The Ministry of Defence intends to award a £170 million contract to AirTanker Ltd for a major upgrade to the UK’s Voyager tanker aircraft fleet, aimed at addressing critical obsolescence issues in its onboard systems.
The planned upgrade, known as the Voyager Operating System Evolution (VOSE), would cover 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 draft contract award notice, the work would include integration of the Multifunction Information Distribution System and the Joint Tactical Radio System (MIDS/JTRS), key components for secure communications and NATO interoperability.
The prospective contract, issued under reference FSTA/00009/VOSE, was announced on 24 June and is expected to proceed under single-source procurement rules. The MOD cites “technical reasons” for this approach. In a legal justification published with the notice, the department explains:
“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 further states 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 overseeing the prospective contract. AirTanker, headquartered at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, is expected to carry out the work at its operational facilities, which support the UK’s Voyager fleet.
Between 10 and 14 aircraft are expected to be involved, with the work forming an amendment to the original Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft concession contract. The programme would cover not only system design and installation but also long-term support over the fleet’s remaining service life.
The proposed contract falls under several defence procurement classifications, including military aircraft maintenance and tanker aircraft operations. It includes provisions for future scalability, allowing for adaptation based on evolving operational demands.
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).
It isn’t an option to fit a probe to the F-35A. Where did you get that idea? There is ONE build standard. The only exception is Israel, who have permission to integrate their own EW systems and weapons. We don’t have that clout on the Hill.
Steve O’Bryan then of Lochead Martin, when the Canadians asked
“We anticipated a number of the operators would want probe-and-drogue refueling in the F-35A and we kept that space empty on the F-35A to accommodate probe and drogue refueling. We‘ve done a number of studies – funded studies, not projects – funded studies to evaluate that, paid for by the countries who want that to happen. It’s a relatively easy … doable change.”
Thanks. I’ve just found a post from Tyler Rogoway that agrees. He’s a reliable source.
You can order the A with probe and drouge.
Which still leaves us unable to refuel our P8s, E7s and Rivets.
Yes I actually think it’s time we bit the bullet and fitted booms to the fleet now, there’re enough types now in the RAF that need it. I dare say operations are being restricted based on this limitation.
Yes you can but everyone who has inquired about that has gone gulp when they saw how much LM wanted to do it notably Canada.
The Canadian F35 procurement programme was a political issue with the Canadian left spouting absolute nonsense. Promoting the idea that 4 generation aircraft can fulfil Canada’s NATO and NORAD commitments for the next 30 years. After 15 years of armchair experts they ended up were they started and buying the F35
No you can’t.
“Steve O’Bryan (Lockheed Martin): “We anticipated a number of the operators would want probe-and-drogue refueling in the F-35A and we kept that space empty on the F-35A to accommodate probe and drogue refueling. We‘ve done a number of studies – funded studies, not projects – funded studies to evaluate that, paid for by the countries who want that to happen. It’s a relatively easy … doable change.”
Thank you. Source?
F35A comes with prove abs drouge configuration originally designed for Canada. That being said I agree some aircraft need to incorporate the probe to refute the E7, P8, C17, Voyager and RC135.
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.
Utter nonsense, you are going to pay for the upgrades one way or another.
I was talking about the overall lifetime cost of the contract, vs making a capital purchase. It’s not utter nonsense as every PFI costs more money than if the government had simply financed..it has to become the PFI requires a profit across life, that is far greater than the government pays on loan interest for capital investments.
Let’s face it this contract is terrible and runs out in 2035 by which time those Airframes will be old so need replacement. We won’t see an F35A in service till the early 30’s and just adding booms sounds fine in theory but it’ll cost a fortune and we wouldn’t see any of those till then either.
It’s a bad contract but we can’t break it, however it does seem to work and it’s got 10 years remaining. So we do actually need to think about what do we do next, a new PFI with fewer restrictions, a new RAF owned capability or join in an expansion of the NATO MMF (their support contract is also with Airtanker).
But we do need extra capacity with new capabilities not covered by the existing contract, so why not mimic NATO MMF and negotiate a separate contract for them to support 6 New RAF owned A330 MMRT and we may then then add to that when the PFI runs out.
Fitting the Voyager with booms or fitting the F35As with probes the decision will be based on costs.
If just 12 x F35As are purchased it maybe cheaper to fit them with probes but if the order is increased then maybe it will cheaper to fit booms to some or all of the Voyagers.
If the boom is selected I would imagine due to contractual conditions fitting a boom will be much more expensive than if the Voyagers were owned by the RAF.
Airtanker may have been the cheaper option but in hindsight as others have mentioned it was a bad decision, the Atlas could be used to supplement the Voyagers for refuelling aircraft & it would give the UK the option to refuel helicopters.
If a ten year old fleet is going obsolete we’d better start building replacements yesterday. Why have these and the Typhoon got such a short life when aircraft like the VC-10 tankers or the Harrier served for much longer? Has the poor build quality of most modern goods made its way to military materiel too?
When I saw this headline I hoped it meant adding Boom capability