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But looking back, none of these programs could have been called cost effective, adding an estimated 20 to 30 per cent to the cost of a program compared to a normal acquisition, nor can it be said that they have helped Australia in establishing a viable and world class aerospace industry. Indeed, once production of the 73 F/A-18s to be built at Avalon near Melbourne ended in 1990, a lack of follow-up by government and industry meant the tooling lay idle and the skilled workforces were dispersed and in many cases, lost to the industry, and none of the follow-up production and inservice support benefits that were envisaged were ever realised.

It is only in recent years through the ADF’s various ageing aircraft programs such as Boeing’s F-111 weapons system support program at Amberley and similar programs for Caribou, P-3 Orion, C-130 and the now ageing Hornet fleet has a skilled aerospace workforce been re-established.

With the advent of the huge JSF program, arguably the first major multinational defence program of the globalised economy, rather than look to establish offsets or foreign production lines, prime contractors Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Pratt & Whitney and GE/ Rolls-Royce have offered the industries in ‘partner’ nations an opportunity to bid for work on the entire project and to become part of the program’s global supply chain.

This way, a company can build parts for several thousand aircraft, rather than just provide components for its home country’s much smaller fleet, and will have the opportunity to provide components right through the service lives of the global fleet.

To this end, 28 Australian companies have won more than $220 million worth of work on the F-35 JSF program to date as part of an Australian government and industry initiative to be a part of that global supply chain, with 12 of those companies currently on contract for the early production phases of the program, some of which hold multiple contracts with multiple customers. But with only nine F-35s flying and less than 50 currently under contract out of a projected build run of more than 3500 aircraft, most of the potential is yet to be realised. Lockheed Martin advises that as much as $11. 6bn worth of work is expected to be available to Australian industry to compete through the production phase, with much more in throughlife support and follow-on development.

The key point to note is that this figure represents opportunities – not guaranteed work – even though Australian industry has proven that it can meet JSF program requirements they must be competitive and a lot of investment is required to build up capacity.

“When the industry participation plans were first put together in late 2006, the projected value was based on the opportunities that were on the table at that time,” John Wilshire, the New Air Combat Capability (NACC) office’s director JSF Industry Team told Australian Aviation.

“We have a six monthly review of the IP plans, so that number changes as opportunities are run and won or run and lost.

But we need to be very careful about the top-line number referred to by Lockheed Martin because most of it is still opportunities, and it reflects the totality right from the beginning, right out to the future. It takes into account things that might be being manufactured for the next 20 years, andthey’ll calculate it into future dollars. ” When the program was put together, Lockheed Martin and the other prime contractors told partner nations that they didn’t have the resources to handle potentially thousands of companies asking for work or offering them the latest widget.

“Part and parcel of joining the program was the understanding that government and/or industry groups would help the primes by looking at what the capability requirements from an industry perspective were, and then bring the companies that have those capabilities to the table to compete,” added Wilshire. “Lockheed and their partners would make known to us what opportunities were available, and we would take those to industry and together we would decide who was best placed to pursue them. The government JSF Industry Team would then travel with companies across to the US and facilitate their visits and help them present their capabilities, and as the primes got to know Australian industry, we could then take a step back. ” Some of the companies involved in the program have never worked in aerospace before, let alone in a high volume program with International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITARs) and other US and Australian restrictions in place, but the NACC team and officials in various government industry bodies have assisted here too.

“We help where we can with ITARs,” said Wilshire. “We were very active in the earlier days of JSF in that we developed handbooks and guides for industry on ITAR. We’ve got to the point now where the companies have been involved long enough to stand on their own feet, but if there’s an issue involving export controls then we will help where we can to resolve any problems.

“It is difficult for some of the SMEs (small and medium enterprises) that hadn’t been involved in the aerospace domain in the past – it’s quite different to, say, the automotive industry. It’s a higher level of quality for aerospace, so a lot of companies have had to spend time and resources in getting the appropriate certifications that are required for some of the components.

ISO 9000 is the entry point for any JSF company, and then AS 9100 follows from that in a number of areas. Depending on what the product is, some of the companies won’t provide a purchase order until the certification or accreditation is completed. ” While there has been no direct link drawn between the amount of work offered to Australian industry and how early in the build run Australia takes its F-35s, it is fair to say that many of the contracts or MoUs in place are based on Australia eventually ordering the 100 aircraft outlined in last year’s White Paper.

Following is a quick snapshot of the JSF work completed or currently being performed by Australian companies: • Airframe & system component machining – Lovitt Technologies, Melbourne; Ferra Engineering, Brisbane; Broens Australia, Adelaide; Levett Engineering, Adelaide; Production Parts, Melbourne.

• Engineering of wing conventional edges, centre fuselage composites – Boeing Aerostructures Australia (Hawker de Havilland), Melbourne.

• Weapons bay uplocks & landing gear actuators – Goodrich Customer Services, Sydney; Rosebank Engineering, Melbourne.

• Engine component machining – Production Parts, Melbourne; Levett Engineering, Adelaide.

• Handling fixtures – Varley, Newcastle • Engine removal/installation trailer – Marand Engineering, Melbourne.

• Training courseware design – KBR (Catalyst Interactive), Canberra.

• Tooling – Marand Engineering, Melbourne; Broens Australia, Sydney; Metaltec, Melbourne.

• Weapons adapters – Ferra Engineering, Brisbane.

• Airframe design & stress analysis – GKN Aerospace, Melbourne; Vipac, Melbourne.

• Voice recognition software – Adacel Technologies, Melbourne.

• JSF studies – Calytrix Technologies, Perth; BAE Systems Australia, Adelaide; Marand Engineering, Melbourne; QinetiQ Australia, Canberra; Agent Oriented Software (AOS), Melbourne; PHM Technology, Melbourne.

• RF & EW components – Cablex, Melbourne; BAE Systems Australia, Adelaide; Micreo Limited, Brisbane; Partech Systems, Nowra.

In addition to these, there are several contracts pending or agreements in place for further work, such as that between BAE Systems (UK), Marand Engineering and Perth’s Quickstep Holdings for the manufacture of at least 700 vertical tail sets for the program, and also for Quickstep to supply centre fuselage composite panels and doors to Northrop Grumman. Chemring Australia also has an MoU in place for the supply of new technology flares to BAE Systems (US).

“In terms of the vertical tail the MOU with BAE Systems (UK) is for Marand to act as prime and do the assembly and test, Quickstep to supply the composites for the tails, and for BAE Systems Australia to provide the machined components,” Wilshire explained. “The finished tail will then go to the final assembly and checkout line in Fort Worth. That’s a big piece that we’re really keen to win, because it would be big achievement for Australian industry to get something like that. ” But the icing on the cake for Australian industry will be to garner not only a large chunk of the RAAF’s in service support and sustainment, but also to help support regional forces who are potential future customers for the F-35 such as Singapore, South Korea and Japan. “What we’re trying to achieve here in Australia is a regional support capability,” Wilshire explained in closing. “So we want to sustain visiting US and partner nation jets as well as potential near-neighbours’ future FMS customer jets.

One of our key industry goals is to bring that capability to the table and market it.

We certainly don’t intend to send our jets back to the US for anything – as far as sustainment goes, we want to be self-reliant.

We then want to build on the capability we develop to support our jets, to support visiting/regional jets ”