INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE
EMBRACING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
Neal Misell Managing Director of UK Military Air, Babcock International
WHAT ARE BABCOCK’S CORE CAPABILITIES IN THE AIR DOMAIN? Babcock’s Aviation Sector is an aviation company that supports both our own and our customers’ aircraft fleets and airbases; we are not a support services company that happens to find itself in aviation. At a revenue of £0.9 billion, we are the biggest aviation engineering support business in the UK. We have just completed a strategic realignment based around our four core sectors – Marine, Land, Nuclear and Aviation – to make us more focused on our core offers and customers. We deliver a wide array of critical engineering and training services to defence and civil customers, ranging from technical training of advanced fixed- and rotary-wing pilots through our UK joint venture, Ascent, to air ambulance, oil and gas support, fire and rescue and police aviation. We support our own fleet of more than 500 aircraft, plus over 200 customer-owned platforms flying over 238,000 flying hours per year. For the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD), we support
over 70% of all RAF flying training hours. In total, we employ over 2,000 pilots in both civil and military roles.
partnership not only with the oil and gas majors, but with the passengers carried across the most inhospitable oceans.
HOW IMPORTANT ARE PARTNERSHIPS TO BABCOCK INTERNATIONAL AND WHY?
WHAT IS BABCOCK’S INVOLVEMENT IN UK FLYING TRAINING?
Our partnerships within military aviation stretch back to 1915, when we were one of the early sponsors of the Flying Services Fund for the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps. We are committed to the Whole-Force approach and we have embraced the opportunities to challenge and be challenged by our customers.
We have been delivering flying training, aircraft engineering and airfield services for more than 70 years and we support over 25% of all MOD rotary- and fixedwing aircraft. Babcock is a 50/50 partner in the Ascent joint venture with Lockheed Martin, which is responsible for delivering the UK Military Flying Training System (UKMFTS) through to 2033. Our key activities include the delivery of pilot training, flight simulator maintenance, asset management, multi-activity support services and equipment support to ensure that aircraft and their aircrew are always mission-ready. We employ around 1,800 highly trained and skilled people at over 30 aviation sites across the UK.
“We support over 25% of all MOD rotaryand fixedwing aircraft” We also have strong partnerships with OEMs, such as Dassault in France, Lockheed Martin within Ascent, BAE Systems for the Hawk, Rolls-Royce for the Adour engine maintenance programme and as a partner for the Voyager tanker aircraft. These are all testament to our ability to collaborate and partner, which is vital in the aviation sector. Our relationships with the diverse communities involved in emergency services aviation, especially air ambulances, further show how very high-readiness aviation can only succeed within a partnership. Moreover, the challenges of operating an air service to remote offshore oil platforms requires a
CONTACT
HOW DOES THE FRENCH FLYING TRAINING CONTRACT COMPARE WITH MFTS? We are absolutely delighted to have been chosen by the French Ministère de la Défense for FOMEDEC (Formation modernisée et entraînement différencié des équipages de chasse) which is a 10-year outsourced programme to deliver Basic Flying Training in the Pilatus PC-21 to the l’Armée de l’Air. Like UKMFTS, the French contract authorities have purchased a fixed amount of flying hours with a maintenance, infrastructure and a synthetic training solution to deliver a pilot training capability. We are excited to be starting this new contract and see further international opportunity for our compelling range of capabilities.
Geoff.Maple@babcockinternational.com WEBSITE babcockinternational.com