Bristol, United Kingdom, 3 February 2016 — The Embraer Phenom 100 business jet was selected to provide multi-engine pilot training to armed forces aircrew — Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and British Army — in the United Kingdom. The contract with Affinity Flight Training Services (AFTS) will provide five aircraft to the U.K Ministry of Defence’s Military Flying Training System, (UKMFTS) programme. The contract includes support services and an option for additional follow on aircraft.
The Fixed Wing programme is intended to replace the elementary, multi-engine and basic flying training that is currently delivered on ageing platforms with a new fully integrated solution that provides state-of-the-art training aircraft, ground based training devices and courseware all derived from the training design developed by Ascent Flight Training, the training service provider of the MFTS programme in UK. In 2014, Affinity was selected by Ascent Flight Training to provide and operate the aircraft selected for the MFTS programme.
“We are very proud to be selected in such an important programme for United Kingdom´s Ministry of Defence”, said Jackson Schneider, President and CEO of Embraer Defense & Security. “The Phenom 100 is a very reliable, cost-effective and easy to operate aircraft that was also selected to provide flight training services to major international airlines”.
The UKMFTS takes United Kingdom armed forces aircrew from initial training through, elementary, basic and advanced flying training phases preparing them for their arrival at their designated operational conversion units. The system is operated by Ascent Flight Training, a consortium formed by Lockheed Martin and Babcock International under a Private Finance Initiative contract for the UK’s Ministry of Defence.
The RAF is not the first air arm to consider the Phenom 100 as an ideal training platform, indeed the Pakistani Air Force was one of the initial users of this aircraft in 2009, with four Phenoms.
