Investigating Upcoming Opportunities for Air Support Services
Aeralis has signed an MoU with SDTS aimed at exploring light fast jet aviation services in France.
The MoU is designed to facilitate collaborative working to explore an aircraft service offering in the light fast jet defence market, targeting upcoming contracts in French defence operational training and combat air support roles. It also seeks to explore opportunities across the French market for ‘air support service’ hours, identifying the requirement gap in quantifiable terms.
The event signifies the company’s ambition in the French aviation market, and comes at a time of increased Anglo-French defence collaboration. A framework for future defence cooperation was agreed at a summit between President Macron and Prime Minister Sunak on 10 March. This MoU complements the government’s overriding ambition to achieve further collaboration in UK and French defence capabilities over the course of the next decade.
SDTS has provided air service missions for operational training of the armed forces for many years. With over 250 missions per year, the company has deployed its air assets and all its staff for ‘Red Air’ missions, combined air/sea landing exercises, marine air defence controller training missions, and more, with each mission being a custom-designed service.
The list of Aeralis partners continues to grow. This agreement comes after one signed with Japanese aircraft manufacturer ShinMaywa in March. Momentum has continued since UK MoD’s December 2022 announcement of a £9 million (US$11.2 million) contract with Aeralis that seeks to learn from the company’s pioneering approach to digital aircraft design, engineering and manufacturing.
SDTS CEO, Emmanuel Pasqualini, identified the partnership as “a great opportunity to develop a unique solution to meet the vast REDAIR needs of European forces. The Aeralis fast jet will allow SDTS to enhance its capacities in commercial air training services thanks to a new, versatile and up-to-date vector”.
