The Ministry of Defence has awarded a £170 million contract to AirTanker Ltd for a major upgrade to the UK’s Voyager tanker aircraft fleet, aimed at resolving key obsolescence issues in its onboard systems.
Known as the Voyager Operating System Evolution (VOSE), the project will deliver the design, development, certification, and through-life support of a new mission system for the RAF’s Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA). According to the contract award notice, the upgrade includes integration of the Multifunction Information Distribution System and the Joint Tactical Radio System (MIDS/JTRS), vital components for secure communications and interoperability.
The contract, issued under reference FSTA/00009/VOSE, was published on 24 June and granted under single-source procurement rules due to what the MOD describes as “technical reasons.” In a legal justification published with the notice, the MOD states:
“Any Contractor selected to execute VOSE and embody the MIDS/JTRS on the FSTA must be an FSTA/Multi Role Transport Tanker (MRTT) Manufacturer Approved Organization Scheme (MAOS) organisation.”
It adds that “AirTanker Ltd UK is the only Contractor who meets these criteria because of the specific know-how and licensing it holds.”
The Voyager Delivery Team, based in Bristol, is managing the contract on behalf of the MOD. AirTanker, headquartered at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, will carry out the upgrade work at its facilities, which serve as the main operating hub for the UK’s Voyager fleet.
The work will involve between 10 and 14 aircraft and is being executed through an amendment to the original Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft concession contract. The deal covers not only the system design and installation but also ongoing support across the aircrafts’ service lives.
The awarded contract falls under multiple defence procurement classifications, including military aircraft maintenance and tanker aircraft operations. Among its key indicators are options for future scalability, allowing flexibility depending on operational needs.
The MOD states that the update is necessary to ensure mission capability, citing the increasing obsolescence of existing systems onboard the Voyagers, which provide the RAF’s core air-to-air refuelling and strategic air transport capability.
I hope this includes the removal of Paint that doesn’t meet official RAF Specifications. 😂😉
We will need a boom now that F35A is on order. No point having a nuclear capable strike aircraft ready to deter if it needs allied help refuelling it.
Poor planning & a bad contract now means we have a choice of fitting a boom to the Voyager which with the restrictions imposed by the Airtanker contract will mean that option will be very expensive or the F35As are fitted with a probe which apparently is also an option.
It would be nice to see booms fitted which would enable the RAF to refuel other aircraft types also.
With the F35A apparently bringing a 25% saving on the B variant, that money can be redirected towards fitting booms on the Voyager fleet right? The uplift in defence spending can cover the rest.
(Living in dreamland I know).
You can order the A with probe and drouge.
But the RAF don’t own these aircraft? Why are taxpayers paying to upgrade them? So we lease the aircraft, but have to pay for maintenance & upgrades???
Apparently the RAF are restricted to not using any other refueling aircraft too??
Would the responsible contractor officer @ DE&S please step forward.
My recently deceased cat could write a better contract…..I wonder if any service personnel gravitated to Air tanker jobs or consultancy positions?
Because we specified probe and drouge in the contract.. if you want it to do more you have to pay for it. A builder you pay to fit the kitchen doesn’t fix the roof for free
I’m sorry to hear about your loss. The taxpayers loss is old news.
No boom addition ?
Thats a full structural rebuild. Far better to start from scratch
This contract was alway one of the worst examples of control of in year costs and repackage national debt, at the expense of long term efficiency of taxpayers money.. you save on immediate capital expenditure but by god do you pay for it in the end.