Why the United States will continue to build Tomcat aircraft
Tomcat Aircraft Inc. said on Wednesday that it expects to build more than 1,200 aircraft this year, adding to its existing fleet of over 4,200 planes.
The company has more than 4,000 planes under contract for the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
Tomcat is a joint venture between General Electric Co. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., the Japanese aerospace and defense giant.
The U.S. and the UAE will receive approximately 3,400 planes this year.
The U.K. and Saudi Arabia will receive 1,600 planes each, while the United Kingdom and France will receive around 500 each.
The Middle East will receive the rest.
The planes are made by a joint partnership between General Dynamics Corp. and Pratt & Whitney Corp., a joint company formed in 2014 to produce Tomcat jets.
The deal includes production of more than 200 planes in the United Sates, with about 1,400 planned.
The United Arab Emirate and Kuwait will receive 2,000 aircraft each.
The UAE, in particular, will have a tough time getting planes into the United Stated.
The country’s government has barred imports of military equipment from countries that have been identified by the U.N. as having links to terrorism, including Iran, North Korea and Libya.
The United States, by contrast, is trying to get aircraft from China and other countries into the country.