Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units flying the C-130H Hercules will keep the same training provider for at least another nine years. The U.S. Air Force has awarded CAE USA a $300 million competitive recompete contract to continue running the C-130H Aircrew Training System, or ATS, the Tampa, Florida-based company announced Sept. 21, 2026. The award extends CAE's role as prime contractor for the ATS program through December 2035, stretching a partnership with the Air Force that began in 2018 into nearly two decades.
The recompete keeps pilots, navigators, flight engineers and loadmasters serving in the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard training under the same contractor and the same simulator fleet they have used since CAE first won the ATS work eight years ago. The new contract covers instruction, program management, sustainment, logistics, modernization and cybersecurity upgrades for the training system, according to GovCon Wire.
What CAE's $300 Million Recompete Covers
The ATS contract is built around the full training pipeline for C-130H aircrews, not just simulator time. CAE runs the courseware, manages the program on the Air Force's behalf, sustains the training devices, and is now also on the hook for modernizing the system and hardening it against cyber threats over the life of the nine-year extension. CAE currently operates nine C-130H full-mission simulators and more than 45 aircrew training devices across its ATS sites, the equipment base the company will keep maintaining and upgrading through 2035.
CAE framed the win as a continuation of work it already knows well rather than a new program start. "The C-130H remains a critical platform for the U.S. Air Force and CAE is proud to continue delivering the training excellence required to support mission readiness and operational success," said Srini Dixit, vice president and general manager (interim) of CAE Defense and Security, USA. "As the incumbent training provider, we are committed to providing exceptional performance, innovation, and value while ensuring the C-130H Aircrew Training System evolves to meet the U.S. Air Force's requirements."
Nearly Two Decades on the C-130H Training Contract
CAE first won the ATS contract in 2018, and Monday's recompete is the second time the Air Force has kept the company in place rather than opening the work to a new prime. Extending the arrangement through December 2035 means CAE will have held the C-130H training account for roughly 17 years by the time this period of performance ends. The company is also one of 37 vendors holding a spot on the Air Force's Training Systems Acquisition IV vehicle, the broader contracting umbrella the service uses to buy training services and devices across multiple aircraft platforms, giving CAE a standing position to compete for related task orders beyond the C-130H alone.
Training Spread Across Five Bases
The primary site for the work is Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas, home to the Training Service Support Center and the C-130H Formal Training Unit, where the bulk of CAE's simulators and instructors are based. CAE also supports C-130H training at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia, Minneapolis Air National Guard Base in Minnesota, St. Joseph Air National Guard Base in Missouri, and the Wyoming Air National Guard, reflecting how the C-130H fleet itself is concentrated in Reserve and Guard units rather than active-duty squadrons.
CAE USA executives cast the extension as validation from a customer that has now watched the company run the program through nearly a decade of Reserve and Guard training cycles. "The United States Air Force recognizes the unparallelled value that CAE's dedicated multidisciplinary team brings amidst a rapidly evolving defense landscape, and we are honored to have that continued trust in our efforts to enhance mission readiness," said Nick Coucoules, vice president of Airlift/Tanker Programs for CAE USA Defense and Security.
CAE's Broader Run of Military Training Wins
The C-130H recompete lands amid a string of other U.S. military training contracts CAE has picked up recently. In July 2026, the company won a $257.9 million Army contract to provide pilot training on the Bombardier Global 6500 aircraft. In 2025, CAE secured a $180 million Advanced Helicopter Flight Training Support contract. Taken together with the new $300 million Air Force award, the wins show CAE building out a portfolio of long-duration, sustainment-heavy training contracts across fixed-wing, rotary-wing and business-jet platforms for multiple U.S. military services, rather than relying on any single airframe or customer.
What It Means for Contractors
For competitors that might have eyed the C-130H training work, the recompete closes the door on that specific opportunity until at least the early 2030s, when the Air Force would need to start planning any future re-bid ahead of the 2035 end date. It is also a reminder of how difficult it is to displace an incumbent on a training-services contract once government-furnished simulators, courseware and instructor qualifications are built around a single contractor's systems; the Air Force chose to run a competitive recompete rather than a sole-source extension, and CAE still came out on top.
The award is a more direct signal for companies competing on the Training Systems Acquisition IV vehicle, where CAE's continued C-130H performance record now feeds directly into its position for other task orders under that umbrella. And for firms chasing Reserve and Guard training work specifically, the geography matters: five bases across five states show how spread out this training population is, and how a single ATS-style contract can bundle instruction, sustainment, logistics and cybersecurity into one award rather than splitting them among multiple contractors. Companies bidding future recompetes, on the C-130H or comparable platforms, should expect the Air Force to keep favoring that bundled structure, and should expect incumbents with a track record of sustainment and modernization delivery to have a real advantage when the next recompete comes due.
