For Immediate Release

February 14, 2002

AIR FORCE TO USE BOEING 767
FOR NEW INTELLIGENCE MISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Bush’s defense budget proposal to Congress for the next fiscal year includes $488 million for purchasing and transforming a Boeing 767-400ER aircraft into a command and control aircraft envisioned as the hub of a new Air Force group of planes that will coordinate military intelligence and surveillance assets, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks said Thursday.

            Ultimately, the number of these “Multi-sensor Command and Control [MC2] Aircraft” could exceed 50 of the Boeing 767 aircraft, according to the original Air Force proposal for the new intelligence program, the congressman said.

            Dicks said he was informed by Air Force officials this week that the $488 million plan includes $150 million for the actual purchase of the 767 aircraft, $100 million for engineering and integration work, and another $238 million for development of radars, sensors and other electronics systems that will allow the plane to serve as a platform to assimilate information coming from manned, unmanned, ground, air and space intelligence assets.

            He said the new program reinforces the Air Force’s concept of utilizing the Boeing 767 as a “common wide-body” platform for many of the military missions that have been conducted by the older 707 airframes, which are 35-to-45 years old and are consuming enormous amounts of the service’s budget for repairs and ongoing maintenance.  Last year Congress worked with the Air Force to begin replacing the fleet of aerial refueling tankers (currently 707s) with 100 new 767 tankers, a move that Rep. Dicks called “vitally important for long-range U.S. military power projection in the next several decades.”

            “Ultimately, we expect that there will be other Air Force intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities now aboard 707s that will be shifted to the 767 platform, including the AWACS and J-STARS functions,” said Dicks who is a senior member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

            “With 800 767 aircraft currently flying worldwide, it is a proven commercial airliner and I am convinced that it will become the most versatile and cost-effective airframe in the Air Force fleet,” Dicks said.

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