The decade long agreement seeks to reinvest £500 million into new capabilities for Typhoon.
Chris Boardman, managing director of BAE Systems Military Air and Information, said:
“Combining support arrangements into one programme will help to increase reliability and availability of the fleet, whilst making it cheaper to support. The efficiency savings generated will enable new capabilities to be developed for the Typhoon fleet.”
Minister for Defence Procurement, Philip Dunne said:
“This is an exciting, innovative support contract for our Typhoon aircraft. It will not only provide more efficient support and availability for our Typhoon fleet. But it will also help ensure Typhoon continues to meet the RAF’s future operational requirements, including from 2019 undertaking the air-to-ground roles currently performed by our Tornado jets.
This major contract sustains hundreds of jobs while representing a substantial change in the way support is provided, optimising and driving efficiency into current ways of working.”
According to an MoD press release, the deal aims to deliver “more than a third on savings on current support and maintenance costs; of which over £500M million could be reinvested to continue upgrading Typhoon’s capabilities”.
Chief Executive Officer at the MOD’s Defence Equipment and Support organisation, Tony Douglas, said:
“This 10-year Typhoon support arrangement is the product of close cooperation between MOD and Industry, who are both focussed on maximising efficiencies to identify savings and re-invest these in the aircraft.
This innovative deal not only shows how committed we are to providing state-of-the-art equipment for our Armed Forces, but how we are also providing the taxpayer with value for money.”
The Typhoon force is currently operationally based at RAF Coningsby, RAF Lossiemouth and the Falkland Islands, where the aircraft provide Quick Reaction Alert.
David Frost good job :p
“more than a third on savings on current support and maintenance costs; of which over £500M million could be reinvested to continue upgrading Typhoon’s capabilities”.
More Air-to-ground weapons integration I assume but I wonder whether some of that £500M savings might find its way to CAPTOR-E (AESA) radar upgrades for existing CAPTOR. CAPTOR is already good but CAPTOR-E would be a very useful increase in capability.
Matthew Fenwick
What Brexit 🙂 good news
Don’t be naive Rob.
BAE is a british company. This is nothing to do with the EU
it’s a European venture, it’s good !
It’s corporate profit from death mate! There is nothing good about it! Find a peaceful application for this, then I’ll be impressed!
Barrington it is called defence, like it or not we need strong forces and the supply chain with the jobs it brings is a good thing for the UK and is a good news story that many said Brexit would stop! Boeing are investing more in the UK to part of that is defence related but defence tech does help drive civilian tech to, do you think sat navs and so on was only made for us civvies?