The Ministry of Defence has issued an early pipeline notice for a major procurement under Project HERA, a wide-ranging programme expected to overhaul airfield services and technical support across 19 UK military sites.
The proposed contract, valued at £559 million including VAT, is set to run from June 2027 to March 2036, with a possible extension to 2038, making it one of the most significant upcoming investments in support infrastructure for UK military aviation.
The formal tender notice is expected to be published on 1 September 2025.
According to the notice, the contract will cover key operational services including:
- Aircraft repair
- Air-traffic control
- Refuelling
- Hangar management
- Technical support services
Although no technical scope has been released into the public domain on this recently, the name “Project HERA” aligns with an existing RAF initiative launched earlier to modernise air traffic controller training through advanced simulation. That programme aimed to ensure that RAF controllers could maintain their essential qualifications year-round, even during quiet airspace periods, using aerodrome control simulators.
“It is essential that our air traffic controllers are fully trained in all scenarios when they are controlling busy airspace,” the RAF said at the time.
The services outlined will likely support the safe and efficient operation of RAF bases across the UK, with a strong focus on integrated solutions and long-term industry partnerships.
This is a UK1 pipeline notice under the Procurement Act 2023, meaning the MOD is providing advanced notice of a future opportunity rather than launching the procurement itself. Pipeline notices are used to alert suppliers to upcoming contracts above £2 million and allow time for industry engagement ahead of a formal competition.
Is this not just subcontracting out to private companies what the RAF core budget and services should do? Except the airfield building maintenance that used to be done by the PSA.
Not sure why you need to do this with RAF servicemen. This is exactly the sort of thing which might appeal to ex-servicemen who will still be able to do the job except under the guise of a private company. Good luck to them.
Wow! Another ‘pipeline notice’ – they’re banging them out one after another…
Maybe not a war footing but we have definitely shifted up a gear.
You have to wonder if this is all related to that 5% figure that is flashing it’s way through nato.
I don’t think its 5% I think more likely 3.5%- there is no way the UK can get to 3.5 or 5% without significant cuts to public services or a haircut to the ballooning state benefits bill- starting with illegal migration benefits and housing. The only way that the whole of NATO will unifiable agreement to moving towards 3.5% or 5% is if there is a credible threat that we know is imminent eg China and Russia combined. The mood music coming from China is one of gigantic investment in their armed forces, invasion barges being built in large numbers but labelled as “ferries” when in reality they are shallow draught LSTs- some of which can be joined to bridge the sea to shore and are equivalent to a modern day Mulberry harbour. China has also expanded their marine forces (rumour of the exact marine corps size is unclear but potentially is already 150K to 200K and growing whilst equipping them with amphibious IFVs and amphibious light tanks and amphibious light SPGs to provide immediate fire support to landing troops. Their navy meanwhile has hugely expanded and continues to do so with the ability to rapidly replace warships and auxiliaries potentially sunk and provide huge numbers of rapid replacements. China is also proliferating their missile technology- as potentially seen in Pakistan where Indian Rafale were shot down by J10s equipped with China’s very best air to air missile and China directly assisting with this targeting.
I think the mood music is all for something big around the 2027 timeframe as President Xi has declared- Taiwan will be unified by 2027. What happens when China makes its bid for Taiwan is anyone’s guess. Will the Donald intervene or sit it out as its an “internal affair” for China?
You can however guarantee that there will be spoiling efforts by Russia, Iran and North Korea to distract attention and ensure forces in Europe, Japan and South Korea as well as possibly as far afield as Canada and Australia are tied down dealing with activities from other state players.
We live in interesting times and things are certainly getting more interesting as time moves along.
Hi essential what it seems has been agreed by every NATO nation other than Spain is 3.5% direct defence spending and then 1.5% on defence adjunct spending..so infrastructure, support, industrial development and foreign security aid and support.
Also the BBC are reporting that the word is from Whitehall on the new spending review supports this, apparently it’s gong to slash and burn every department budget apart from defence and NHS.. which will both receive big uplifts, with the inside job being that the government will be the NHS and army with a few things bolted on.
You have to remember RR has already opened up the sovereign wealth fund to defence so the 28 billion was was going to exclusively power the energy sector is now able to power defence..also RR has just changed the rules so she can relax borrowing rules for capital expenditure around industrial development and infrastructure so that’s another 100billion.. so from a capital infrastructure point of view the government has 120 billion in the back pocket and credit card to give to the military industrial complex. Which essentially covers the 1.5%
So it just needs the 3.5% by 2032, I would say it will keep its 2.5% by 2027 that’s aready announced ( personally I think the government had an inkling where it was going and was warming the public up with the 2.5% by 2027 and then into 3% for next parliament)
So 2026/27 =2.4%
2027/28 = 2.5%
28/29 = 2.7% election year
29/30= 2.9%
30/31= 3.1%
31/32 =3.2%
32/33=3.5%
So you can see essentially the govern will give what trump wants and well as stick exactly to what it promised in its big defence announcement.. personally I think the figures are to twee to be anything other than negotiated, it’s why the U.S. has been happy with the UK announcement while all the time pushing for 5% because I suspect they had already hammered out the pathway.. for Labour they “only have to get to 2.7% of direct MOD spending this term and spend a shit load of money on capital investment..which is good union jobs and then also keep their promise on 3% for the next term essentially blowing the conservatives and reform out the water on defence ( because no party will say we need to spend more than that) also it warms the general public up to the need to spend that amount ( NATO said so and the government responded and also gave lots of people jobs so they are happy).
It’s not so much mood music coming out of china, it’s definitely saying it’s going to invade Taiwan, I would give it an almost 100% probably by 2030. If you look at the profile of xi you know this is not a man that messes around, he’s actually a full on brainwashed believer in the cause of the CCP ( which includes an imperative to take Taiwan, the belief in the requirement of china to suffer and the power of the protracted war..in which china can beat any foe no matter their power by out suffering them ).
For my money the next major war will follow this path, if china believes the U.S. will come to the aid of Taiwan ( if it does not it will not attack the U.S. ).
1) china launches an attack of strategic surprise on Taiwan..it will move from one of its annual massive exercises to invasion before the U.S. can react in other forces. This will include a massive attack on US defence infrastructure in the western pacific.. China will probably win this with the US having to retreat its forces back as far as the second island chain. Japan will become essentially under siege.. worst outcome Taiwan falls to a beheading and the US losses 1-2 carrier battle groups as it retreats out of the first island chain, Japan capitulation and terms…quam is knocked out best case: US retreats all its carrier battle groups to safety, quam is secure, Japan is secure but isolated and the tawain government survives and continue to fight, but is isolated, with massive losses to chinas amphibious forces.
2) The draw: within 2-3 months the US will be able consolidate and react in with its western pacific and Indian occean fleets, essentially this will happen whatever happens in the first months because neither side will back down.. so essentially the US will push into the western pacific first chain islands with 4-6 carrier battle groups and the same number of expeditionary strike groups.. this will plow into the PLAN and essentially between the first invasion by china and this response in we will see the biggest navel campaign in the history of the world and the bloodiest as well, I will involve many hundreds of thousands of millitary personnel dead over a few months and the likely outcome is both the PLAN and USN will be gutted and essentially embrace in massive levels of mutual destruction. But in the end again it will not matter who “won” and who holds Tawain as neither side can give up and they are both super powers with insane levels of strategic reserves and ability to keep fighting..more importantly they are 10,000miles apart and so it’s literally impossible for one to knock the other out with a decisive blow.
3) contagion: there are four elements of contagion in this conflict that make it inevitable it will become a world war: A) NATO and the Chinese paradigm of protracted war..essentially protracted war says the Chinese need to make the U.S. population feel the pain, so it will make strikes on US infrastructure, such as cyber and terrorist strikes, funding extremists, and even long range strikes using SSNs ect if it can, massive cyber strikes or terrorist strikes on the U.S. main land will trigger article five and drive NATO into the war ( most people forget nato does have a western flank and it’s the US/canada pacific coast. B) some western nations will like be drawn int before nato..Australia, Japan and the UK are likely to be immediately involved C) china will put massive pressure on proxies to pick a side some will do so D) some friends of china will simple see the mutual destruction of the U.S. fleet in the pacific and US distraction as their one chance especially with Chinese support..so Russia will likely use the opportunity to launch an attack of some kind on NATOs northern flank ( this will probably happen after the RNs and Frances SSNs and carrier battle groups have reacted into the Indian Ocean to support the U.S. ).. Iran launches it assault on Israel or a western ally..probably Jordan. North Korea, supported directly by a massive Chinese ground force attacks into South Korea..
4) Pain and political warfare: on protracted warfare.. as we know from Ukraine warfare with peers is not quick it’s not easy it’s all about pain and political will and this conflict will go on for years and essentially the winner will be the side who can keep its population on side or under control, supporting the leadership as the years of pain stack up.
5) treaty… because this is a war in which neither side can destroy its core enemies, the U.S. and china are both huge and 10,000km apart..Russia is vast and Russia has no hope of destroying an enemy 10 times its population and wealth ( other than with the mutual destruction of nuclear fire) it will be decided by which side throws in the towel and takes a disadvantage in any peace treaty….
But a conventional ww3 will shatter the world for a generation and probably lead to a WW1 like conclusion..in which the ground for a rematch WW4 is set.
Blimey mate do you want to write a book? 😀
That was a fantastic post which actually seemed more grounded and realistic than all the jingoism thrown around by all sides these days.
I think we might find that for all China’s numbers and rumoured strength, casualties on their side will turn out to be massive as their technology – like Russia’s – fails to stand up against America’s.
However, the problem for the West will be the obvious one of logistics. China will be supremely hard to beat on its own doorstep.
Russia faces the same problem with Ukraine, it’s HARD to conquer a motivated, well supplied force that’s defending its own home.
Similarly, if China was daft enough to attack the USA, it’s facing an at-least-peer adversary fighting for its homes and families.
@ nopoet, indeed a world war that involves the west against china,Russia, North Korea and Iran + proxis and friends is not something either side can or will decisively win because 1) it would take years and is far more balanced than ww2 and we know how long and the suffering that took and 2) if one side did look like it was going to decisively win and destroy the other there would be the inevitable trigger of MAD.. so any war would be one long episode of drawn out suffering interposed with the occasional bloody campaign until one or both sides for feed up and signed a peace deal… but in reality all sides wouls lose as every nation involved would have an economy shattered for a generation or two and the whole world would be in a pretty never ending recession… with a never ending post hot war cols war.. essentially most of the world would be like post war Europe 1940s and 1950s Europe.. lose lose basically even for any theoretical winner.
An element of ATC training could be obtained for free by encouraging staff to volunteer for VATSIM duties?
As these people will obviously be civilians what is to stop them at the first sign of trouble upping sticks and bugging out leaving these bases inoperable?or going on strike interrupting the day to day running of the RAF? If you do have civies running the place then that is an excuse to cut numbers in the RAF!
Much was civilianised decades ago mate, as part of the drawdown from 90k to around 35k now.
I agree, though its no different I think to the USAF, who have lots of contractors on bases, unsure if as much as us.
Outsourcing transfers wealth to rich, when the mod ran these services the money from wages circulated the economy. Offshoring, creative accounting and offsetting debt against tax reduces any saving. with foreign investment money leaves the country. As with sale of council housing and housing associations it’s short term gain resulted in expected 35 billion cost 25-26 to tax payer!