Aero-engineering giant Rolls-Royce has landed a $103.3m (£64.6m) contract with the Pentagon to support trainer aircraft engines built at its Bristol plant.
The deal extends an existing contract covering the Rolls-Royce Adour engines (known in the US as the F405) used to power the US Navy’s T-45 training aircraft.
The engines were built at Rolls-Royce’s Patchway, Bristol, plant, its main UK base for military aircraft engines, and will be supported by the plant’s international operations centre which coordinates maintenance, servicing and inventory around the clock.
The contract is the latest secured by the firm with the US Department of Defense under its MissionCare support project for the US Navy and exercises the fourth option year to provide guaranteed engine availability.
This includes support ranging from on-wing through intermediate and depot-level maintenance, under a five-year base contract that began in 2008. Rolls-Royce uses MissionCare to apply what it calls commercial ‘power-by-the-hour’ principles to the unique requirements of the defence industry.
Rolls-Royce president – defence services Paul Craig said: “Our MissionCare contract with the US Navy is one of our most successful partnerships and we take great pride in supporting the training of new aviators for the US Navy and US Marine Corps. We look forward to another successful year, working in partnership with our customer to maximize engine availability for training missions.”
Under the terms of the agreement, which is administered by the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), Rolls-Royce will provide inventory control, as well as integrated logistics support and required engineering elements for both the F405 engine and the aircraft gas turbine starting system.
The F405 engine is a derivative of the Adour Mk 871 which is powers the US Navy’s fleet of Boeing/BAE Systems T-45 Goshawk trainer jet aircraft. The contract provides covers more than 200 aircraft operating at four main US naval air stations.
