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Middle East: “ARC Aero Delivers Economic Boost to UK Aviation”

UK-based ARC Aero Sys­tems, who is devel­op­ing a hybrid-pow­ered Pega­sus, P9 and C600 air­craft, announced last week its wider-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing is mov­ing to Sau­di Ara­bia, reports businessairnews.com.

A deal between ARC and Riyadh-head­quar­tered defence and secu­ri­ty man­u­fac­tur­ing spe­cial­ist, Life Shield, will open the way for upwards of USD384 mil­lion of invest­ment for the two nations’ aero­space sec­tors.

ARC is in the advanced stages of devel­op­ing a spe­cial­ly adapt­ed hybrid-elec­tric pow­ered air­craft which it plans to bring to mar­ket by 2026. The mod­i­fied design of the Avian Pega­sus, a tried and test­ed jump take-off gyro­plane with VTOL capa­bil­i­ty, requires lit­tle or no infra­struc­ture to access remote com­mu­ni­ties and sup­port­ing emer­gency respon­ders. This new­ly devel­oped air taxi has approval from the FAA and can trans­port pas­sen­gers for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es.

ARC is also devel­op­ing a larg­er nine-seat Linx P9 rotor­craft and the C600, one of the largest civil­ian unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cles, capa­ble of car­ry­ing pay­loads of up to 100kg across long dis­tances.

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The arti­cle states, “Sup­port­ed by Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s Nation­al Indus­try Devel­op­ment Cen­tre, this part­ner­ship will see both the Sau­di Gov­ern­ment and Life Shield make an equi­ty invest­ment in ARC Sys­tems to cre­ate a new com­pa­ny, Life Shield Aero­space, based in the Mid­dle East.”

It goes on, “The new­ly formed com­pa­ny will bol­ster UK man­u­fac­tur­ing with the pilot pro­duc­tion of each of ARC’s three designs: The Pega­sus, P9 and C600. Life Shield will then set up facil­i­ties for wider scale man­u­fac­tur­ing of air­craft in Sau­di Ara­bia for domes­tic use by the coun­try’s Min­istry of Air Trans­port and for world­wide export. The agree­ment includes UK-based pilot train­ing at Cran­field Uni­ver­si­ty, Bed­ford­shire.”

As well as pro­vid­ing a major boost to UK avi­a­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing, the glob­al part­ner­ship marks anoth­er key step for­ward for ARC Aero as it pre­pares to launch into a mar­ket esti­mat­ed to grow from its cur­rent val­ue of around USD9 bil­lion to USD45 bil­lion by 2030.

ARC Founder and CEO, Dr Seyed Mosheni, com­ment­ed, “Not only does Life Shield sup­port our com­pa­ny in bring­ing its inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to mar­ket, it also pro­vides a huge eco­nom­ic boost to UK avi­a­tion by pro­mot­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing, fur­ther R&D and aca­d­e­m­ic col­lab­o­ra­tion with­in the sec­tor.”

He con­tin­ued, “The Sau­di Gov­ern­men­t’s Nation­al Indus­try Devel­op­ment Cen­tre has shown a real com­mit­ment in bring­ing this part­ner­ship to fruition and struc­tur­ing it to ensure it will deliv­er rec­i­p­ro­cal ben­e­fits to both coun­tries. This col­lab­o­ra­tion posi­tions our com­pa­ny to become a major play­er in the aero­space sec­tor by the end of this decade.”

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Hisham AlJu­ma’an, Chair­man of Life Shield, added, “Along with the ben­e­fits it will deliv­er in the UK, this strate­gic part­ner­ship enhances indus­tri­al coop­er­a­tion and pro­mote the exchange of exper­tise between lead­ing com­pa­nies in the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia and oth­ers in this field. This also sup­ports the goals of Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s Vision 2030.”

Sau­di Ara­bia is fore­cast­ing huge growth in its avi­a­tion sec­tor, with pas­sen­ger num­bers expect­ed to tre­ble to 330 mil­lion per year by 2034. This under­lines the poten­tial of the region’s air indus­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly for advanced air mobil­i­ty.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://arcaerosystems.com/

(News Source: https://businessairnews.com)

(Top image: ARC Founder and CEO Dr Seyed Mosheni and Hisham AlJuma’an, Chair­man of Life Shield)

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