BAE wins £16m countermeasures deal

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

BAE Systems has won a £16 million urgent operational requirement contract with the Ministry of Defence to support and service aircraft countermeasures systems.

Under the five year, fixed-price availability contract, BAE Systems will provide spares and repairs for the company's AAR-57 Common Missile Warning System, or CMWS.

The company says the programme minimises repair turnaround time, improves system availability, and will reduce total system ownership costs to the MoD. The contract also provides £1.5 million for spare equipment to support the program.

CMWS is a passive missile detection and warning system, consisting of up to six electro-optic missile sensors and an electronic control unit. The sensors are installed around the aircraft to provide comprehensive coverage and constantly monitor for the signature of a missile. The control unit processes the sensor data and can provide cues for countermeasures.

CMWS is fielded on more than 120 systems on UK rotary and fixed wing aircraft, including the Chinook and Tornado. Under the new contract, BAE Systems will manage all facets of the supply chain to guarantee availability of CMWS equipment spares within an hour of the request.

"This programme will ensure that MoD rotary- and fixed-wing platforms have spare CMWS equipment available at their deployed operating bases every time they need it," said Cindy Carpenter, Director of Global Survivability and Support Solutions for BAE Systems.

"We've promised to deliver the CMWS spares within an hour of any request to ensure our customer has 100 per cent mission availability, and our global product support team is committed to no less."