CAE announced that the U.S. Air Force (USAF) awarded CAE USA a contract to continue providing comprehensive KC-135 training services.
The eight-year contract, awarded as a one-year base contract with seven additional one-year option periods, is valued at a total of more than US$275 million.
CAE USA became the prime contractor on the USAF KC-135 Training System program in 2010 and has now won the competitive recompete to continue delivering classroom and simulator training for KC-135 pilots and boom operators. CAE USA will also continue to provide updates and upgrades to KC-135 training devices, including KC-135 operational flight trainers and boom operator trainers. In addition, the KC-135 Training System contract now includes training support for the Air National Guard’s Boom Operator Simulator System (BOSS). In total, CAE USA will support the training of more than 4,500 KC-135 crewmembers annually.
CAE USA will be supported on the KC-135 Training System program by a team of industry partners, including Delaware Resource Group (DRG), Cardinal Point, FAAC, and CymSTAR.
CAE USA will deliver KC-135 aircrew training to USAF active-duty, Air National Guard and reserve crewmembers at 10 sites in the United States, in addition toKadena Air Base in Japan and Royal Air Force Base Mildenhall in United Kingdom.
Moreover, the new KC-135 Training System contract includes training support for the Air National Guard KC-135 BOSS, which will be delivered at an additional 12 sites in the United States.
KC-135 BOSS training support will also be provided at Joint Base Pearl Harbor; Pittsburgh ANGB; General Mitchell ANGB; and Rickenbacker ANGB.
CAE also announced that CAE USA has been awarded a United States Navy contract to continue providing comprehensive T-44C Pegasus aircrew training services at Naval Air Station (NAS) Corpus Christi in Texas.
Awarded as a base one-year contract with additional one-year options through mid-2027, the contract is valued at more than US$70 million. CAE USA provides T-44C aircrew training services to the Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) under a contractor-owned, contractor-operated training program. The T-44C is the Navy’s variant of the King Air aircraft used for intermediate and advanced multi-engine pilot training.
CAE USA provides qualified instructors who deliver all the required T-44C classroom and simulator training at NAS Corpus Christi. CAE owns, operates and maintains a suite of T-44C training devices that are used extensively as part of the T-44C training syllabus. CAE is also introducing new virtual reality trainers based on the Microsoft HoloLens that will be used for T-44C familiarization and procedural training tasks. This will enable more student throughput by freeing the T-44C training devices and aircraft for more advanced training. In total, more than 400 U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and international students train annually on the T-44C at NAS Corpus Christi.
The T-44C aircrew training program falls under the responsibility of CNATRA, which oversees the Naval Air Training Command and the training of all naval aviators and naval flight officers.
Lastly, CAE has been awarded a subcontract from Lockheed Martin to support the design, development and manufacture of a suite of C-130J training devices for the binational French and German C-130J training facility to be located at Evreux-Fauville Air Base in Normandy, France.
Under terms of the subcontract, CAE will manufacture a C-130J full-mission simulator capable of reconfiguring between the C-130J-30 airlifter and KC-130J tanker aircraft. CAE will also provide a C-130J fuselage trainer to be used for training loadmasters. The training devices will be delivered in 2023, ahead of the planned opening of the new training facility where French and German aircrews and maintainers will begin training in 2024.
As the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin has overall responsibility for delivery of the training devices, the learning management system, courseware and options for five years of training services.
The French and German binational C-130J squadron consists of a combined 10 Super Hercules aircraft, including C-130J-30 airlifters and KC-130J tankers. France and Germany operate the fleet under a unique partnership where the countries share the aircraft, which are used for aerial refueling, air drop and cargo missions.
Lockheed Martin and CAE have designed and developed a range of C-130J training systems for global militaries, including all branches of the United States Air Force, the U.S. Marine Corps, Royal Air Force, Italian Air Force, Indian Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Kuwait Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force. In addition, CAE built the C-130J/LM-100J full-mission simulator used at Lockheed Martin’s own Hercules Training Center (HTC) located in Marietta, Georgia.
