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A significant weapons system contract for Wildcat helicopters

Thales was recently awarded a contract worth £48 million from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) for the demonstration and manufacture of the Future Anti Surface Guided Weapon (Light), or FASGW(L), system.

The contract covers the development, qualification and integration of the FASGW(L) system – which comprises a five barrel launcher and a laser guidance system – for the Agusta Westland AW159 Wildcat helicopter, and provision of deployable test equipment.

FASGW(L) is designed to use Thales’s Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM). LMM is a precision strike missile that can be fired from a variety of land, sea and airborne tactical platforms. It will provide the Royal Navy with a versatile, rapidly-deployable and highly-effective capability to defeat the threat from small ships and inshore attack craft.

Aaron Gillies, a graduate structures engineer from Belfast is responsible for analysing the FASGW launcher structure under its most extreme loadings whether aerodynamic, ‘g’ forces or launching of the LMM. He says:

This is an iterative process of design, analysis, testing and redesign (if necessary) until all of the requirements and standards have been fulfilled all in the most efficient manner possible. The analysis is a multi-disciplinary task and requires inputs from several departments with all data being recorded in a final structural design record. As the launcher is an aircraft structure it will have to pass all air worthiness standards and tests before entering service.”