Britain’s biggest engineering firms have been awarded contracts worth £372million by the Ministry of Defence for maintaining its fleet of Hawk aircraft.
Rolls-Royce and defence giant BAE Systems, with maintenance partner Babcock, will share four contracts supporting 700 UK jobs until 2020.
Hawk jets are used by the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force to train pilots before they migrate to flying fighter planes such the Tornados and Typhoons operating in Iraq and Syria.
They are also used by the RAF aerobatics team – the Red Arrows.
Philip Dunne, minister for defence procurement, said: ‘The contracts to support these vital training aircraft are a boost to British industry.’
Contracts worth £293million have been awarded to BAE Systems to modify and upgrade existing Hawks while a £79million contract has been placed with Rolls-Royce to test, repair and overhaul the Ardour engines that power the aircraft.
Hawks have been used to train more than 20,000 pilots in air forces across the world with more than 1,000 Hawks now delivered or on order.
The Government has said it will spend £178billion on buying and maintaining equipment for the Armed Forces over the next decade.
