Boeing to extend cooperation with IPTN

JAKARTA (JP): Boeing Co. of the United States, the world's largest aircraft manufacturer, will extend cooperation with state-owned aircraft manufacturer PT Industri Pesawat Terbang Nusantara (IPTN) to produce components, an executive says.

"IPTN is highly qualified as an airplane manufacturer. That's why we chose it as the sole supplier for Boeing-737 components," Boeing's manager for international operations, Richard W. Smith, told reporters here yesterday.

He said that cooperation with IPTN began in 1982 when Boeing agreed to provide technical assistance to the Bandung-based aircraft manufacturer.

Smith, who is here to attend a research and technology exhibition at the Jakarta Fairgrounds, said that the technical assistance to IPTN includes raw materials procurement, engineering designing, manufacturing, production, flight tests and delivery.

"Now we are also assisting IPTN on the engineering design for the N-250 (a turbo-prop aircraft currently being built by IPTN)," he said, adding that in 1988, his company assigned IPTN to supply components for Boeing-737 aircraft.

IPTN made its first delivery in late January this year. The components included 100 sets of inboard, outboard, and right and left flaps worth US$15 million.

Boeing has signed a second contract which will end in 1998, meaning that IPTN will deliver another 100 sets of similar components worth $30 million.

Smith, accompanied by Boeing's communication manager Mark G. Hooper, said his company has modified three Boeing-737 planes belonging to the Indonesian Air Force. The aircraft will have a modern avionic system which will be specially modified for Indonesia.

Hooper said that the Seattle-based Boeing produced nearly 400 aircraft last year, 60 percent of which went to countries in the Asia-Pacific region. (icn)