Japan has awarded Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) a contract to manufacture flight test aircraft for the C-X military transport and P-X maritime patrol aircraft programmes. KHI says it last month received a ¥64 billion ($589 million) contract from the Japan Defence Agency (JDA) that requires the company to start test flying the first C-X and P-X aircraft in the middle of fiscal year 2007.
KHI is required to deliver its first C-X test aircraft to the JDA in March 2008, with its first P-X to follow in the second quarter of the same year. The company has already begun producing static test aircraft for both programmes under a 2004 JDA contract.
KHI was selected in late 2001 to lead the simultaneous development of the P-X and C-X airframes, which have been designed with some common parts and were originally intended to achieve first flights in 2006 and 2007, respectively. However, the P-X schedule has since slipped by a year and will now follow the C-X by one or two months.
General Electric's CF6-80C2 engine will power the C-X transport, with Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries to supply an indigenous power plant for the four-engine P-X maritime patrol. KHI hopes to debut models of both aircraft at June's Paris air show, having last year completed full-size mock-ups of the aircraft to support equipment fit and other tests ahead of the selection of a final configuration.
The C-X will be operated by the Japanese air force from 2011. Kawasaki hopes to sell the aircraft abroad. "Whether we can export the C-X to other countries requires a change in government policy, which has not yet happened," says KHI.
BRENDAN SOBIE/TOKYO
Source: Flight International