The U.S. Army recently awarded Longbow a five-year contract for up to $235.8 million to provide support services for the AH-64 Apache helicopter AN/APG-78 LONGBOW Fire Control Radar to international customers, including the UK.
The LONGBOW FCR provides Apache aircrews with automatic target detection, location, classification and prioritization, while enabling rapid, multi-target engagement in all weather conditions over multiple types of terrain and through battlefield obscurants.
The contract notice is as follows:
“Longbow LLC, Orlando, Florida, was awarded a $235,794,870 hybrid (cost-no-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price) Foreign Military Sales (Republic of Korea (South Korea), Greece, India, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Netherlands, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom) contract for procurement of production support services for the Fire Control Radar System for the Apache attack helicopter. One bid was solicited via the internet with one bid received.
Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 31, 2025. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity (W52P1J-20-D-0009).”
According to Lockheed Martin, the contract value is estimated over five years and the contract provides tailorable services as individual orders for foreign military sales customers. Post-production sustainment services include programme and logistics management, repair of system modules as required, replenishment of depot parts, field engineering support, and operator and maintainer training for AH-64D and AH-64E configurations.
To date, nearly 500 LONGBOW FCR systems have been delivered to the U.S. Army and 12 nations.
Shame the UK and old Westland factory isn’t building these baby’s. I can see the point and cost reduction including in a USA order though.