PARIS — France has awarded Airbus two contracts price a combined €1.2 billion (U.S. $1.3 billion) to upgrade and repair A330 transport aircraft operated by the French military, the corporate said in a press release Monday.
As a part of the deal, Airbus will upgrade France’s A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport aircraft to turn out to be communication nodes with command-and-control capabilities as a part of their anticipated integration with the Future Combat Air System.
The primary upgraded aircraft is predicted to qualify for service with the French Air and Space Force in 2028.
“With this latest capability of the aircraft, we’re preparing the longer term by transforming the MRTT into an in-flight communications node, as the primary constructing block of the multi-role tanker transport of tomorrow,” Jean-Brice Dumont, the pinnacle of military air systems at Airbus Defence and Space, said within the statement.
The so-called Standard 2 upgrade focuses on connectivity and self-protection capabilities, Airbus said. The corporate is to equip the aircraft with a satellite communications station supplied by fellow French firm Thales, with the aim of staying connected even in jammed environments and extreme weather conditions.
The upgrade shall be a stepping stone toward the A330′s integration with the “future air combat cloud” inside FCAS, in line with Airbus. France and Germany launched the FCAS program in 2017, with Spain joining in 2020. The hassle is supposed to product cutting-edge aerospace technologies for the European nations.
The opposite contract includes in-service support for the A330 fleet for 10 years, with an option for 2 additional years, on the Istres-Le Tubé Air Base in southern France. Under the deal, Airbus will guarantee a level of availability in addition to support for aircraft deployed outside France.
France has 12 operational A330s, and three more are on order. Other operators of the A330 include the U.K., Australia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. Canada has nine of the aircraft on order, including five used airframes that shall be converted by Airbus into strategic tankers.
Airbus says the A330 MRTT can carry as much as 111 metric tons of fuel to service fighters, including the F-16, F-35 and Eurofighter, in addition to large probe-equipped aircraft akin to the A400M military transport plane.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He began his profession at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.