meeting with Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota, another key Democrat.
In the House, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., has added $150 million to a defense spending bill for a demonstration of the feasibility of converting one 767 into a tanker. Dicks also added $190 million to the bill for a test of the 767 as a platform for the next generation of radar surveillance planes, such as the Boeing-built AWACS.
That’s a proposal supported by Air Force brass, Sirak said. But it’s almost certain to take a back seat to the more pressing need for new tankers.
Even if the tanker money is approved for the 2002 budget, "It would be too much speculation to say whether it’s a 2002 airplane or not," Crawford said.
It’s more likely, he said, that Boeing would start delivering 767s for Italy and Japan in 2004, with the first planes for the U.S. military being delivered in 2005.
But that would mean production of up to 20 767s a year in Everett over the following decade — "good, robust production," said Crawford, that would secure the future of the 767 program. "Commercial is taking a hard look at all of their lines. We’re certainly part of that equation."
The Washington Post contributed to this report.
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