Smiths awarded $47 million support contract for the F-22 fighter aircraft

Smiths Aerospace wins first performance-based logistics contract awarded on newest aircraft in the US Air Force fleet

SMITHS Aerospace, part of the global technology business Smiths Group, today announces it has been awarded a ten-year contract with a potential value of more than $47 million to support the F-22 aircraft.

Smiths Aerospace will provide performance-based logistics (PBL) in support of the Power Distribution System on the F-22 aircraft.

The work is taking place at Smiths Aerospace facilities in Michigan and Florida beginning in October 2006.

Dr John Ferrie, President of Smiths Aerospace, said: Our integrated support processes enable us to provide our customers with total product life cycle cost management solutions. This is a core strength for Smiths and it is an area in which we plan continued growth.

The contract has been awarded by Lockheed Martin and supports the US Air Force fleet of F-22 aircraft through the year 2015. The contract is the first PBL deal awarded for support of the newest aircraft in the USAF fleet.

This contract will provide guaranteed levels of support for aircraft stationed at Nellis, Tyndall, Langley, Elmendorf and Edwards Air Force bases.

Smiths Aerospace was one of the first aerospace companies to introduce PBL programmes in 1997 with a programme to support the RAF Hercules SCNS (Self-Contained Navigation System). This was quickly followed by a second RAF support PBL, this time to guarantee the availability of LRU displays for the Tornado GR4.

Smiths also has one of the first US Navy PBLs, a 15-year firm fixed price contract signed in 1998 for the Stores Management System (SMS) on the US Navy and US Marine Corps F/A-18 and AV-8B aircraft. Under the programme Smiths Aerospace manages the inventory for some 450 different spares, along with forecasting requirements, managing unit repairs and transportation and is responsible for managing component obsolescence. This was followed earlier this year by awards for the F/A-18 Stores Management System Upgrade (SMUG) PBL and for the SH-60 Tip-to-Tail PBL.

ENDS