Germany floats plan to shop for new Lockheed transport planes

BERLIN Germany is looking at buying 4-6 new Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) C-130J military troop transport planes and working them together with France, setting a in addition dent in plans for a completely european airlift capability following the not on time A400M.

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen and her French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, signed an settlement in Paris past due on Tuesday to take a look at a joint tactical airlift pool of C-130J aircraft, the German defence ministry stated.

The present day initiative in Franco-German defence co-operation comes towards the backdrop of tough negotiations with Airbus army (AIR.PA) over delays to the A400M, in addition to developing ecu issues over a possible shift in united kingdom defence priorities far from its continental partners following the Brexit vote.

France is already inside the technique of buying 4 C-130J aircraft from Lockheed partly to allow refuelling of helicopters used by its unique forces, a feature at the beginning supposed to be provided by the A400M but abandoned for technical reasons.

"We assume huge synergies from one of these flow," Markus Grubel, parliamentary kingdom secretary inside the German defence ministry, informed key lawmakers in a letter about the C-130J buy.

there has been hypothesis that Germany should purchase used C-130J plane from Britain to assist meet near-time period needs.

but a German defence ministry source stated Berlin would purchase up to 6 new plane at once from the united states.

this sort of deal will be really worth close to half a thousand million euros, primarily based on the 330 million euros ($370 million) budgeted with the aid of France for its in advance buy of 4 C-130Js.

"contemporary plans call for the procurement of recent aircraft. There aren't any precise timelines for that buy," a defence ministry source said.

The German-French agreement foresees the brand new joint tactical airlift functionality being in operation via 2021, but it isn't always sure Germany may have all its C-130Js with the aid of then.

Von der Leyen informed Reuters remaining week that Germany would make a selection soon on acquiring C-130s to cowl what Berlin perspectives as an opening in abilties as soon as the elderly Transall leaves carrier in 2021.

Germany is part of a eu group of 7 european NATO nations that funded the 20-billion-euro improvement by using Airbus (AIR.PA) of the A400M.

Lockheed become at the beginning a associate at an early level of the A400M venture, which turned into sooner or later billed as a eu opportunity to the smaller C-130 and the larger Boeing C-17.