WARSAW \u2014 Airbus Helicopters has won a tender to replace Poland’s Soviet-era military choppers, beating out British-Italian group AgustaWestland and US manufacturer Sikorsky, local media reported Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Airbus, formerly Eurocopter, has won the tender to deliver 70 multipurpose Caracal EC725 helicopters to Poland’s army under a contract worth an estimated \u20ac2.5 billion euros<\/span>(US $3 billion), according to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It added that Poland has awarded another lucrative army tender to US-based Raytheon for a Patriot surface-to-air missile system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz was expected to announce the deals later Tuesday, part of NATO-member Poland’s effort to overhaul its military equipment to the tune of around 140 billion zloty (US $40 billion) over 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Poland also plans to acquire armored personnel carriers, submarines and drones during the revamp, which Warsaw has sped up because of concerns over Russia’s activity in neighboring Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The defense ministry had earlier said the winning helicopter would undergo tests in Poland before the contract is signed by the end of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Airbus Helicopters said earlier this year that if it won the chopper tender it would set up a helicopter assembly line and a manufacturing center for key helicopter parts in Poland’s industrial hub of Lodz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In February it opened a research and development center there that will employ around 100 engineers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Poland, a central European powerhouse of 38 million people, joined NATO in 1999, a decade after shedding communism. It became a member of the European Union in 2004.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Airbus Helicopters has won a tender to replace Poland’s Soviet-era military choppers, beating out British-Italian group AgustaWestland and US manufacturer Sikorsky, local media reported Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":66461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":33,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2793],"class_list":["post-30473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"ZFPQY6JKL5GL7CJ5BIAKREWCX4","arc_canonical_url":"\/home\/2015\/04\/21\/report-europe-s-airbus-wins-polish-chopper-deal\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n