Thursday, March 24, 2016

Boeing Aiming to Extend V-22 Deliveries Through 2024

Boeing is currently negotiating a third multiyear contract with the Defense Department that would extend deliveries of the V-22 Osprey to 2024, a company executive said March 22.

"We're looking forward to a Multiyear 3 contract that would be awarded in December of '17," said Rick Lemaster, director of V-22 tilt-rotor global sales and marketing for vertical lift programs at Boeing. "That would be for a five-year period, essentially FY18 through FY22, and then the deliveries would go on out through 2024."

In 2008 the Naval Air Systems Command awarded the first multiyear procurement contract to Bell Boeing, covering V-22 purchases from 2008-2012. In 2013, the Navy signed a second multiyear contract for production of the tilt-rotor aircraft, which is jointly manufactured by Boeing and Bell Helicopter. That contract authorized the purchase of 99 V-22s from 2013 through 2017 — 92 MV-22s going to the Marine Corps and seven CV-22s going to Air Force special operations forces. It also included an option for up to 23 additional aircraft. The multiyear resulted in a total cost savings of about $1 billion, according to Boeing.

Over the summer Boeing will work with both the Navy and the Marine Corps to discuss the quantities that the services would purchase as part of a five-year production buy, he told National Defense at the Boeing facility in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, where the fuselage for the V-22 is built.

The company is hoping to reach quantities and cost savings similar to what was achieved through the second multiyear contract, which would enable Boeing to produce aircraft at the current rate of about 19 to 20 per year.

To meet that production rate, Boeing is looking at both new domestic and international opportunities — in addition to what the Navy and Marine Corps plan to purchase — to fill the gap, Lemaster said. 

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