[Internacional] Boeing confident about FX-2

Desculpe pessoal, to sem tempo para fazer a traducao, mas achei interessante e gostaria de dividir.



The potential $4.3 billion deal between the Boeing's defense unit and the Brazilian government that has bounced on and off the table for years is back in play.

And a Boeing Co. official said this week that the company expects to learn by June if it finished atop the process that has pitted aerospace makers from three nations in a bid to supply state-of-the-art fighter jets to the Brazilian Air Force.

Tom DeWald, the regional director for Latin American business development is optimistic that Boeing will prevail.

“There's no question the Air Force down there loves our product,” he said.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon is expected to remind Brazilian officials of that fact when he visits the country on a trade mission later this month.

Should Boeing capture the bid, Brazil would eventually take possession of 36 F/A-18 Super Hornets along with a wealth of spare parts and other materials.

The Super Hornets would be designated “FX-2” fighter jets by the Brazilian Air Force.

The French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation and Sweden's Saab Defence and Security are the other two bidders.

DeWald said Brazil initially broached the prospect of replacing an already aging fleet of Dassault Mirage fighters in the mid-1990s.

An initial request for bids wasn't floated until shortly after the turn of the 21st century.

After years of political wrangling, the arms sale competition re-surfaced in 2009 with Boeing, Dassault and Saab as the finalists.

For a country that last engaged in meaningful conflict on its own soil over a century ago, the move to bolster its Air Force has more to do with acquiring technology than adding firepower.

“The end game is for Brazil to develop their own abilities to produce, train, and maintain defensive aircraft systems from what they learn by purchasing these foreign aircraft. In essence, they want to create a South American defense industry base,” Michael Blades, senior aerospace industrial analyst with Frost & Sullivan in San Antonio, wrote in an email response to questions about the Boeing deal.

In a 2010 white paper prepared for the Brookings Institution, foreign policy analyst Kevin Casas-Zamora criticized the uptick in the purchases of military hardware by Brazil and other South American nations.

“The absolute increase in military expenditure, and of acquisitions in particular, hinders the region's economic and political development. Even the security benefits of such expenditures are debatable at best,” Casas-Zamora wrote.

A deal would, however, bode well for the thousands of local employees of the Boeing Defense, Space and Security unit who build that fighter jet, not to mention countless suppliers here and throughout the U.S.

The company's 2010 contract to supply 124 fighters to the U.S. Navy is expected to wind down around mid-decade. Likewise, the clock is ticking on a 2011 pact to provide 84 military aircraft to Saudi Arabia. Production on the Saudi contract could run through 2020 if not beyond.

But looming Pentagon budget cuts and the Pentagon's shift toward unmanned aircraft darken the long-term prospects for continued fighter production in Hazelwood.

For those reasons alone, Blades says much rests on Boeing's ability to wrest the contract with Brazil.

“If they don't take advantage of foreign military sales avenues that are open to them they are facing limited growth,” he said. “And if they let other companies like Dassault or Saab (in the case of the Super Hornet) make sales to countries like Brazil not only do they lose growth prospects they strengthen those foreign competitors.”



Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/boeing-confident-deal-about-to-fly-with-brazilian-air-force/article_086ca5ee-7f76-11e1-ba3a-0019bb30f31a.html#ixzz1rdNVvaEP