Lockheed Martin announced today it plans to build its offering for the Air Force's KC-Y bridge tanker competition in Mobile, AL, and Marietta, GA, should its LMXT aircraft win the service's contract.
The manufacturing work would be split into two phases between the sites, with Airbus’ Mobile site assembling the A330 airliners, and tanker conversion work following at Lockheed’s Marietta facility, Larry Gallogly, Lockheed’s LMXT program head, told reporters Monday.
“We did our evaluation based on what we thought would be the most efficient way to build the aircraft,” Gallogly explained. “A lot of that had to do with the trained workforce in the area, but also particularly in Mobile, that location of the port and its proximity to the runway were the key determinants. When we looked at other areas around the United States, there just wasn’t that close connection of the two.”
Lockheed in September revealed it would pitch the tanker, which builds on the Airbus A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport refueler, for the KC-Y competition. The company had bid the A330, which is currently certified to refuel the F-35, F-22, F-16 and other Defense Department aircraft, for the drawn-out KC-X competition that Boeing’s KC-46 ultimately won in 2011.
The plans would require a new building in Mobile, given current operations are “at fairly full capacity there,” Gallogly said, while officials would need to “re-orient” Marietta’s hangars and bring tooling in to accommodate an A330.
Between the work in Alabama and Georgia, Gallogly estimated around 1,300 direct jobs would be created. Announcements of the news in both states were expected throughout the day Monday.
The Air Force tanker effort seeks to serve as a bridge between the end of KC-46 production in the late 2020s and the follow-on Advanced Aerial Refueling program. A request for information last summer showed the service expects to buy 140 to 160 non-developmental tankers to supplement its fleet by 2030.
Overall, few details are available regarding the requirements the service is considering, though Paul Waugh, the Air Force's program executive officer for mobility and training aircraft, told reporters in August he expects there will be a requirement for a built-in datalink, and any autonomous technology that Air Mobility Command may call for would have to be proven.
Asked about requirements today, Gallogly said “the one thing that is clear is that these will not be KC-X requirements” given the current geopolitical environment.
The company, he continued, expects “there will be some fairly significant changes to those requirements,” though he said executives have not heard specifics from the Air Force.
Still, he stressed the top priority is fuel offload at range.
“That’s the gap that needs to be filled,” Gallogly said. “With all the focus on China and the tyranny of distance that exists in that theater, we’ve got a lot of fuel that has to be moved. That’s the number one priority and that’s what we have based our proposed configuration on prior to getting official requirements from the Air Force.”
Another need is “a far more robust communications node” given the tankers “will be persistent in that combat environment,” he added.
Going forward, Lockheed expects to see a draft request for proposals from the Air Force by the end of this year, followed by a final RFP in March or April of 2023, a schedule Gallogly characterized as “notional at this point.”
Beyond that, Lockheed expects to see a contract award in “the late 2024, early 2025 timeframe,” Gallogly said, leading into deliveries in 2029 and 2030.
Assuming Lockheed wins the contract, Gallogly said there would be a transition plan employed before production of the LMXT begins in the United States. Under that framework, the A330s would be assembled in Toulouse, France, as they are currently, and converted in Spain.
Airbus and Lockheed signed a memorandum of agreement in 2018 to team up in an attempt to break into the Air Force’s tanker business.