Contract for the supply of aircraft & pilots

The contract is for the provision of two survey aircraft and associated pilots and services to facilitate the Environment Agency remote sensing survey program through the next five years. The primary tasks of the required survey aircraft are terrestrial and intertidal mapping to be carried out between 1,000 and 10,000 feet throughout the UK. Aircraft are required to have an endurance of at least five hours although a longer endurance would be welcome. Normal operational speed is generally approximately 130 knots however we also require aircraft allowing fast transits will give us the greatest flexibility especially during any incident response tasks relating to flooding. Aircraft are required to have twin engines for safety reasons and must be able to accommodate our survey equipment.

Additional information:

Installation of the survey equipment will require the equivalent of two 460mm apertures. However several smaller down-looking holes which would allow the instruments to be installed in a suitable manner in the floor of the aircraft would also be acceptable. The Instrument control equipment is currently housed in a 19 inch rack mount format with equipment height space of 535mm.

The aircraft is required to also comfortably seat two Environment Agency surveyors on board with all of our survey equipment fitted for the aircrafts endurance.

We additionally have the requirement to mount a DSLR format camera to capture photographic oblique's through an aperture such as a DV window. The DV window would need to be situated in position where an aerial surveyor can comfortably sit and record images and also provide an unimpeded view of the ground with not parts of the aircraft visible in the resulting photography.

Continuous access to two aircraft throughout the year is of paramount importance to our survey program and our incident response duties. We also have a requirement to be in the air within one hour of notification of an incident response flood event. The airfield from which the aircraft are based would need to have 24/7 opening hours to allow for day and night operations.

We anticipate our work programs to equate to 1000 -1400 hours per annum total flying.