[Jorge Pereira]

Sim, mas esse Airbus na foto, é um 310 e não um 330.   , essa questão aliás, foi amplamente discutida aqui.


Só coloquei essa foto para mostrar um Airbus com o sistema (mais visívil) Boom and receptacle, mesmo que os futuros KC-45 venham a ser dotados também com o sistema Probe and drogue.

  KC-45

[lurker]

Tanto quanto sei, a TAP já assumiu compromissos relativos ao futuro dos A310 que vai deixar de operar.

[Bravo Two Zero]

Tanto quanto sei, a TAP já assumiu compromissos relativos ao futuro dos A310 que vai deixar de operar.

E quais serão esses "compromissos" ? Alguma especulação ?
Um camarada espanhol afirmou noutro tópico que Espanha estava no mercado por A310 em 2º mão para aumentar a sua frota.
Será que a TAP foi sondada ?

[nelson38899]

Meus senhores deixem de ilusões, mas vendo os requisitos para a compra de equipamentos para a força aérea, como no caso dos EH101 ele ganhou porque conseguia chegar aos açores sem reabastecer, num futuro não estou a ver Portugal a comprar aviões tipo Airbus de transporte de tropas, altas individualidades, carga ou de reabastecedor. Mesmo achando que portugal precisa de uma boa capacidade de projecção de forças. Não se esqueçam que para o próximo ano há eleições e como tal, está na hora de contentar o ze povinho, com hospitais, segurança e descida de combustiveis

[Scarto]

Todos os A-310 da Tap já estão encaminhados para outras companhias
Apesar da idade,são aviões muito procurados no mercado!Pena,pk dariam uma excelente aquisição para a FAP.

[lexivia]

Se bem me lembro, vi num fórum, 9g's acho, um forista a dizer que o destino dos A310 da TAP seriam para um empresa transportadora aérea, a FEDEX, acho.

[Scarto]

Senão me engano,2 para a Fedex,2 para uma companhia de passageiros que ira para já aluga-los a outra e os restantes 2 ainda não foi indicada a companhia..

P.S-Peço desculpa pelo off-topic  

[Menacho]

E quais serão esses "compromissos" ? Alguma especulação ?
Um camarada espanhol afirmou noutro tópico que Espanha estava no mercado por A310 em 2º mão para aumentar a sua frota.
Será que a TAP foi sondada ?

Hay rumores de que Espanha va a intentar adquirir dos novos A-330 MRTT, como los que va a adquirir los EEUU..........

De momento son rumores.............pero de llevarse a cabo, cancelaria la adquisicion de los A-310..............

[NVF]

NYT
March 10, 2008

In Tanker Bid, It Was Boeing vs. Bold Ideas
By DAVID HERSZENHORN and JEFF BAILEY

WASHINGTON - Just hours before the Air Force announced the winner of a $35
billion contract to build aerial refueling aircraft on Feb. 29, an Airbus
plane lumbered off the runway in Getafe, Spain, and climbed to 27,000 feet
to rendezvous with a Portuguese F-16 fighter.

Then, in the skies south of Madrid, the two aircraft edged closer and
closer, until they were joined by a 50-foot boom hanging off the back of the
big Airbus plane. For the first time, the boom pumped fuel into another
plane, 2,000 gallons in all during several connections.

The technology to pass fuel from one plane to another may not be rocket
science - in fact, aerial fuel booms have been in use for more than 50 years
- but it helped Airbus's parent and its partner, Northrop Grumman, establish
their technical bona fides.

Eager to enter the American defense market, the European Aeronautic Defense
and Space Company, the owner of Airbus, made several bold plays, perhaps
none more dramatic than building the $100 million state-of-the-art refueling
boom on spec.

As a result, Boeing, the pride of American aerospace, was outmaneuvered on
its home turf for a contract that could grow to $100 billion, becoming one
of the largest military purchases in history.

Boeing received a detailed briefing from the Pentagon on Friday about why
its bid fell short. Now it must decide by Wednesday whether to file a formal
appeal.

The company and its allies in Washington have already made a number of
arguments. Among them are that too many American jobs are being lost
overseas, and that sensitive military contracts should not be in the hands
of a foreign company.

The debate about the impact on American jobs is a murky one, because large
manufacturing projects typically involve operations in many parts of the
world, regardless of which company has a contract.

If Boeing tries to reverse the decision, it could find itself in a difficult
position, accused of further delaying critically needed equipment in a time
of war.

Boeing could also be forced to revisit the corruption scandal in 2004 that
derailed a $20 billion deal for the company to lease refueling tankers to
the Air Force. Two Boeing executives went to jail as a result, and the chief
executive stepped down.

The parent of Airbus, known as EADS, and Northrop Grumman proposed a tanker
made from a refitted A330 jetliner that could carry more fuel than the rival
proposal, a modified Boeing 767. It also offered more flexibility for
carrying cargo, transporting troops, airlifting refugees and delivering
humanitarian aid.

Boeing, the heavy favorite to win the contract, having built earlier
tankers, promised a new boom but did not build a prototype. One analyst who
followed the contest said that Boeing, based in Chicago, seemed arrogant and
offered a plan that Air Force officials thought would deliver only 19
tankers by 2013 compared with 49 by the Airbus team.

"The Boeing team was not responsive and often was not even polite," said
Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute in
Arlington, Va., based on conversations he said he had with defense
officials. "Somehow that all eluded senior management," Mr. Thompson said.
"They were not even aware there was a problem."

William Barksdale, a Boeing spokesman who attended the Air Force debriefing
on Friday, said Boeing asked "whether we were hard to get along with." He
said Air Force officials had no complaints in that area.

On Capitol Hill, the blow to Boeing has set off a protectionist furor among
many lawmakers. And on the campaign trail, the Democratic candidates for
president, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, suggest that
the Boeing loss reflects other Bush administration policies that have
resulted in jobs moving offshore.

But the hot rhetoric could sound overly nationalistic, and even
hypocritical, once the real implications for jobs and national security
become clear. Boeing, for example, would have made many of its own tanker
parts overseas, and some experts say that claims of job losses to a foreign
company seem exaggerated.

For now, though, the pro-Boeing, pro-America talk is showing no signs of
letting up.

"We really have to wake up the country," said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat
of Washington State, where Boeing is a significant employer. "We are at risk
of losing a major part of our aerospace industry to the Europeans forever."

Representative Todd Tiahrt, Republican of Kansas, said: "It's outsourcing
our national security. An American tanker should be built by an American
company with American workers." Boeing would have done some of its tanker
assembly in Kansas.

Some officials have even suggested that it would have been better to revise
the tainted lease deal than to let Airbus compete.

Defense industry analysts, however, say that the Airbus deal in many ways
does make sense and that fears of lost military secrets are misplaced.

"We're not talking about missile defense issues," said Jon B. Kutler, chief
executive of Admiralty Partners, a firm that invests in defense companies.
"This is as plain vanilla as a major contract gets."

The Airbus and Boeing aircraft are both global products - Boeing has said
roughly 85 percent of its tanker components would be American-made, the
Airbus group about 60 percent - making the impact on jobs unclear.

Boeing said its bid would create or support 44,000 American jobs. The Airbus
team's figure was 25,000 jobs in 49 states. Both numbers are impossible to
verify. Industry analysts point out that, employment claims aside, the
manufacturers have a profit motive in building the planes with as few
workers as possible.

In fact, no layoffs are expected at the Boeing plant in Everett, Wash.,
where the 767 is assembled, as a result of losing the contract. On the
contrary, the company is hiring workers because of a $255 billion backlog
for jetliners. Airbus, too, has a huge backlog.

But while politicians continue to make election-year speeches about
protecting jobs, industry analysts say a more useful debate might be over
whether there was too much consolidation of American defense manufacturers
in the 1990s when military spending slowed, leaving the government with
limited domestic options.

With the award to the Airbus group, Mr. Kutler, the defense company
investor, said: "The Defense Department is sending a message: on major
contracts, don't be assuming we have no other options. It's a global
marketplace."

Another crucial question is how such big contracts will be awarded in the
future given the indications that many American officials seem to favor
competition, but only if American companies win.

"If Cessna wants to start building bigger airplanes, I am happy to see that
happen," said Senator Murray, of Washington. "I don't disagree with the
concept of more competition, but there is a second bigger question and that
is military capability and losing military capability."

Experts warned that excluding foreign competitors could prompt other
countries to take similar steps against American defense manufacturers and
that choosing inferior domestic products would only put military service
members at risk. That tendency, acted on in other countries, has already
created what one analyst, Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group, called "a
hideous mix of higher costs and reduced combat effectiveness."

Boeing and its allies in Congress have raised a number of objections that
they say could justify reversing the Air Force decision, including whether
the bid evaluators properly considered subsidies that Airbus may receive
from European governments, or even the fact that Boeing pays higher health
care costs because much of Europe has national health insurance.

In a statement after Friday's briefing, Mark McGraw, a Boeing vice president
in charge of the tanker program, said that the company would "give serious
consideration to filing a protest." He added: "What is clear now is that
reports claiming that the Airbus offering won by a wide margin could not be
more inaccurate."

If the company appeals, it would be to the Government Accountability Office,
which would then have 100 days to issue a ruling.

The Air Force, meanwhile, insists that it chose the better plane.

Sue C. Payton, the assistant secretary of the Air Force, at a contentious
hearing before the Defense Appropriations subcommittee last week, said:
"Northrop Grumman brought their A game." Northrop is based in Los Angeles.

Ms. Payton also disagreed with assertions that the Air Force had tipped the
scales for Airbus. She said officials had carefully followed procurement
rules and an array of laws, including the Buy American Act, which she noted
calls for certain countries, including Western European allies, to be
treated as if they were the United States.

"Let me say I view Northrop Grumman as an American company," she said. "I
view General Electric, who has jobs from this in Ohio and North Carolina, as
an American company. I view the folks in Mobile, Alabama, and Melbourne,
Florida, as Americans. But that did not enter into my decision here."

"You said we want a fair and open competition under the laws," she told the
panel. "I complied with those laws."

General Electric is to make the engines and Northrop Grumman expects to hire
hundreds of engineers in Melbourne for the Airbus group's tanker, which will
be assembled in Mobile, Ala.

The victory on the Air Force contract could mark the arrival of Airbus as a
major builder of tankers after decades of dominance by Boeing, which
manufactured the only widely used boom.

The Boeing spokesman, Mr. Barksdale, said his company could easily pull
together the new boom it promised the Air Force. "It's not a huge leap of
technology," he said. "It would not be a huge deal."

But to Northrop Grumman and EADS, building the boom on spec presented a
chance to demonstrate their competitive hunger.

"They had to start from scratch," said Tim Gann, a retired Air Force tanker
pilot and group commander who now works for the Airbus group, EADS North
America. "Up until we developed our boom, only Boeing had a boom. Boeing
wasn't going to sell us the boom."

Fonte

[João Oliveira Silva]

lurker escreveu:
Tanto quanto sei, a TAP já assumiu compromissos relativos ao futuro dos A310 que vai deixar de operar.


E quais serão esses "compromissos" ? Alguma especulação ?
Um camarada espanhol afirmou noutro tópico que Espanha estava no mercado por A310 em 2º mão para aumentar a sua frota.
Será que a TAP foi sondada ?

No seguimento do que está neste tópico, jantei há dias com um bom e velho amigo, ex-piloto da FAP, e com muita responsabilidade nesta questão na TAP, que, mesmo quando insisti se podia divulgar esta informação, me esclareceu o seguinte:

- A TAP, ao negociar os 12/15  A-350, que são por ora apenas um desenho, e que os primeiros sairão de Toulouse em 2012 ( se Deus quiser... ), impôs como condição contratual a compra intermédia de 5 A-330, que serão retomados pela Airbus em condições vantajosas contra a entrega dos A-350, se a TAP julgar que são dispensáveis.

- Isto é: a TAP está a receber este ano aviões A-330 novos de fábrica  e em 2014 quando começar a receber os A-350 decide se entrega à Airbus estes A-330 nas condições e valores que estão no contrato.

- Como parte do pagamento destes 5 aviões A-330 novos que está a receber ( já recebeu 3 ) e os restantes virão até ao verão, a TAP entrega à Airbus os A-310 que possuia, sendo a responsabilidade da sua venda da própria Airbus.

- A Airbus procedeu já à venda de todos - há procura para este modelo e os da TAP estão bem conservados -, conforme este quadro:

CS-TDI " Padre António Vieira " : Vendido à Portuguesa White Airways, alugado à Air Niugini;
CS-TEH " Bartolomeu Dias " : Previsto o Phase Out. Destino não revelado. Possivelmente será cargueiro;
CS-TEI " Fernão de Magalhães "  :  Vendido à Portuguesa Hy Fly;  
CS-TEJ " Pedro Nunes " :  Previsto o Phase Out. Destino não revelado. Possivelmente será cargueiro;
CS-TEW " Vasco da Gama " : Vendido à Canadiana Air Transat,
CS-TEX " João XXI " :  Vendido à Portuguesa Hy Fly, alugado à Omar Air;
CS-TEY " Alvares Cabral " :  Vendido à JEZ Air;
CS-TEZ " Viana da Mota " :  Vendido à Canadiana Air Transat;

Logo, tal como o negócio foi feito e segundo se sabe em condições muito vantajosas para a TAP, a Força Aérea, nem sequer a Força Aérea Espanhola, apesar de já ter Airbus,  não teria direito a nada já que a Airbus colocou estes aviões usados nos seus bons clientes.  " E se mais houvera, mais iriam... "

Segundo a opinião deste meu amigo, o avião Airbus novo que mais convirá à Força Aérea é o A-319 CEJ. Simples, fácil de operar, razoávelmente barato e de custos operacionais aceitáveis, tecnológicamente avançado, nem grande nem pequeno, e uma excelente e duradoura máquina e melhor que o Embraer ERJ, igual aos da Portugália ( Grupo TAP ).

Cumprimentos,

[Daniel]

João Oliveira Silva

Isto é: a TAP está a receber este ano aviões A-330 novos de fábrica e em 2014 quando começar a receber os A-350 decide se entrega à Airbus estes A-330 nas condições e valores que estão no contrato.

Sim, mas a TAP já opera os A330 desde o ano passado, pois foram adquiridos creio, que, 3 a 4 em segunda mão.

[nelson38899]

Um vídeo do MRTT

http://www.kc45now.com/images/videos/A3 ... light.html

[nelson38899]

India’s MMRCA trials help Russian aerial refueling tanker bid
Our BureauViewed: 12846 times
Fri, Jan 14, 2011 11:39 CET
      Flight trials of the six contenders for India’s Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tender have had an unusual side effect on the race to sell India aerial refueling aircraft. Asked to prove aerial refueling capability, the contenders, F-16, Gripen, Rafale, F/A 18, MiG-35 and Eurofighter have had no option but use the Indian Air Force (IAF)’s existing tanker, the Il-86 mid-air refueler to prove that their aircraft is capable of meeting IAF’s requirements as regarding aerial refuelling.

      The Il-86 is a contender in India’s re-floated bid to buy fresh aerial refueling tankers. Fresh bids are due later this month and the besides the Il-86, the other likely contenders are the Airbus A-330 MRTT and the Boeing KC-X. The success of the MMRCA aerial refueling tests means that the IL-76 tanker will have a stronger case due to the fact that its capability has been proven on all the MMRCA bidders, one of which will be eventually selected.

      In fact, the MMRCA contenders had to make major modifications to their aerial refueling systems to match the IL-76’s fuel pipe mating and locking systems to prove that the their aircraft can be refueled in mid-air.

      Informed sources told Defenseworld.net that the Russian bid had “emerged stronger” after the MMRCA aerial refueling tests. The IL-86 had earlier been disqualified in favor of the Airbus A-330 MRTT but the Airbus bid was turned down following objections from the Indian finance ministry which found the aircraft “too expensive”. It is not known was the quoted price was.

      Indian media quoting unnamed Airbus officials has reported that Airbus would be resubmitting its bid for the tanker contest. Boeing however has reportedly expressed that its bid would depend upon whether it wins the U.S. aerial tanker bid in which it is engaged in a bitter battle with the U.S. subsidiary of EADS which is fielding the A-330 MRTT.

      Airbus’ tanker has been ordered by the U.A.E, Saudi Arabia, Portugal and Australian air forces while the Boeing KC-X was unveiled only in mid-2010 and the U.S. tanker contest is its first major bid.

      The Il-86 has been an old workhorse for Russia, India and China.

      At Aero India 2009, the Il-78 had made a demonstration refueling two aircraft simultaneously. It is quite likely that it may repeat this feat with the LCA Tejus at Aero India 2011.

http://www.defenseworld.net/go/defensenews.jsp?n=India%92s%20MMRCA%20trials%20help%20Russian%20aerial%20refueling%20tanker%20bid&id=5355

noticia muito interessante, infelizmente não aconteceu o que lá dizia

[Get_It]

A330 MRTT:

Netherlands, Norway, Poland to jointly issue A330 MRTT RfP

The Netherlands, Norway, and Poland will send a request for proposal (RfP) to Airbus to buy A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) aircraft within a matter of weeks, according to officials close to the issue.

Since the platforms will be identical to one another, the forthcoming negotiations "will be all about price", they said.

"We know the numbers and expect to see a reasonable offer. This has to be affordable: the flight costs have to be low," said Johan Van Soest, commander of Eindhoven's military airfield in the Netherlands, which will be the MRTTs' main operating base. "If they [Airbus] come back with too great a price differential versus what Boeing could offer with the KC-10, then we can always go for a KC family of 4-5 tankers and some cargo aircraft. That's a second-best choice but if it's lower in cost, then we'll consider that option. But it's really to Airbus' advantage to make a deal because this involves all the through-life work as well."

(...)

The Netherlands, Norway, and Poland will form the launch nations for jointly purchasing three to four MRTTs for delivery starting in May 2019, with an option for up to eight. Forward-operating bases will be set up in Norway and Poland.

The trio and the EDA, which has sponsored the procurement project, are hoping other nations will join the effort since Eindhoven has plenty of room. It currently has space for eight MRTTs, "and if we get more than that, then we'll just need to pour some more concrete," Van Soest said.

The EDA's MRTT project dates back to a March 2012 when originally 10 EDA nations aimed to jointly buy the capability. But Europe's deepening financial crisis and the difficulty of aligning the nations' programmes and budget cycles saw the other seven drift away.

However, Belgium is now back and considering rejoining the programme, though it would not invest in aircraft. Instead, it is looking at buying around 600 hours' worth of flying time - roughly half the cost of a single MRTT. Its hours "would come in at a somewhat higher cost than for the rest of us since they wouldn't be investing directly in the programme, but Belgium's cost would be spread over a long period," observed Van Soest.

EDA officials at the briefing said the RfP will go to Airbus "within two weeks", or early May, with a contract to be signed in early 2016. Initial operating capability is scheduled for mid-2020, followed by full operating capability a year later.

[continua]

Fonte: http://www.janes.com/article/51017/netherlands-norway-poland-to-jointly-issue-a330-mrtt-rfp

Cumprimentos,