Polish air forces to buy two air tankers

[TorwaK]

Polish Air Force will buy two air-to-air refuelling aircrafts for its F-16 fleet, as reported by the Polish press.

 

The purchase will be part of the “Plan of Technical Modernisation of the Air Force in the Years 2007-2013". Poland wants to buy two second-hand passenger planes Airbus 310 or Boeing 767 and have them equipped with fuel tanks and F-16 refuelling facilities.

 

An agreement for the purchase of two air tankers will be signed with the USA later this month, informs “Polska” daily.

 

Until that time, the Polish Air Force will use air-to-air refuelling aircrafts of other NATO members.

 

The new acquisitions are dictated by Poland’s commitments to NATO. The new air tankers will allow the Polish fleet of F-16 jet fighters to stay airborne for as long as their pilots can endure, compared with 2.5 to 3 hours at present.

 

http://www.polskieradio.pl/thenews/business/?id=75532

 

If Polish Air Force buy B-767 instead of Airbus 310, I think elder brother european countries will be offended :doh:

[Sundowner.pl]

It's actually an MRTT class Aircraft - aerial tanker is only one of its roles. It will be used as troop and cargo transport for expedition forces and anywhere outside our current cargo fleet range (including An-26, CASA and soon-to-have Hercules aircraft). Poland is already in two international hevy lift groups - with both Ruslan and Globemaster III aircrafts available at our disposal, but they have limited hours per country, and are often used by other members, so we have to rely on our own or American aircrafts for most of the time.

 

You know its really difficult to liberate other country's, without sufficient range of our aircrafts ;)

 

As for American vs European... Boeing 767 was already in service in Polish Airlines, and its service is already here, buying Airbus would mean additional money, or difficulties with maintenance (need to fly it to France for checkouts, that can be done on-site with Boeings).

[VMFA117_Poko]

Indeed. Our goverment has been always blindly pro USA after 1989. Now maybe they think that USA will finally abandon VISAs for our civilians.

[Sundowner.pl]

I wouldn't say it was blindly. For example when we took the German Leo2A4 tanks, at the same time Americans offered their M1A1s, the costs were equal, yet we took the German tanks (for us a good deal).

 

Then when we were buying lightweight transport aircraft, we chose the CASA, while the C-27J Spartan was highly promoted by Lockheed-Martin (that wasn't so good - C-27J would better suit our needs).

 

Again with the "Gawron" corvette class vessel, we chose to spend hell'a lots of money for building it for ourself rather than took another ships from the US Navy reserve... this one is a bit of a tie. Polish Navy spend a lot of money for the last 7 years on Gawron project, and the hull isn't even ready. Yet taking ex-USN vessels is not really for us, since most of them are Oceanic class - like the FFG-7s that we took, that are used only on Atlantic (not Baltic sea) as escorts in international groups.

By the way, there is more to the story about purchasing our Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates than it seems, every thing's confidential, but let me tell you that it is not a good idea to sent politicians to take something while dealing with different things (FFGs in Polish Navy are by a pure mistake).

 

Then the multi role fighter chose, was the only possible - the Gripen was not really what we needed (good fighter and good bomb truck with ability to perform CAS and SEAD strikes), and the Mirage 2000 was already out of production and most expensive.

 

And don't forget since our "national helicopter program" is chasing its tail at kindergarten level, we are currently buying dozen+ of brand new Mi-171s and used Mi-24Ps directly from Russia, just to keep everything from falling apart.

[Kusch]

100% agreed :)

Don't forget MiG-29 modernization (Russia,USA and UK Bea Systems participation), Spike missiles, and Finnish Patria armored vehicles, etc. ;)

[Sundowner.pl]

Hehe, well the list can go on:

 

- Contract for purchasing Swedish RBS-15 Antiship missiles (although Harpoons were already in use).

 

- British AS90 howitzer turrets for our "Krab" class mobile howitzer.

 

- Italian MU90 Impact torpedo.