DSCA notified Congress today of a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Australia of C‑17 GLOBEMASTER III aircraft

 Trans­mit­tal No. 11–49
Aus­tralia – C‑17 GLOBEMASTER III Air­craft
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2011 – The Defense Secu­ri­ty Coop­er­a­tion Agency noti­fied Con­gress today of a
pos­si­ble For­eign Mil­i­tary Sale to the Gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia for one C‑17 GLOBEMASTER III air­craft and
asso­ci­at­ed equip­ment, parts, train­ing and logis­ti­cal sup­port for an esti­mat­ed cost of $300 million.

The Gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia has request­ed a pos­si­ble sale of one C‑17 GLOBEMASTER III air­craft, up to four Pratt & Whit­ney F117-PW-100 engines, one AN/AAQ-24V(13) Large Air­craft Infrared Coun­ter­mea­sures (LAIRCM) Sys­tem, spare and repair parts, sup­ply and test equip­ment, per­son­nel train­ing and train­ing equip­ment, pub­li­ca­tions and tech­ni­cal doc­u­men­ta­tion, U.S. Gov­ern­ment and con­trac­tor engi­neer­ing, logis­tics, and tech­ni­cal sup­port ser­vices, and oth­er relat­ed logis­tics sup­port.  The esti­mat­ed cost is $300 mil­lion.
Aus­tralia is one of our most impor­tant allies in the West­ern Pacif­ic.  The strate­gic loca­tion of this polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic pow­er con­tributes sig­nif­i­cant­ly to ensur­ing peace and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty in the region.  Australia’s efforts in Oper­a­tion IRAQI and ENDURING FREEDOM, and peace­keep­ing, and human­i­tar­i­an oper­a­tions have made a sig­nif­i­cant impact on region­al, polit­i­cal, and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty and have served U.S. nation­al secu­ri­ty inter­ests.  This pro­posed sale is con­sis­tent with those objec­tives and facil­i­tates bur­den shar­ing with our allies.
Aus­tralia cur­rent­ly has a heavy air­lift capa­bil­i­ty com­prised of five C‑17As. This addi­tion­al C‑17 will fur­ther improve Australia’s capa­bil­i­ty to rapid­ly deploy in sup­port of glob­al coali­tion oper­a­tions and will great­ly enhance its abil­i­ty to lead region­al humanitarian/peacekeeping oper­a­tions such as its cur­rent response to the Queens­land flood­ing, cyclone after­math and the New Zealand earthquake.

Aus­tralia has the abil­i­ty to absorb and employ the addi­tion­al C‑17.  The C‑17 fleet is based at Roy­al Aus­tralian Air Force (RAAF) Base Amber­ley.  RAAF Base Amber­ley is the pri­ma­ry base for air­lift and tanker air­craft and is cur­rent­ly under­go­ing the infra­struc­ture upgrades required to sup­port the C‑17 and oth­er large air­craft Aus­tralia already received or is under con­tract to pur­chase.
The pro­posed sale of this equip­ment and sup­port will not alter the basic mil­i­tary bal­ance in the region.
The prime con­trac­tor will be the McDon­nell Dou­glas Cor­po­ra­tion, a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of the Boe­ing Com­pa­ny, in Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia.  There are no known off­set agree­ments pro­posed in con­nec­tion with this poten­tial sale.

Imple­men­ta­tion of this pro­posed sale will not require the assign­ment of any addi­tion­al U.S. Gov­ern­ment or con­trac­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tives to Australia. 

There will be no adverse impact on U.S. defense readi­ness as a result of this pro­posed sale.  This notice of a poten­tial sale is required by law and does not mean the sale has been concluded.