Delivery of Italy's Tankers Slips to '09

ROME - Boeing has confirmed what Italian Air Force officials predicted in July: Italy will take final delivery of its first 767 tanker in early 2009, four years after the planned initial delivery date of 2005.

Boeing will deliver all four of the 767 tankers to Italy in 2009. (Boeing)

"Flight testing and FAA certification will be concluded by year end, at which point the Italian Air Force will start the tender for acceptance process, which takes about three months," said John Williamson, communications director for Global Mobility Systems at Boeing.

Last November, Boeing officials said they had fixed an airflow problem on the wing and promised first delivery to Italy in the second quarter of 2008. Italian officials were skeptical at the time, and the date has steadily been pushed back.

In July, the head of the Italian Air Force, Gen. Daniele Tei, hinted that delivery could slip into 2009.

This week, a senior Italian defense official confirmed it.

"Boeing is now reaching the specifications and the revised schedule, which is for a delivery early next year," the official said. "This means the delivery of the last aircraft will now be closer to the first, since the first and second of the four aircraft were the problems."

Boeing's Williamson said the second of Italy's four tankers, which joined the flight testing program at Boeing's Wichita site in July, would start the tender for acceptance process in January, the third in March and the fourth in August, meaning all four would be handed over to the Italians during 2009.

The fix to the wing pylons tested in 2007 was sound, Williamson said. "We have no issues with the wing air-refueling pod; no changes have been made this year and we do not anticipate making changes."

Despite that, the delivery date has slipped six months since the fix was first touted in 2007, which Williamson attributed to "design changes and FAA certification factors."

An internal Boeing memo, seen by Defense News, charts some of the issues that were being tackled in April this year. They include an Italian request to reduce the possibility of smoke from electrical equipment entering the cockpit, flight testing scheduled to continue as late as November, and a recommendation made to the Italians to relax their standards to align with slightly less stringent FAA regulations.

Boeing was also working on obtaining the right temperature settings for passengers.

Italian officials took issue with cockpit noise, which reached 79 decibels at the pilot's right ear while cruising at 0.8 Mach at 35,000 feet. The Italians had specified that noise be no louder than 75 decibels.

Boeing officials responded that reducing the noise would also reduce the capability of the aircraft, and recommended the Italians change their specs.

The memo also highlights a persistent weight issue, listing the plane's operating empty weight (OEW) in cargo configuration at 200,804 pounds, 3 tons over the "maximum allowable OEW to meet mission" of 194,340 pounds.

In passenger configuration, the current weight is 220,258 pounds, almost 4 tons over the maximum allowable 212,510 pounds.

"The defects addressed early this year are now being taken care of," the senior Italian defense official said. "We are pushing Boeing every day and we will pursue all options, but we want to stick to the contract."

The April memo sheds light on why Boeing delayed the flight testing of its revised wing pod pylon for so long, a decision that slowed the entire program.

Boeing first identified the air flow problem at high speeds on the pylon holding the wing refueling pods in July 2005, before redesigning it for test flights in August 2006.

But the memo says that "boom refueling development and major modification" took precedence in test flights for a whole year, until August 2007, with wing-pod flight testing restarting only in October 2007.

Boeing has admitted that it struggled to keep up the pace of flight testing with just one aircraft to use.

"People remain upset over the fact that Boeing did not invest sufficiently in the program," the Italian defense official said. ■