Week in review (12/2 to 12/8)

It’s usually fairly slow during the holiday season for aerospace news in the Gulf Coast region, but there’s always something that will pop up.

During the week, we learned that Europe's Airbus is teaming with U.S.-based Lockheed Martin to develop tankers to meet the U.S. military's growing demand. The two aerospace and defense giants signed a memorandum of agreement to work together to land the next aerial refueling tanker order for the U.S. military.

The U.S. Air Force, which wants to ultimately replace its entire fleet of over 400 tankers, is examining ways to meet growing demand for aerial refueling with possible fee-for-service arrangements, purchases of hundreds of additional aircraft, and the future development of a stealthy tanker.

This all comes eight years after Airbus lost an Air Force tanker battle to Boeing, which is building 179 767-based tankers, called the KC-46A, under a contract awarded in 2011. Meanwhile, Airbus has sold its A330-based Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) to 12 countries.

Although Airbus lost the tanker competition, it built a plant in Mobile to assemble the popular A320 series of jetliners. Nearly 100 jetliners built in Mobile have been delivered. Mobile will also be getting a second assembly line to build A220 passenger jets. (Post)

Contracts

L3 Communications Vertex Aerospace LLC., Madison, Miss., was awarded a $21.8 million modification to a previously awarded contract. This modification increases the ceiling and extends the period of performance to provide contractor logistics services and materials for organizational and depot-level services required to support and maintain the TH-57 fleet. Work will be performed in Milton, Fla., and is expected to be completed in January 2019. The Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division, Orlando, Fla., is the contracting activity.