Leonardo has been awarded a £271 million (approximately €320 million) contract by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to deliver support and training services for their fleet of 62 AW159 Wildcat helicopters operated by the British Army and Royal Navy.

The five year contract was announced by Harriett Baldwin MP, Minister for Defence Procurement, during a visit today to Leonardo’s Yeovil facility in South West England. The contract will commence 1st April 2017 and confirms the price the MOD will pay for Wildcat training and support for the next five years of the 30 year WIST contract awarded in 2012.

The WIST contract includes a spares provisioning service, enhanced technical support services including aircraft safety management, as well as delivering synthetic and ground based training for both aircrew and maintainers.

The contract directly sustains over 500 skilled industry jobs, mainly in the South West of England at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, where the Wildcat Training Centre and zonal maintenance facilities are located, and at Leonardo’s Yeovil factory. Leonardo’s contribution also involves its Airborne & Space Systems division for the radar and defensive aids systems, located in Edinburgh and Luton. Other key subcontractors supporting the WIST programme include Thales UK for communication and aircraft management systems, located in Crawley and Morson who provide aircraft maintenance and support staff, mainly at RNAS Yeovilton.

The WIST contract is output-based, whereby Leonardo is incentivised to improve the levels of operational output whilst seeking continuous improvement to reduce through life costs. The contract is similar to the Integrated Operational Support (IOS) availability based contracts that Leonardo Helicopters is successfully delivering for the UK MoD’s AW101 Merlin, Sea King and Apache AH Mk.1 helicopter fleets.

On 14th December 2016 Leonardo handed over the 62nd and final AW159 Wildcat to the UK MoD before it made the short delivery flight to RNAS Yeovilton, the main operating base for British Army and Royal Navy AW159 Wildcats.

Photo AW159 Wildcat / Rick Ingham Photography