Wednesday, February 23, 2011

IDEX: F-16 Upgrades, Leclerc Support Top UAE Deals

ABU DHABI - Reconnaissance pods for F-16 fighters, technical support for Leclerc main battle tanks and a command-and-control system were among the latest batch of contracts announced by the United Arab Emirates military at the IDEX defense show Feb 22.
Selection of Goodrich ISR Systems reconnaissance pods for UAE F-16 jets was the first of more than a dozen deals valued at about 2.5 billion UAE dirhams ($681 million) outlined by IDEX spokesman Maj. Gen. Obaid Al Ketbi.
Goodrich had beaten BAE Systems to the 297 million UAE dirham deal, the spokesman said.
A spokeswoman for Goodrich in the U.K. said the company has received a contract to provide its DB-110 airborne reconnaissance system for the Block 60 F-16s.
"The Direct Commercial Sale contract calls for Goodrich to provide six DB-110 reconnaissance pods and three ground-based, image exploitation systems. Work will be performed by the company's ISR Systems facilities in the U.S. and the U.K.," she said.
The DB-110 digital, real-time, tactical reconnaissance system captures images day and night using electro-optical/infrared sensor technology. Images can then be transmitted instantaneously to analysts on the ground.
Today's list of contract announcements followed 4 billion UAE dirhams worth of deals, the pick of which was a contract with Sikorsky to turn 27 UH-60 Black Hawks into air assault helicopters.
Some of the contracts announced here have been in place for several months and news of their selection was delayed for the IDEX show.
Notable contracts in the Feb 22 list include a 423 million UAE dirham technical support contract between Nexter of France and Al Taif Technical Services, its local partner, to provide maintenance for the UAE's Leclerc tanks and armored recovery vehicles. Al Taif is part of the state-owned Mubadala holding group.
French industry also landed a small contract to undertake a 112 million UAE dirham upgrade to the weapon systems of the UAE's Mirage 2000 fighters.
Emirates Systems was one of a number of local companies that secured contracts. It is providing a command-and-control system in the biggest domestic win of the day in a deal priced at 550 million UAE dirhams.

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