Military Aircraft: Sales

(asked on 6th July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how much the Vigilant T1 aircraft sold for.


Answered by
Baroness Goldie Portrait
Baroness Goldie
This question was answered on 17th July 2020

The Vigilant T1 originally had an Out-of-Service Date of 2019; this was brought forward to May 2018 in order to refocus resource for the benefit of the Cadets, extending the life of the Viking conventional glider and investing in the wider Air Cadet Aerospace Offer.

The glider recovery programme from 2014-2018 covering both Viking Conventional glider and Vigilant motor-glider was subject to routine investment appraisal processes. This showed that substantial operational, technical and commercial negotiations with a range of aerospace leaders in this field had failed to find a value for money approach to successfully repair and recover or replace all the gliders. Therefore, in line with the available technical and commercial capacity the value for money was in restructuring the Aerospace Offer for cadets.

The recovery programme of both glider types was resourced within wider support contracts which also supported the operation of the active fleets with Volunteer Gliding Squadrons. Consequently, we cannot separately identify the resource used for the recovery of the six Vigilant airframes which were successfully recovered prior to the Out-of-Service date.

The Vigilant fleet was disposed of to Aerobility. I am withholding the value of the disposal sale as it would prejudice commercial interests.

Reticulating Splines