A single-engine basic trainer aircraft arrives at RAF Fairford, England. Credit: Adrian Pingstone/commons.wikimedia.org.

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has renewed its existing military aircraft flying training contract with Babcock International.

The new award has further extended the contract for four years. It also includes an additional option to deliver the services for four more years.

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Babcock has been operating the British Light Aircraft Flying Task (LAFT2) fleet for decades now to deliver a complete set of flying training services to the UK Armed Forces, including the UK Royal Air Force (RAF), Navy and Army.

Work involves Babcock providing flying training to all three services from 14 different sites across the country, with delivering approximately 35,000 flying hours a year.

So far, the company has accumulated a total of 700,000 flying hours by delivering flying training to British pilots.

The training is conducted using as many as 91 Babcock-owned Grob 115E basic trainer aircraft.

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According to the company, the initial ten-year-long LAFT contract awarded to Babcock for providing flying training culminated in 2009.

It was extended for another ten years in 2009, with validity until October 2022, and renamed as ‘LAFT2’.

This 23-year-long full-service partnership has proven to be a cost-effective solution for the MoD to support the training of the aircrews, noted Babcock.

Babcock’s part of work includes providing engineering expertise and detailed asset management that can further maintain aircraft availability to deliver continuous support for the flying operations.

Apart from the capability support, the company provides operational training to the cadet pilots from the RAF’s University Air Squadron and Air Experience Flying, an RAF’s Volunteer Reserve training unit.

The training prepares the air cadets to undertake deployments as the front-line aircrew in future.