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Aviation History
1992
1992 - 0976.PDF
HEADLINES BAe takes flight from extension to business-jet line-up BAe beckons buyers for corporate jet business BY IAN GOOLD British Aerospace is to sell a controlling share in its cor porate-jet business. The com pany expects to announce a buyer for up to 100% of Corpo rate Jets, its new business- aircraft offshoot, by 1 October. Merchant bank Kleinwort Benson has been retained to find a partner for the company, which will be established on 1 May, to consolidate existing BAe 125 activities. BAe says it is selling the activ ities because it cannot afford to go ahead alone with the invest ment of up to £570 million (S 1,000 million) required to build a new business-jet. BAe has been planning a completely new aircraft, which will have a larger-diameter cabin than at present and a longer range. At the time of its abortive rights issue last year, the manu facturer said that returns on executive-jet sales were "very satisfactory", and that it in tended to continue to capitalise on the 125's success. This year, the company ex pects to produce up to 50 BAe 800 and 1000 business jets with a value of over £290 million. Although BAe intends to re tain a "significant minority pro portion", it would sell the entire company if that were condi tional on a bid going ahead. BAe says that it has not talked with any other company and has re ceived no approaches. Corporate Jets will bring to gether people now contributing to the 125 programme but em ployed by other parts of BAe. The 600-strong Corporate Jets workforce will grow to 1,200. A new assembly hall is planned at Chester for the 125 and the proposed new aircraft. BAe says that there are no plans to move existing 125 work from Hatfield to Chester, but points out that a new owner would be free to move activities around. Corporate Jets is the second leading business-jet manufac turer to be put up for sale this year. Cessna, which produces the Citation range, was sold by General Dynamics to Textron for £340 million cash. Other bidders included Beech owner Raytheon, France's Das sault and Gulfstream owner For- stmann, Little. At least one of these companies may now be interested in the BAe sale. In February Dassault said it was talking to BAe about future corporate-jet activities (Flight In ternational, 26 February-3 March) and the UK company had earlier raised similar issues with possible Japanese partners during talks in Tokyo. BAe recently sold its Aeros- tructures Hamble components business in the UK for £47 million, and the software house SD-Scicon for £30 million. • Malaysia may lease Tornados from RAF BY DOUGLAS BARRIE IN MUNICH The UK is offering to lease ex-RAF Panavia F.2 Tornado air defence variant (ADV) air craft to Malaysia under a govern ment-to-government memoran dum of understanding (MoU) covering military sales. The Malaysian air force is placing increased emphasis on acquiring an air-defence aircraft, with the General Dynamics F-16, Dassault Mirage 2000 and Mikoyan MiG-29M all possible candidates, along with the Tor nado. It has a requirement for up to 24 aircraft. The UK is understood to be offering to lease ADVs to the Malaysian air force until the European Fighter Aircraft (EFA) becomes available towards the end of this century. Malaysia is said to be "extremely interested" in acquiring EFA. Sixteen RAF Tornado F.2s are now in store. Malaysia has previously ex pressed interest in buying up to 12 new-build Tornado interdic- tor strike aircraft from British Aerospace as part of a £1 billion ($1.76 billion) MoU signed in the late 1980s. By mid-1990, however, it had become clear that the cost of the Tornado in the package was unacceptable. Other weapons purchases, in cluding a recent warship order which resulted in the first export sale of BAe's vertical-launch Sea- wolf missile, have gone ahead. BAe and the MoD have de clined to comment on the status of negotiations over the Tornado aircraft. Sources close to the programme have, however, con firmed that interest focuses on "used aircraft". The potential deal, described as "highly sensitive" by one offi cial, would provide Malaysia with a significant long-range air- defence capability over and above that given by the 28 BAe Hawk 100/200s now on order. The aircraft believed to be the main competitor on the Malay sian requirement is the MiG- 29M, a digital-flight-control variant of the MiG-29 Fulcrum. A Tornado ADV capability would allow Malaysia to provide combat air patrol cover as far out as the Spratly Islands, which are contested by other countries, including China and Vietnam. D Trunkliner awaits Chinese go-ahead McDonnell Douglas (MDC) hopes to receive Chinese Government approval for the go-ahead of the MD-90T TrunkLiner programme within "the next 45-60 days", follow ing the signing of an initial deal between the airframe builder and CATIC, the China National Aero-Technology Im port and Export agency. "At this point there's still no final agreement," says the com pany, "but it's an important step towards final Chinese Government approval." If, as MDC expects, the deal is ratified by the Chinese ministry of foreign economic relations and trade, the deci sion will end the long-running competition with Boeing for the 150-aircraft programme. The initial deal covers production of the first MD-90- 30T TrunkLiners as part of a mixed batch of 40 MD-80s and MD-90s. Of the first 40 aircraft covered by Phase One of the programme, three will be stan dard MD-82s similar to the 28 already built by the Shanghai Aviation Industrial joint- venture production line (Flight International, 4-10 March). An other 17 will be MD-82Ts equipped with dual-tandem landing gear, being developed by CATIC to cope with lower- strength paved runways. The remaining 20 aircraft of the first batch will be MD-90-30Ts powered by International Aero Engines V2500s. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 15 - 21 April, 1992
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