The Ministry of Defence intends to award a £370,000 contract to Hampshire-based Aviation Spares & Repairs for the manufacture of three additional Wrap Around Maintenance Staging units for the UK’s F-35 fleet, according to a transparency notice published on the Find a Tender service.
The notice, issued by Defence Equipment and Support on 22 July 2026, describes Wrap Around Maintenance Staging as a fall arrest and access system designed for use with UK F-35 air vehicles. According to the notice, the system provides access for inspection and maintenance tasks while mitigating the risk of working at height on the aircraft. The contract is valued at £370,000 excluding VAT, or £444,444 including VAT, with an estimated term of one year running from 31 October 2026.
The award is being made directly rather than through competition, under Section 41 of the Procurement Act 2023, on the grounds set out in paragraph 7 of Schedule 5 covering additional or repeat goods. The notice states that the equipment is required to allow the Lightning workforce to conduct maintenance safely and in line with health and safety regulations, and that the staging must closely follow the contours of the aircraft, meaning generic staging is not suitable.
According to the notice, the original contract for the staging was awarded to Aviation Spares & Repairs through competition in 2018 under the Defence and Security Public Contract Regulations 2011. The company is therefore the original equipment manufacturer and holds exclusive intellectual property rights to the technical drawings needed to manufacture the equipment, with the notice stating that only the OEM has the drawings, tools, knowledge and expertise to produce staging compatible with the aircraft.
The notice sets out that an unforeseen requirement for additional units has arisen to meet a need to expand concurrent maintenance activities. Compatibility across all working at height assemblies is required so the modules can be used interchangeably, and the notice states that a different solution would result in two incompatible sets of staging being used simultaneously, creating disproportionate technical difficulties and leaving no reasonable alternatives.
The UK operates the short take-off and vertical landing F-35B variant, flown by the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm from RAF Marham in Norfolk and from the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class carriers.
So £444,444.00p for a scaffold platform. I… They… …words fail me!
Gold plated?
Just go to screwfix. Haha
Already in a fix. I suppose now we are going to get ….
Generic staging not suitable.
Even so, is this another example of crazy prices charged to MoD? Or is there more to it?
Cost of materials probably just 10%….. MoD gold plating, H&S and multiple levels of CS BS account for the rest.
We had staging onboard for Merlins. Excellent bit of kit and made a big difference for the engineers and access. Worth the money.
Glad to read an informed comment from someone with firsthand knowledge rather than the whinging from the know-nothings in the other comments.
People love a good moan. These are very specific bits of kit designed for a particular aircraft type. And they are large. Very large. And have to be designed in a way they can be deployable, rugged and last many years. That doesn’t come cheap.
I’m sure they aren’t cheap, but then you don’t want something that’s going to potentially damage your £100m fighter or injure your maintainers.
Worth every penny.
Exactly 👍
😁
The article mentioned it was for three sets so that figure is the total bill
Why would a company bother doing it for any less?
Why would a company bother doing it for any less?
Good money after bad as usual
Ignorant comment after daft comment as usual.
You don’t know anything about it.
good idea to have more but bloody hell they cost a lot, i wonder why that is?
Just for the sake of an argument, lets look at what this needs to do. It has to fit around the airframe so has to be designed to meet the shape and not cause damage to the airframe. It has to be moveable so has wheels and needs to be locked in place. It has to not only enable maintainers to get on and off safely with steps but allow multiple people to work at height. It has potentially to take the weight of heavy components, probably not the engine but I don’t know. It has to be safe that if something heavy did drop on it it will not collapse. It needs to be capable of handling multiple fluid spills without degrading its performance. The frame will need to be grounded to prevent ESD damage to the aircraft or components. It has to last a long time.
All this starts to add up, its not a small access frame it will be a wrap around frame and I am happy they have not decided to go through a bidding process with multiple committees, just award it to the potentially 1 company that can make it. We are behind on maintenance for the F35 so just fix it.
OK I’m done 😁
On Tornados we used a pair of A-Frame ladders, but I think the green paint pushed the price up