Airborne Tactical Advantage Company (ATAC) to Deliver JTAC Training to Air Force Special Operators
Washington, DC — August 13, 2020 — Airborne Tactical Advantage Company (ATAC), part of the Textron Systems segment of Textron Inc (NYSE: TXT), announced today that it has been selected to provide live contract close air support (CCAS) training for Joint Terminal Air Controllers (JTACs) under the U.S. Air Force’s Combat Air Forces Contracted Air Support program.
A team flying ATAC’s L-39 Albatros and Valkyrie Aero’s A-27 Tucano aircraft will support Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) JTAC training at numerous bases and locations throughout the continental United States. The contract calls for approximately 900 sorties and more than 1,100 flight hours on tactical ranges annually, with flight operations commencing in the summer of 2020. This is the first CCAS award the Air Force will grant the contracted air services industry for what could be up to 10 locations under the Combat Air Forces Contracted Air Support program.
“ATAC is proud to support the training of AFSOC JTACs, the gold-standard in their field”, said Scott Stacy, ATAC General Manager. “This work expands on ATAC’s previous air-to-ground training and positions the company for future growth in this important training area”.
The ATAC-Valkyrie team also supports JTAC training under the U.S. Navy’s Terminal Attack Controller Trainer (TACT) program, and recently completed an evolution for the Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center (NAWDC) on the Fallon ranges. The ATAC-Valkyrie team was competitively selected to participate in the TACT program in April 2019.
ATAC is the global leader of tactical airborne training, having pioneered much of what are now contracted air services industry standards with a fleet of over 90 aircraft, over 60,000 flight hours, and 20 years of operating experience. ATAC has provided a wide range of contracted air support capabilities to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in locations world-wide, including the continental United States, Hawaii and the Western Pacific region. ATAC has helped train crews from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps and regularly operates out of as many as 25 different air bases per year.
In this industry, it definitely helps to be in the Textron family.