Serco awarded contract to support German Air Force Eurofighter programme
Serco has been awarded a new contract by the German Air Force to provide a further two complete General Purpose Support Equipment (GPSE) suites of equipment to support the Armament Control System for their expanding Eurofighter fleet.
Image courtesy Serco
The contract will be undertaken by Serco’s Design, Integration and Test (DIT) team based at Waterlooville, part of Serco’s Defence business. The contract also includes further development of existing test applications to increase the level of automation and several updates to in-service equipment to bring it into line with the current design standards.
The Waterlooville team has been working closely with the German Air Force since 2015 when the GPSE system was redesigned from the original UK Royal Air Force system, which is still in operation supporting Typhoon and Hawk aircraft.
Speaking about the contract award, Paul McCarter, Managing Director of Serco’s Defence business, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this further contract by the German Air Force. Designed by Serco’s engineering team, the GPSE system is an innovative piece of test equipment. It has been ordered by several air forces and has made a significant impact in reducing through-life support costs. When this new contract is delivered in 2022, the support capability will be be available to cover Germany’s growing fleet of Eurofighter aircraft.”
The GPSE is an Automatic Test System (ATS) built and qualified for use in aircraft support environments. It was originally conceived in 2005 as a general purpose automatic test solution for the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy to support over 130 different assemblies fitted to six different aircraft. GPSE has replaced nine separate pieces of support equipment with a single box solution reducing costs for the UK Ministry of Defence.
The same standard of GPSE was supplied in 2007 through BAE Systems to the Royal Saudi Airforce to support the Tornado aircraft.
Serco’ s DIT team at Waterlooville is part of the company’s technology capability, providing high integrity test solutions, through-life support, data acquisition/simulation, and technical consultancy. The DIT team works with leading industry technologies and tools, which are integrated into innovative solutions that enable customers to reduce costs and succeed in their goals.