Rolls-Royce seals £865m RAF jet deal
Friday 15 January 2010 1:10 PM
The Government has unveiled an £865-million contract with Rolls-Royce to maintain engines for RAF fighter jets.
Defence Minister Quentin Davies will officially announce the contract today, which will safeguard 500 jobs, at Rolls-Royce in Patchway after touring the plant.
The 10-year deal will see Rolls maintain and service the engines which power the RAF's Typhoon jets.
The Ministry of Defence has ordered 186 of the Typhoon jets, each of which is powered by two Rolls-Royce engines made in Patchway.
About 30 of the jets have been delivered and are in active use by the RAF, in places including Afghanistan and the Falkland Islands.
As well as securing jobs of 500 workers at Rolls, it also provides work for a further 2,500 jobs in the supply chain, including component makers and other firms in the West.
The deal is the latest in a series of big contracts won by Rolls-Royce, which has 3,500 staff in Patchway, the UK base of the firm's defence aerospace business. In November, it won a £101-million deal with US planemaker Pratt & Whitney. The firm will supply the lift systems for another nine short take-off and vertical landing variant F-35B Lightning II aircraft.
Engineers at Patchway will design and assemble the lift system, with some manufacturing also taking place in Bristol. In October, it struck a $90m contract by the US Department of Defense to provide support for the engines that power the US Navy's T-45 training aircraft.
Also See