FSTA : remplacement des ravitailleurs au Royaume Uni

Bonjour à tous

Même si quelques éléments sur ce programme doivent être disséminés sur le forum, il semble intéressant vu l'actualité de proposer un sujet spécifique.

Quelques petits rappels :

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/the-uks-fsta-an-aerial-tanker-program-with-a-difference-03356/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Strategic_Tanker_Aircraft

Il s'agit d'un programme de 14 A330MRTT dont la particularité est de n'être que loués sur la base d'un contrat pluri-annuel par la RAF à un opérateur privé.
Le financement est donc mixte, public et privé...
La première cellule à convertir a été livrée dans le milieu de l'année dernière.


Le programme est passé à l'audi du NAO
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0910/tanker_aircraft.aspx

De l'executive summary

Le rapport souligne que le MoD a fait le pari quasi exclusif d'une procédure type PFI, sans se garder de portes de sorties. Et que ce n'était peut-être pas la meilleure solution.
Les longues négociations ont nécessité de prolonger la vie de la flotte actuelle et n'ont pas permis de dialogue compétitif... l'offre du second soumissionnaire à base de 767 de BA n'était valable que dans un créneau trop court.

Point 12 : le programme est on Budget ce qui est plutôt un point positif.

Point 14 : Dans l'Appel d'offre initial, pas de demandes pour opérer dans un environnement à haute menace.. typique du pont aérien UK afghanistan sur lequel la flotte actuelle s'use.


Sur ce dernier point :

http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/200194.asp

A suivre donc, comment le MoD va pouvoir s'en sortir sur ce point particulier

Bonne journée à tous

Bonjour !

Un article du D Telegraph, GB , concernant la rentabilité de l'interface de location des MRTT eu Royaume Uni !
Assez polémique, compliqué et long !
A lire pour ceux que la cuisine budgétaire GB intéresse !

----------- D Telegraph / Leeham Extrait --------

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8004187/Defence-Review-a-10.5-billion-bill-for-planes-that-cant-fly-in-a-war-zone.html

Defence Review: a £10.5 billion bill for planes that can’t fly in a war zone

Some time next autumn, with any luck, the Royal Air Force can finally start retiring the world’s oldest fleet of passenger aircraft, VC10s from the early years of Harold Wilson’s premiership.



By Andrew Gilligan
Published: 12:36PM BST 15 Sep 2010


A military Airbus A330 carries out refuelling in midair Photo: EPA


British troops desperate to get home from Afghanistan sometimes find themselves stuck for days because their 45-year-old transport jets have broken down.
The replacements will be 14 new Airbus A330s. Bought by a civilian airline, A330s cost about £120 million each, or £1.7 billion for 14. But the Ministry of Defence is paying £10.5 billion. And even though the A330 is a tried and tested aircraft, in service since 1994, delays in signing the contract mean that the military version is running eight and a half years late.


True, the military A330 must double as an air-to-air refuelling tanker – which increases the cost and complexity, but not that much. And true, the £10.5 billion includes servicing and maintenance. But it is still, by any stretch of the imagination, a remarkably expensive deal. The aircraft won’t even be owned by the RAF, but leased. According to the National Audit Office (NAO), roughly half the £10.5 billion comprises financing costs and profits for AirTanker, the Private Finance Initiative consortium which is the jets’ actual owner. Astonishingly, it emerges that the aircraft will have no flight-deck armour, vulnerable point protection or other standard defences to allow them to fly into high-threat environments. They will all have to be retrofitted after entry into service, at a cost of several hundred million pounds. Until then, and potentially for several years, they will not be able to enter any war zone. As the Government’s defence review nears a climax, all the arguments have been about what programmes should be cancelled, which units should be cut. But in an era of budget shrinkage, how we buy equipment is as important as what we buy. The AirTanker deal is only the most obvious example of a procurement process that takes too long, costs too much and, even then, doesn’t always give us what we’re supposed to get. “The way we do defence procurement is extravagant and indulgent and really needs to be gripped,” says Lord Hutton, the former Labour defence secretary. “Governments before us tried to reform and didn’t go far enough. We tried to reform and didn’t go far enough.” Even before Coalition cuts, according to the NAO, there is a gap of up to £36 billion between the MoD’s commitments, and the money it has to pay for them. Over the next few years, huge programmes – aircraft carriers, Typhoon jets, submarines, and a replacement for the Trident nuclear deterrent – will bunch together in a “bow wave” of spending that threatens to sink the MoD.
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JPRS

Salut à tous

C'est assez croustillant et révélateur de la difficulté qu'on les militaires à maîtriser les fluctuations Euro/Sterling

Vivent les KC135R :

http://www.marianne2.fr/blogsecretdefense/Ravitailleurs-en-vol-les-Britanniques-trop-gourmands_a405.htmlyp: