Kuwait C-17 deal could delay Long Beach closure

If the sale materializes, Kuwait will become the eighth customer for the airlifter and will join its Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC allies) Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as an operator of the big airlifter, beating GCC members Saudi Arabia and Oman (acknowledged by Boeing to be C-17 prospects) to the finishing line.

The DSCA notification outlined a Kuwaiti requirement for a single Boeing C-17; though a spare engine, spare parts, crew training, a long-term global maintenance and support package and an on-the-spot repair scheme at bases across the world could take the total bill to around $693 million.

Though the DSCA notification stressed the C-17’s “relief support, humanitarian disaster and peacekeeping missions”, the Kuwaiti Air Force needs a strategic airlifter to augment its existing transport fleet, which currently consists of just three L-100-30 stretched Hercules, and which is due to receive eight KC-130J tanker-transports.

The Kuwaiti Air Force requirement calls for a fully militarized C-17, with AN/AAR-47 Missile Approach Warning Systems and AN/ ALE-47 chaff/flare dispensers, as well as full air-to-air refuelling receiver capability.

The DSCA notice said the proposed sale to Kuwait would contribute to the national security of the United States by “helping to improve the security of a major non-NATO ally which has been, and continues to be, an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East”.

Every foreign order for the type also helps to keep Boeing’s Long Beach plant (the last remaining aircraft factory) in business, and delays the currently-scheduled 2013 closure of the facility, following the delivery of the last C-17 in September 2012.

If approved, the single aircraft for Kuwait would be built between 2012-2013, and would extend the life of the C-17 production line by about five weeks.

Boeing is actively marketing the C-17 to a number of potential customer countries in the Middle East (including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Oman) and to Pakistan and South Africa. But the C-17 is an expensive aircraft, and closing deals for the type has traditionally been slow.