Three Royal Australian Navy aircrew were safely rescued after performing an emergency landing and ditching their MH-60R Seahawk helicopter in the Philippine Sea, following an undisclosed flight incident overnight.
The agreement with Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky takes the total fleet size to 24 and includes the provision of spare engines, radars and rocket and missile launchers.
The flight was intended to celebrate NAIDOC week, but due to COVID-19 related delays it was held on 27 September, according to the Department of Defence.
The RAAF will finally be able to replace the EA-18G Growler that caught fire in 2018 after the US gave the green light to Boeing sell a replacement to Australia for $170 million.
The new 'in-ground' process at RAAF Base Edinburgh is 30 per cent faster than the old one using trucks because it removes the need for a pause to swap in new vehicles.
Lockheed Martin has revealed it used the recent Talisman Sabre training exercise in Australia to trial sending sensor data between an F-35 and other aircraft platforms around the world in real-time.