Finmeccanica holds investment talks as bidders invited to contest two-tier requirement
The United Arab Emirates has shortlisted Alenia Aermacchi, BAE Systems, Embraer, Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) and Pilatus to contest the next phases of a two-tier training system requirement for up to 70 aircraft, ahead of a potential final downselect at the end of this year.
The Alenia Aermacchi M-346, BAE Hawk 128 and KAI/Lockheed Martin T-50 Golden Eagle will continue to contest the UAE's advanced jet trainer (AJT) requirement, with its primary trainer component to be either the Alenia Aermacchi M-311, Embraer EMB-314 Super Tucano or Pilatus PC-21. KAI's KT-1 and Raytheon's T-6B Texan II have been officially dropped from the competition.
The UAE air force and air defence received bids from 12 firms following the release of a request for proposals in May 2006, with the service expected to acquire up to 40 AJTs and 20-30 basic trainers under the programme. Its evaluation teams visited the bulk of the contenders by the third quarter of last year to conduct flight assessments.
Alenia Aermacchi chief executive Carmelo Cosentino says parent company Finmeccanica has offered the UAE a stake in ongoing M-346 development and production as part of its bid.
Parallel discussions are under way with Abu Dhabi-owned Mubadala Development about possible strategic investments in Finmeccanica, he says. "We are offering a list of opportunities in the different sectors of the Finmeccanica portfolio. The discussions are broad, very large and continuing...to negotiate a bunch of different opportunities of collaboration."
Mubadala is already a 35% shareholder in Italian-based Piaggio Aero Industries.
BAE said it will work with the UAE "to fully understand how the integrated training solution we offer, with the new Hawk AJT at the centre, can meet its advanced jet training needs".
The company is also proposing to use the UAE's existing Hawk trainers for basic training, eliminating the need to acquire a second new aircraft type.
KAI/Lockheed declined to go into further detail on their proposal, but told Flight International: "We are here, and we think we have a good chance".
Aero Vodochody, CATIC and RSK MiG are thought to have unsuccessfully offered their respective L-159B, K-8 and MiG AT designs for the AJT requirement (Flight International, 29 November- 5 December 2005).
Source: Flight International
