Posted on 06/05/2016 10:25:48 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
BERLIN: Vietnam and South Korea are looking seriously at buying refurbished Lockheed Martin Corp P-3 and S-3 maritime surveillance planes to counter China's military buildup and repeated North Korean missile launches, the company said.
Vietnam is expected to request formal pricing and availability data on four to six older U.S. Navy P-3 Orion aircraft in the next few months, Clay Fearnow, a senior executive with Lockheed's aeronautics division, told Reuters at the Berlin air show last week.
The Obama administration's move to completely lift its arms embargo on Vietnam last month paved the way for such a sale, but any deal would still have to be carefully reviewed by the U.S. government, according to U.S. and Lockheed officials.
Washington's decision to permit lethal arms sales to Vietnam, its former enemy, underscored both countries' shared concerns about China's growing military clout.
Vietnam, which borders China, is also a key part of President Barack Obama's efforts to rebalance U.S. strategy toward Asia amid worries about Beijing's assertiveness and sovereignty claims to 80 percent of the South China Sea.
If the sale goes through, retired U.S. Navy P-3 turboprop planes now parked in a desert would be rebuilt with new wings, a new mission system and anti-submarine warfare equipment for Vietnam, Fearnow said.
The cost could exceed the US$80 million to US$90 million price tag for each of the 12 P-3s rebuilt for Taiwan several years ago, given the added equipment, Fearnow said.
Lockheed has built new wings or rebuilt aircraft for over 90 P-3 aircraft around the world, including the United States, Norway, Taiwan, Chile and Germany, since 2008, with some orders still in the works, Fearnow said.
The company is scrambling to drum up more orders and extend its wing production line in Marietta, Georgia.
(Excerpt) Read more at channelnewsasia.com ...
This is probably the only good thing Obama has done. Vietnam and China are historical enemies and arming Vietnam is a check to them.
America is building up China, ourselves.
Our entire industrial base, is now in China.
Shop for anything these days. Anything. In any store.
It is all “made in China”.
“Shop for anything these days. Anything. In any store.
It is all “made in China”.
Not for much longer. Due to red-tape, corruption and rising labor cost many manufacturers are leaving China.
Maybe.
Our bilateral trade deficit, with China, is currently at an all-time high.
Bigger even than it was last year. And our exports to China are now falling as well. That is new.
So not only are we buying way too much from China, we are selling them even less than we did.
I hope that Obama is as good an airplane salesman as he is a gun salesman.
The Chinese economy is stalling out. When the crash comes it will be spectacular
I don’t know about that.
The Chinese economy is leading the world. They are still growing many times the rate our own economy is growing.
this seems so obvious and Worthy yet Obama did it.
I can’t put these two together.
I keep suspecting some weird catch, like all Vietnam has to become homo, or something.
We need to get those S-3s cleaned up, refurbished and back on our carriers. The submarine threat is increasing, not decreasing, and our CVBG ASW stinks.
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