Alenia North America To Build Jacksonville Plant Without Boeing

At an Air Force Association symposium held last week, the Boeing Company announced it is pulling out of a multi-billion-dollar international project to produce the C-27J Joint Cargo Aircraft for the US Army and Air Force with Italy's Finmeccanica.

Reuters reports that "despite the best efforts of both companies" to agree to terms for the joint construction of the JCA at a second production line to be built in Jacksonville, FL, Boeing spokesman William Barksdale said that ultimately the global recession precluded such an arrangement. "For us, it wasn't about the airplane. It wasn't about the team," Barksdale said. "It's purely about the economic climate."

Complementing its facility in Turin, Italy, Finmeccanica unit Alenia North America plans to go ahead with the construction of the Jacksonville line, and projects it should be up and running by spring of 2010, spokesman Benjamin Stone said.

Still in the mix to produce 145 C-27Js for the US Army and Air Force is prime contractor L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. L-3 spokesman Jason Decker expressed "full confidence" in Alenia's ability to meet production schedules even without Boeing. "Alenia has committed that they can produce the airplanes," Decker said. "They've been producing airplanes for 100 years."

The C-27J is a mid-range, multifunctional and interoperable aircraft able to perform logistical re-supply, MEDEVAC, troop movement, airdrop operations, humanitarian assistance and homeland security missions for the US Army and US Air Force.

The C-27J will replace the US Army's C-23 Sherpa and portions of the US Army's C-12 and C-26 fleet. The C-27J will augment the US Air Force's existing fleet of intra-theater airlifters. The aircraft will play a key role in providing responsive aerial sustainment and critical re-supply support for the maneuver force to maintain operational momentum.

The C-27J Spartan has been in production in Italy since 2001 and has been delivered to Bulgaria, Greece, Italy and Lithuania. It has also been ordered by Romania with deliveries scheduled to begin in 2009. Orders to-date, follow-on contracts, as well as international, foreign military and variant sales, are expected to extend orders for the C-27J to more than 200 aircraft.

FMI: www.boeing.com, www.l-3com.com, www.aleniana.com, www.c27j.com