FlightSafety International has emerged as a "dark horse" bidder for the 10-year, $100 million-a-year US Air Force special-operations Aircrew Training and Rehearsal Support (ATARS) contract. Incumbent Lockheed Martin already faced competition for ATARS II from L-3 Link Simulation & Training before the development.
Bids will be submitted on 21 December, with the contract awarded in June 2007 and work to begin in October. Lockheed, which has run the ATARS contract for 14 years, is expected to be hard to dislodge, but FlightSafety has been encouraged by successes with the US Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC).
FlightSafety's Vital 9 visual is now the de facto standard across many of the ATARS training devices, and in October the company won the contract to provide two weapon system trainers for AFSOC's Lockheed HC-130P. Its bid for the ATARS II project is being led by subsidiary FlightSafety Services, which runs the USAF's aircrew training systems for the Lockheed C-5 strategic transport and Boeing KC-135 tanker and recently won the McDonnell Douglas KC-10 tanker contract from Boeing (Flight International, 5-11 December).
Source: Flight International
