Wed, Jan 11, 2017
Will Support The 62 Wildcats Now In Service With The British Army And Royal Navy
Leonardo has been awarded a £271 million (approx. $338 million) contract by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to deliver support and training services for their fleet of 62 AW159 Wildcat helicopters operated by the British Army and Royal Navy. The five year contract was announced by Harriett Baldwin MP, Minister for Defence Procurement, during a visit to Leonardo’s Yeovil facility in South West England. The contract will commence 1st April 2017 and confirms the price the MOD will pay for Wildcat training and support for the next five years of the 30 year WIST contract awarded in 2012.
The WIST contract includes a spares provisioning service, enhanced technical support services including aircraft safety management, as well as delivering synthetic and ground based training for both aircrew and maintainers.
The contract directly sustains over 500 skilled industry jobs, mainly in the South West of England at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, where the Wildcat Training Centre and zonal maintenance facilities are located, and at Leonardo’s Yeovil factory. Leonardo’s contribution also involves its Airborne & Space Systems division for the radar and defensive aids systems, located in Edinburgh and Luton. Other key subcontractors supporting the WIST programme include Thales UK for communication and aircraft management systems, located in Crawley and Morson who provide aircraft maintenance and support staff, mainly at RNAS Yeovilton.
The WIST contract is output-based, whereby Leonardo is incentivised to improve the levels of operational output whilst seeking continuous improvement to reduce through life costs. The contract is similar to the Integrated Operational Support (IOS) availability based contracts that Leonardo Helicopters is successfully delivering for the UK MoD’s AW101 Merlin, Sea King and Apache AH Mk.1 helicopter fleets.
On 14th December 2016 Leonardo handed over the 62nd and final AW159 Wildcat to the UK MoD before it made the short delivery flight to RNAS Yeovilton, the main operating base for British Army and Royal Navy AW159 Wildcats.
(Image provided with Leonardo Company news release)
More News
Runway Lead-in Light System Runway Lead-in Light System Consists of one or more series of flashing lights installed at or near ground level that provides positive visual guidance a>[...]
Aero Linx: Aviation Without Borders Aviation Without Borders uses its aviation expertise, contacts and partnerships to enable support for children and their families – at hom>[...]
Dave Juwel's Aviation Marketing Stories ITBOA BNITBOB ... what does that mean? It's not gibberish, it's a lengthy acronym for "In The Business Of Aviation ... But Not In The Busine>[...]
From 2010 (YouTube Version): Yeah.... This IS A Really Cool Job When ANN's Nathan Cremisino took over the lead of our Aero-TV teams, he knew he was in for some extra work and a lot>[...]
Also: Junkers A50 Heritage, Montaer Grows, Dynon-Advance Flight Systems, Vans' Latest Officially, the Carbon Cub UL and Rotax 916 iS is now in its 'market survey development phase'>[...]
ANN's Daily Aero-Term (04.24.24): Runway Lead-in Light System
See All