BAE Systems has been awarded a £947m contract by the MoD that aims to boost the Tornado aircraft’s availability for frontline operations, while reducing costs.
The contract, known as ATTAC (Availability Transformation: Tornado Aircraft Contract) will provide guaranteed availability of Tornado aircraft for the RAF, and is potentially worth in the region of £1.5bn. According to BAE Systems, it will save the MoD £510m over the initial 10 years of the programme.
Under the ATTAC service, BAE Systems will work in partnership with the MoD’s Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO) and the RAF to provide availability as set out in the UK Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS).
BAE Systems will take responsibility for ‘depth’ support at RAF Marham and will combine this with the Capability Development and Sustainment Service (CDSS). CDSS is an approach to adding new features to the aircraft to maintain the aircraft’s military effectiveness throughout its service life.
The pilot programmes will be subsumed into the overall contract which will have an initial service delivery by mid 2007 and be fully in place by the end of that year. A phase 2 final element will deliver a series of supplemental contracts covering remaining avionics and general systems requirements plus engineering support services by the end of December 2007.
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