Boeing Still Hopeful On Brazil Fighter Jet Deal

Brazil Fighter Jet Deal

DTN News: Boeing Still Hopeful On Brazil Fighter Jet Deal

(NSI News Source Info) SAO PAULO, Brazil - September 16, 2009: Boeing Co still hopes to woo Brazil away from buying 36 French Rafale fighter jets in favor of its own planes, dangling supply deals with around 150 Brazilian parts makers and suppliers as a sweetener.

The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is a combat-proven strike fighter with built-in versatility. The Super Hornet's suite of integrated and networked systems provides enhanced interoperability, total force support for the combatant commander and for the troops on the ground.

Brazil's Defense Ministry said last week it had not yet chosen a manufacturer for the multibillion dollar deal for which France's Dassault Aviation, seen as favorite up to now, and Sweden's Saab are also competing.

The North American firm is holding conferences with the Brazilian firms this week, to prod them to aim for a bigger slice of its annual $45 billion in purchases from other firms in the manufacture of its planes.

"That is why the (deal) is important to change this," said Michael Coggins, who heads customer relations and new business at Boeing, at a press conference the firm held in Sao Paulo.

Separately from the jet deal, Boeing is planning to provide Brazilian airplane manufacturer Embraer with a platform from one of its own models to use in a Brazilian cargo plane, the KC-390.

France, whose bid for the contract was bolstered by an official visit by President Nicolas Sarkozy last week, had previously said it intended to buy some of these cargo planes if Brazil chose its Rafale jets over competing designs.

The United States government has also thrown its weight behind Boeing's bid, through its representatives in Brazil.

"What is being offered here ... is a relationship with the largest defence company in the world, which is acting in the largest economy in the world, in the largest defence market in the world," said Sao Paulo-based U.S. consul general Thomas White.

"That's a package that Rafale and (Saab's) Gripen can't touch," he said,

Bob Gower, a senior developer of Boeing's F-18, said the jet competed favorably with the Rafale, which has never been sold abroad, on price and technological advancement, while France in turn has promised it would offer Brazil more generous transfer of technology through the sale.