Navy League 2019: V-22 FMS buys can take advantage of multiyear deal until December 2020

US allies seeking to buy Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft via the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme likely have until December 2020 to get advantageous pricing under a multiyear procurement contract, Colonel Matthew Kelly, programme manager for the V-22 Joint Program Office (PMA-275), said on 7 May at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space exposition, held in National Harbor, Maryland, from 6 to 8 May.

The USD4.2 billion fixed-price-incentive-fee multiyear production contract was signed in 2018 and covers 39 CMV-22B aircraft for the USN, 14 MV-22B aircraft for the US Marine Corps, one CV-22B for the US Air Force, and four MV-22B aircraft for the government of Japan.

To take advantage of the scaled pricing in the deal, Col Kelly said December of 2020 would be the deadline for advanced procurement. He said he would like to see foreign partners as part of any potential follow-on deal as well, which could help share costs on any engineering changes, as was done with Japan as the type’s only FMS customer so far.

Israel and the United Kingdom have come up as possible customers, but no such deals have yet been reached. Col Kelly said the Osprey FMS would be most advantageous for international users of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.