UK Lynx Training Contract for TT&S

Comprehensive aircrew training services for the UK Army Air Corps' GKN Westland Lynx AH.7 and AH.9 utility and support helicopters are being provided by Thomson Training & Simulation at the AAC's main Middle Wallop base, supported by a new $40 million contract. Awarded by the MoD Defense Procurement Agency's Flight Simulators & Synthetic Integrated Project Team, the contract was negotiated under the terms of the Ministry's Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

A TT&S-owned operating company, Thomson Eagle Aircrew Training Services, will operate the Lynx Aircrew Training Service utilizing a suite of synthetic training equipment. This will comprise computer-based trainers, a cockpit procedures trainer, and a flight simulator in a brand-new AAC facility.

Training activities will be coordinated electronically via a training management information system, and the cockpit procedures trainer and flight simulator will be re-configurable for training on both marks of AAC Lynx. The visual system will be compatible with Gen III night-vision goggles, and supported by a library of operational databases.

"Following as it does the 1999 award to Thomson Ace of the PFI contract for the provision of aircrew training for the (upgraded) RAF Tornado GR Mk.4, this contract confirms the status of TT&S as the major UK military aircrew training service provider," said TT&S chairman and CEO Stanislas Guerin.

By John Fricker