BAE Systems Military Air & Information
Business unit of BAE Systems
BAE Systems Military Air & Information (MAI, formerly Military Air Solutions (MAS)) is a business unit of British defence company BAE Systems responsible for the design, development, manufacture and support of fixed wing military aircraft. MAI customers include the Royal Air Force, Royal Saudi Air Force, US Navy and Indian Air Force.
History
MAI was formed on 1 January 2011 through a merger of the Air Systems and CS&S Military Air Solutions & Support (MASS) business units. The unit through its products and operating bases encompasses nearly a hundred years of industrial history. MAI direct ancestors include the English Electric Company, Vickers-Armstrongs, the British Aircraft Corporation, Avro, Blackburn Aircraft, De Havilland, Hawker Siddeley and the Bristol Aeroplane Company.
Some of the products that have been produced by MAI's predecessors include the Avro Vulcan, English Electric Lightning, Hawker Hunter, English Electric Canberra, Blackburn Buccaneer and the ill-fated TSR-2. In recognition full-size replicas of the EE Lightning and the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II serve as gate guardians at MAI's Samlesbury site where both were manufactured.
Sites
Warton Aerodrome, Lancashire - Warton is the headquarters of MAI and home to the central assembly facility for the Eurofighter Typhoon and Hawk configuration and to the upgrades for Harrier and the Panavia Tornado. The division's major testing facilities and commercial offices are based there.
Samlesbury Aerodrome, Lancashire - Samlesbury, situated between Blackburn and Preston, is home to the production facilities for the Typhoon front fuselage and BAE's F-35 Lightning II manufacturing operations.
The public source identifies “BAE Systems Military Air & Information” as business unit of BAE Systems. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Systems, Military and Information.
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