UMS SKELDAR has announced that it has joined forces with JetLease, a private aircraft leasing company, to launch the first global leasing product for its vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) portfolio, including the flagship unmanned helicopter, the SKELDAR V-200.
The new leasing product was announced on the opening day of DSEI 2017 in London.
JetLease founder and President Russ Dise explained: “This is an exciting milestone for our business. As a leader and innovator in the aircraft leasing industry and major player with 35 years’ experience in civilian and government customers worldwide, it made absolute sense for JetLease to provide these products to UMS SKELDAR. They also boast a track record as industry gamechangers with their unique heavy fuel engine rotary VTOL — the only one to operate in its category — and we are looking forward to developing our leasing product.”
UMS SKELDAR will introduce the financial package, featuring dry and wet leasing, to also include optional payloads such as Sentient Vision Systems’ ViDAR, which deploys five to ten cameras, providing between 180 and an optimal 360-degree maritime domain awareness.
According to Axel Cavalli-Björkman, CEO of the Swiss-Swedish joint venture between Saab AB and UMS AERO, the SKELDAR V-200 is already recognised as the ideal UAV platform for navies worldwide and a range of maritime and land scenarios.
“This NATO-compliant platform, demonstrably the best suited across a range of customer sectors, is our strategic focus. Importantly, this exciting new partnership with JetLease makes our SKELDAR V-200 accessible to a range of customers in the ‘blue light’ sector – police, security and emergency services, Search and Rescue (SAR) – and ‘emerging nations’ military markets. Outsourced contracts and third party financing including ‘Power by the Hour’ are attractive options placing our technologies within reach of an increasing number of prospective customers,” explained Cavalli-Björkman.
JetLease Vice President Katy Glynn commented: “The global footprint of JetLease, in tandem with our experience across military and civilian fixed-wing and rotary aircraft of all types and sizes, including the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, provides the ideal base on which to build the range of leasing products for UMS SKELDAR.”
