Out of the murk

In the Trade Expo, the organiser’s decision to go from the familiar and larger two hall layout to three smaller Expo halls, and bring many of the conference and meeting rooms and the media centre inside likely added to the busy feeling, and in retrospect appears to have generated more than the usual amount of visitor traffic in and around the exhibits. And perhaps as a reflection of the times, many of the larger exhibits appeared to be smaller and less grandiose than in previous shows, although were no less qualitative in their substance.

Organisers say overall 2009 attendance numbers were down about nine per cent from 2007, with about 165,000 passing through the gates over the six days of the event, not a bad result considering the economic climate, the relatively late date change of the event, and competition from other events in Melbourne.

The flying display, despite having an air of familiarity about it, was again a high quality effort. Notable demonstrations included those by Boeing’s test pilot Ricardo Traven in a US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet; an RAAF Caribou at its final Avalon air show before retirement later this year; the always memorable HARS Super Constellation; the surprisingly manoeuvrable RNZAF Boeing 757; the RAAF’s 3SQN Purple Cobras Hornet four-ship formation display team; the brutal USAF Rockwell B-1B; and new RAAF display pilot, SQNLDR James Atkinson performing the exceptional singleton RAAF Hornet display routine.

The Friday night show also featured a fitting tribute to the victims and the fire fighters of the recent Black Saturday Victorian bushfires with an honour guard of those who fought the fires, a minute’s silence followed by the national anthem, and a beautifully timed F-111 dump and burn pass just below and then up into the gloomy cloud low base. Unfortunately, this poignant moment was spoiled by a curiously timed fire works display immediately after the F-111 pass.

But notable absentees again included Temora Aviation Museum’s superb fleet of warbirds, Army ARH Tiger or MRH 90 helicopters, and any non-US fast jets, while the weather played havoc with the flying programs on Friday night and on Sunday afternoon. And one would have thought that, with the ADF’s Air 5428 training system and Air 9000 Phase 7 training helicopter requirements close to maturity, manufacturers would have been lining up to show off their wares, but apart from Raytheon’s locally developed CT-4F which flew on most days, only a brace of static Agusta A109 helicopters and two Republic of Singapore Air Force Pilatus PC-21s were represented.

Some notable heavy metal on static display included one of V Australia’s new Boeing 777-300ERs, a Wedgetail AEW&C, an Omega Air KDC-10-40 which was supporting the Super Hornets, a USAF C-5B Galaxy, and flying visits by a Qantas Airbus A380 on the Saturday and Boeing 747 on Sunday.

And, for the first time at Avalon, Australian Aviation produced a 16-24 page, full-colour, daily newsletter on the three main trade days of the show. In the lead up to the air show, exhibitors and trade visitors were encouraged to send us any media releases they wanted run in the Daily, and with the generous support of our advertisers, we did our best to accommodate the majority of these, along with photographs and stories from events which occurred at the show itself.

Following is a summary of some of the key news events in the lead up to and from Avalon.

Team Aero Wins Raaf C-130j Tls

A teaming of Australian Aerospace, Lockheed Martin and Standard Aero has signed a five year contract to provide Through Life Support (TLS) to the RAAF’s fleet of 12 C-130J Hercules transports.

The signing ceremony was conducted at Avalon with the head of the ADF’s Aerospace Systems Division, AVM Colin Thorne formalising the contract in the company of Australian Aerospace CEO, Dr Jens Goennemann, Lockheed Martin’s vice president business development global sustainment, Chris Antone, and Standard Aero’s senior vice president for military and government, Harinder Grewal.

The $292 million contract will be based at RAAF base Richmond, the home of the RAAF’s C-130J operating unit, 37SQN.

Australian International Airshow Establishes Bushfire Fund

Aerospace Australia Limited, organiser of the International Aerospace & Defence Exposition at Avalon 2009, has pledged $250,000 to fund research into the use of aviation and aerospace technology in bushfire management. CEO Ian Honnery says as the first ‘hallmark’ major event in Victoria since the catastrophic ‘black Saturday’ bushfires, the company wanted to make a real contribution to help with the community’s recovery.

Avalon 2009 has also joined with the Country Fire Authority (CFA), to incorporate a number of special events into the Airshow program to pay tribute to all who have been affected by this national tragedy. To this end and subject to operational requirements, there was a special parade of emergency services appliances, including aircraft and helicopters on each of the public days, and a torchlight ceremony involving CFA personnel was held as part of the air show’s Friday Night Alight activities.

Execujet Expands Mro Facilities

The ExecuJet Aviation Group has announced an expansion of their MRO facilities in Brisbane and Melbourne to complement the company’s existing heavy maintenance base in Sydney.

The new facilities in Melbourne and Brisbane will offer not only maintenance, but also aircraft management and charter services, and will have available for charter the first new Global 5000 in Australia and first new Learjet 60XR. ExecuJet will also add a new Global XRS to its charter portfolio from mid 2009. “As a regional representative for the Bombardier Business Aircraft family we know the advantages of the Global 5000 and Global XRS and we are fortunate to be able to offer it to our Charter Clients,” Managing Director ExecuJet Asia Pacific, Alastair Creighton-Jones said.

Creighton-Jones told Australian Aviation that, despite the economic downturn, ExecuJet’s sales division was still seeing quality enquiries and prospects which are backed by the company’s good product range and string support base. “I don’t think aircraft sales volumes will change much, although the deals may be a little better,” he said. “2008 was our best year yet globally, and we haven’t seen a huge downturn at this stage. We’re well equipped to handle the downturn as we have a strong and good quality client base.

And ExecuJet is looking to Perth as its next possible MRO location. “Our expansion is purely driven by our clients’ requirements, but there is an emerging demand for a domestic facility in Perth so we’ll be looking at that in the future.”

The new facilities add to ExecuJet’s Asian expansion plans which include last year’s opening of a hangar facility in Singapore and the joint-venture operation with Hawker Pacific of the Skypark FBO Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.

Dytecna Buys Apm

Ground Power Unit manufacturer Advanced Power Machinery has been acquired by UK based Dytecna Ltd.

As announced at a press conference at the show, the British based company, which is a specialist in defence support and engineering design will take over Victorian based APM as part of its strategy of expanding its services globally. Dytecna has already provided Health and Usage Monitoring and other services to the Australian Department of Defence since 2000.

APM produces GPUs for the RAAF and airlines including Qantas and Jetstar, and provides reconditioning and service for GPUs, electric motors and generators. The company employs 24 staff with an annual turnover of more than $3 million.

Embraer Announces Asia-pacific Sales Team

Embraer is boosting its business jet sector in the Asia Pacific region by naming two new sales directors which will join its regional team based in Singapore.

Brett MacLachlan and Manfred Baudzus have been named as sales directors for Embraer’s line of executive jets in the Asia Pacific region. MacLachlan will focus on sales in Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and North Asia, while Baudzus will focus on ASEAN and the Indian subcontinent. Both will report to current VP sales and marketing for executive jets in Asia-Pacific Jose Eduardo Costas, and will also work alongside sales engineer André Bosquê Monteiro.

Cobham Aligns Brands

Cobham Aviation Services Australia has announced a major brand overhaul to align with its parent company, UK-based Cobham Plc.
Local subsidiaries such as National Jet Systems will change to the Cobham name on all aircraft, logos and uniforms as part of a worldwide initiative by Cobham to adopt a single brand for all of Cobham’s global business interests.

“Cobham have owned our group of companies since 2000, so there will not be any change to our people, business operations or services, however this initiative allows our 1100 staff to unit behind one strong brand and simplifies how we present ourselves to the market,” said Cobham Australia CEO, Peter Nottage. “It also allows us to better display the group as the large, diverse and capable aviation group we are. Our familiar National Jet aircraft will keep the familiar and distinctive ‘blue tail’ but with the Cobham name on the fuselage.”

Cobham Aviation Services Australia operates 42 aircraft including Dash 8-200/300s, BAE 146s and Boeing 717s, and its business operations also include Sentinel and National Air Support which operates Coastwatch services to the Customs department, airline services for Qantas regional subsidiary QantasLink, and high-capacity scheduled air freight services for express freight provider Australian air Express.

Defence Must Be More Efficient – Fitzgibbon

The Minister for Defence, the Hon. Joel Fitzgibbon MP told the Chief of Air Force Symposium on March 9 that Defence needs to be more efficient and to prevent cost blow-outs and scheduling delays in capability projects.

“Of course, our industry partners will play a vital role in making this happen. Nothing eats more into the Defence Budget than problematic capability projects. Inevitably, when projects slip, budgets blow out and scope creeps, there will be fault on both sides. It is the nature of a very complex business,” Mr Fitzgibbon said. “So we must work together to minimise such events and outcomes. The Government is doing its bit. The Mortimer reforms in particular will address many of the problems and inefficiencies which have be-devilled the procurement processes on our side of the fence.”

Fitzgibbon noted that Defence currently has a number of multi-billion dollar projects in train, and that even small cost blowouts from these could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Airservices Volunteers On Hand At Avalon

Airservices Australia again had a large contingent of volunteer personnel at the show to keep visitors and participants safe.

Around 50 operational staff including air traffic controllers and aviation rescue and fire fighting personnel converged on Avalon for the event. “This event is a showpiece for Australian aviation and represents a tremendous collaborative effort from all parts of the industry,” CEO Greg Russell said in a statement. “Our own operational planning began months ago and we will deploy world class air traffic management and safety systems for the event.”

The air traffic controllers worked with air show staff in the flight operations centre and monitored all activity on the ground and in the air from the main tower at Avalon airport. In addition, two mobile control towers were erected on the nearby second runway to cope with the increased air traffic in the lead up and during the event.

Airservices also installed additional air navigation equipment to cope with the large increase in general aviation traffic in the vicinity during the airshow. “Our controllers have developed special procedures to ensure all visiting aircraft and those participating in the flying displays at safe at all times. In addition, we’ve also made a lot of preparations to infrastructure and equipment to support an event of this size,’ said Mr Russell. “Airservices will also be well represented on the ground by our aviation rescue and fire fighting service. They will manning the additional runway at Avalon east and provide full coverage at the main airport including using three of our brand new Mk8 fire trucks.”

Eads Releases 2008 Financial Results

The European Aeronautic Defence & Space Company (EADS) released its 2008 financial results on March 10 which saw the company record a a €43.3bn turnover, a €98.6bn order intake bringing the order book to €400bn and a strong Group EBIT of €2.8bn (A$5.4bn), while Airbus Military, formerly Military Transport Aircraft, recorded a loss of €16m (A$31m) on A400M program charges and structural changes, an improvement on the €155m (A$299m) loss in 2007. “Our financial results overnight were very good,” EADS Australia CEO, Fabrice Rochereau told Australian Aviation. “Our orders are nicely balanced between civil and military, although last year was a little quiet in Australia.”

But he hopes that will soon change, with Australian Aerospace heavily involved in various emerging programs in Australia which are expected to mature after the Defence White paper is released in May. “We believe we have a very strong team here to support our bid, and a very sophisticated performance based support system which is based on those of the MRH 90 and ARH Tiger.”

And with the venerable Caribou nearing retirement, Rochereau also expects that aircraft’s replacement program to mature with the White Paper’s release as well. “We’re hearing that there will be a Caribou replacement and that it will likely be a light tactical transport,” he said, adding that he expects both the C-295M and smaller CN-235 to figure in that project’s consideration.

EADS also hopes to have some good news on the troubled A400M transport program in the coming weeks, with that aircraft’s first flight due later this year. “I still feel A400M is a great capability and has a place in Australia as first a C-130H and then a C-130J replacement – it will be the C-130 of the 21st century – not a C-17 competitor,” Rochereau said. “First delivery is planned for three years after first flight, so foreign customer deliveries will be available sometime after this. We underestimated amount of work required and the complexities of the European partnerships, and have realised that it realistically takes 10 years to deliver a program.”

Jsf Turns The Corner

The F-35 JSF program has turned the corner according to Lockheed Martin’s executive vice president for F-35 Program Integration, Tom Burbage.

Mr Burbage told Avalon air show media on March 10 that the F-35’s flight test campaign is progressing on track, and that the aircraft and its systems are performing extremely well. The systems “are proving to be significantly more mature at this stage of testing than those of past programs,” he said. “Milestones achieved in 2008 and 2009 continue to validate the F-35’s continued success, including: the successful first flight of F-35 BF-1 on 11 June 2008; deployment of F-35 AA-1 to Edwards AFB with all tests accomplished ahead of schedule; and recently, the successful first flight of F-35 BF-2 on 25 February 2009. The program remains on schedule to deliver the first production-model F-35s to Eglin AFB, in 2010, and to meet all services’ IOC dates, starting in 2012.”

Burbage also said he expects 2009 to be “a big year” for all the international JSF partners, with all facing some major decision in relation to the program. “In the case of Australia, it’s the Defence White Paper release and second pass review later on this year,” he said. “Every single partner country is facing a major decision this year, leading to a firm decision to buy operational jets in the next couple of years.”

Good Potential For Do228ng In Australasia

Switzerland based RUAG Aerospace sees a good market potential in the region for its re-birthed Do225, primarily as a utility aircraft.
RUAG has already sold five Do225s to an undisclosed customer in Australia, while it has also sold six to a customer in Japan and two each to customers in Argentina and Mexico.

“We can see 15-20 airplanes in this region over the next 10 years,” RUAG’s Wolfgang Kofen told Australian Aviation. He also said that the majority of those aircraft would be used in a either utility or specialist roles, such as maritime patrol or cargo. Local representative Ian Blackie added that the aircraft “has good potential” to replace the RAAF’s retiring Caribous, as it has good field performance and soft field capabilities, as well as the ability to lift up to 19 equipped troops.

The new Do228 will feature the same wing, fuselage and Honeywell TPE331 engines as the original model, but will gain a glass cockpit and a new five blade composite propeller. The prototype, which is being modified from an existing Do228, made its first flight during the last quarter of 2008, and first deliveries of the new production aircraft are set to commence in 2010.

Flir Systems Expands Services

Portland, Oregon based FLIR Systems is increasing its presence in Australia with a new service centre in Adelaide to service the increasing number of customers in the region.

FLIR, which manufactures a number of electro-optical systems for homeland security, defence and police use, has been increasing its presence in the region, including recently winning contracts for its Star SAFIRE HD imaging system for the RAAF, Australian Federal Police and other law enforcement agencies. To support these clients, the company is expanding its Adelaide service centre and is training its local workforce on the service of its sensor systems through a technology transfer arrangement.

Dassault Systemes Increases Austalian Activities

Dassault Systèmes, a leader in computer aided 3D modelling and Product Lifecycle Management software for aerospace and other sectors, has increased its presence in Australia and New.

“Intense competition, expanding global outsourcing, increasing product and channel complexity, and stringent Government regulations are impacting all businesses now,” said Gilles Cruanes, Dassault Systèmes VP of sales & distribution, South Asia. “The tyranny of distance from major markets means ANZ [Australia & New Zealand] businesses must be smarter and faster than competitors in other regions.”
Dassault Systèmes Australia is based in Melbourne and led by general manager Gerd Diegelmann, and also serves the construction, defence, apparel and automotive industries.

Pratt & Whitney Approves First F135 Engine Hardware
from Australia’s Levett Engineering

AVALON AIR SHOW, March 10, 2009 – Pratt & Whitney completed the first article inspection (FAI) for second and third stage turbine vane transfer tubes and covers produced by Australia’s Levett Engineering for all variants of the F135 engine powering the F-35 Lightning II. This successful first article inspection is a major milestone in Pratt & Whitney’s contract with Levett Engineering with a potential value of more than US$23 million over the life of the F-35 program. Pratt & Whitney is a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE:UTX) company.

The second and third stage turbine vane tubes and covers transfer air from the turbine vane to the rotor compartment, providing cooling air to the turbine disks and blades.

“This successful first article inspection is tangible proof that Levett Engineering is dedicated to the F135 program and to delivering Pratt & Whitney a high quality, affordable, precision machining capability in Australia,” said Bill Gostic, vice president, Pratt & Whitney F135 engine programs. “We look forward to our continued working relationship with Levett Engineering as a valued partner in Pratt & Whitney’s global supply base for the F135 engine.”

“This first article inspection acceptance signifies a major milestone for our company as we take the first steps into the production manufacturing phase of jet engine components for Pratt & Whitney and the F135 program,” said Paul Levett, chief executive officer, Levett Engineering. “Levett Engineering remains committed to providing Pratt & Whitney with the highest quality, best value product available, and look forward to building on this success for many years to come.”

* Kangan Batman Teams With Lufthansa:

Melbourne based Kangan Batman TAFE announced on March 10 that it has partnered with Lufthansa Technical Training to offer some of its EASA accredited courses in Australia.

Under its arrangement with LTT, Kangan Batman’s Aviation Industry Training Centre (AITC) will deliver specialised LH courses, with the first beginning in December last year. In particular, a number of EASA courses will be delivered for local clients through the agreement, with major companies including John Holland Aviation Services and Qantas already enquiring about using the LTT courses.

Kangan Batman has been busy building up the AITC, with the college taking delivery late last year of a Boeing 737-200 which is used for maintenance training. Manager for the centre, Michael Heffey, told ‘Australian Aviation’ that the TAFE was also hopeful of attracting government funding to build a dedicated training centre at Tullamarine Airport to allow it to gain greater exposure and interaction with the industry.