Company Responds To President Obama's SOTU Speech

In a statement released Wednesday following President Obama's State of the Union Speech, Hawker Beechcraft said the Administration's actions do not align with the comments made by the President ... particularly when it comes to the Light Air Support (LAS) aircraft.

"He made very convincing statements that he wants to protect American manufacturing jobs and called for more highly skilled jobs in the U.S. and for more products to be made in America," the company said in a prepared statement. "If this is true, then the actions of the U.S. Air Force are in direct conflict with those objectives. The Air Force recently excluded the Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 from a competition for a Light Air Support (LAS) aircraft.

HBC said awarding this contract to a foreign company jeopardizes 800 jobs in Kansas and Arkansas and more than 600 jobs in 38 other states. They contend that the U.S airplane is estimated to be about 25 percent less expensive to acquire and dramatically more cost effective to maintain. "The decision by the Air Force to send defense dollars overseas for the LAS program should receive an impartial review before the Air Force purchases an inferior airplane and sends U.S. tax dollars and U.S. jobs overseas and places our national security in the hands of a foreign country.

"The President also spoke of rewarding innovation and hard work, as well as maintaining a strong manufacturing base and military infrastructure. Yet the administration's decision to outsource this contract to a foreign company defeats those goals. The U.S. Air Force says it will refuse to purchase an airplane that is still being developed. Our nation's superiority in the air and on the ground was built on investments in developmental technologies like drone aircraft and smart bombs. Hampering that development will be detrimental to our continued military dominance.

HBC says outsourcing the manufacture of U.S. defense equipment and technology weakens our long-term national security. Awarding this contract to a non-U.S. company could idle one of the last manufacturing facilities capable of building a propeller-driven U.S. military aircraft. "Eliminating jobs and capabilities in the U.S. industrial and military base is not consistent with the priorities that the President presented in his address or the strategy recently unveiled by the Department of Defense. The LAS contract and others like it are essential to maintaining our country's leadership in aerospace engineering and innovation, and keeping national security manufacturing in the United States is critical to maintaining our military manufacturing infrastructure.

"We hope that the aspirations the President set forth in the State of the Union guide future defense decisions and lead us to the answers we have been seeking on this one."

In December, the Air Force awarded the LAS contract to Embraer for the Super Tucano. The Brazilian company has partnered with Nevada-based Sierra Nevada Corporation to build the airplane, with the primary assembly taking place in Jacksonville, FL. The Air Force gave no explanation as to why the AT-6 was not considered for the contract. Hawker Beechcraft filed a lawsuit in an attempt to get some answers, which has put the project on hold pending the suit's resolution.

FMI: www.hawkerbeechcraft.com