Military Air Systems (MAS) is the integrated Competence Centre of EADS Defence & Security for military airborne systems. Military Air Systems combines the Business Unit’s competences and capabilities in the fields of fighter aircraft and airborne military mission systems, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Military Air Systems offers supporting training programmes and equipment for the above systems, as well as comprehensive in-service support through the Services section.
The company is able to draw on decades of expertise in military aviation – gained from the Tornado and Eurofighter programmes to name but the most renowned ones. Today, Military Air Systems possesses the competencies necessary to cover the entire product lifecycle of military air systems – from design and development, through engineering, production and system integration, to comprehensive product support during operation, including maintenance, repair and overhaul.
The biggest programme of Military Air Systems is the latest generation multi-role fighter aircraft – Eurofighter. Industrial production of 635 aircraft – for Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain and export customer Austria – is under way. Saudi Arabia has also ordered 72 aircraft from the Eurofighter consortium.
Military Air Systems is responsible for the engineering and production of the fuselage section and for the flight control system. Military Air Systems is also responsible for final assembly of 180 German, 87 Spanish and 15 Austrian Eurofighters.
Airborne mission systems, in particular Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in the high-performance segment are a second important area. Here, Military Air Systems develops high-performance system solutions to customers’ specifications for unmanned reconnaissance, surveillance, exploratory and target-assignment missions on the basis of decades of experience with manned mission aircraft (e.g. Breguet Atlantic and P-3 Orion) and expertise and experience from fighter construction (Eurofighter and Tornado).
The integrated services of Military Air Systems comprises products and systems in conjunction with the operation of military air systems. Military Air Systems offers appropriate product support including maintenance, repair and overhaul, modernization, and product-specific training packages through to integrated system support centres. This concept of cooperation between Military Air Systems and the German Armed Forces in joint system support centres – for Eurofighter and Tornado – has proved to be a great success and will be offered in a similar way for other platforms.
