lenaitch said:
Ah, buying new. I was thinking more relieving a struggling airline of their some of their fleet and retro-fitting. It seems to be our way.
suffolkowner said:
The KC-46 is a wide body 767, I would think if anyone was trying to get rid of some planes they would be the 737's. Can the 737's be converted? Would it be beneficial?
For the in-service
A310sCC150s, the air to air refit was done in conjunction with the Germans, more than a decade after we took them off the hands of
WardairCanadian Airlines. If we had been going alone, the NRE cost likely would have been prohibitive. To my knowledge, no one is flying a 737 tanker. Airlines will be scrapping their older, less fuel efficient 737s anyways, and keeping the more modern aircraft, so we couldn't even do a "P-8 on the cheap" conversion there. (The 737 is actually a family of a/c, with multiple models produced over decades. Boeing fights hard to keep them under a single type to make pilot training cheaper... the MAX was the logical extension of that philosophy)
Buying off the line, keeping Canadianizing to the roundel and possibly a few safety stickers in French, and keeping hardware in step with other users is a great way to get more affordable equipment with maintenance support in the long term. Orphan fleets are costly to maintain and sustain... and you can end up beholden to a single supplier who never, ever, every delivers your
CP-140s hypothetical aircraft on time from their R&O line.