QinetiQ, Thales and Textron AirLand have announced a collaboration that will bid for the UK Ministry of Defence’s upcoming Air Support to D...
QinetiQ, Thales and Textron AirLand have announced a collaboration that will bid for the UK Ministry of Defence’s upcoming Air Support to Defence Operational Training (ASDOT) program.
The ASDOT program aims to meet the air warfare support requirements across UK's air, navy, army and joint forces commands from 2020.
The three companies’ CEOs met at Farnborough International Airshow to announce the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) setting the foundation for the bid.
The team will offer an innovative, cost effective, technologically advanced reliable managed service using the Textron AirLand Scorpion jet equipped with Thales and QinetiQ sensors to provide a broad spectrum of training for all three armed services.
The Scorpion which boasts a dispatch reliability of 98 percent was select by Thales and QinetiQ after evaluating more than 50 potential aircraft.
The competitive contract, expected to be awarded in September 2018 with a service delivery start in Jan 2020, is anticipated to be worth up to £1.2bn over 15 years.
The ASDOT program aims to meet the air warfare support requirements across UK's air, navy, army and joint forces commands from 2020.
The three companies’ CEOs met at Farnborough International Airshow to announce the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) setting the foundation for the bid.
The team will offer an innovative, cost effective, technologically advanced reliable managed service using the Textron AirLand Scorpion jet equipped with Thales and QinetiQ sensors to provide a broad spectrum of training for all three armed services.
The Scorpion which boasts a dispatch reliability of 98 percent was select by Thales and QinetiQ after evaluating more than 50 potential aircraft.
The competitive contract, expected to be awarded in September 2018 with a service delivery start in Jan 2020, is anticipated to be worth up to £1.2bn over 15 years.
QinetiQ will offer the safe operation of a highly capable and flexible mixed fleet of Scorpion and other platforms – including maintenance and provision of pilots.
Its proposal will include integration of sensors and jamming pods into the aerial fleet and certification of the aircraft to ensure compliance with military air worthiness regulations. The solution will include provision for the introduction of synthetic operational training and airborne aerial target capabilities.
The Scorpion is a tandem-seat twinjet aircraft with an all-composite material fuselage designed for light attack and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.
The aircraft is very versatile in terms of mission flexibility with a center payload bay, six hard points, high dash speeds and extended endurance and loiter time at cruise speeds.
It has a low operating cost of $3000 per hour and is powered by two Honeywell TFE731 turbofan engines.
