Page 64 - Australian Defence Magazine April 2023

64
FROM THE SOURCE
JIM MCDOWELL
APRIL 2023 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
We want to continue to grow this capability and our cus- tomer base.
ADM: Can you provide an update on the Ground Expend- able Target concepts?
MCDOWELL: We’ve received some very positive feedback from Defence and the Defence Innovation Hub following demon- stration of the Agile Ground Target System
LEFT: The Nova Rova is an Agile Ground
Target System (AGTS) that provides an automated moving ground target for training and testing advanced weapon systems
BELOW: Jim McDowell and Nova Systems founder Jim Whalley
solutions part of the business that are going to mature this year, notably Air 6500 and Land 125 Phase 4. There’s really just two left in Air 6500 (Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin) and we’re in the Northrop team. With Safran, we’re down to the last three on Land 125 Phase 4, so we’d expect those to go to either contract negotiation or ODIA this coming year.
And then, MSP’s up for extension. We need to make sure that gets done in a way that most efficiently uses the workforce. So, it’s T&E and long- term partnership, then those big competi- tions that make us look a bit different in the marketplace as a technology provider, as op- posed to professional services, and making our professional services offering as efficient
as we possibly can.
ADM: What can government do to level the playing field for industry?
MCDOWELL: It’s important that we see a level of industrial policy that we haven’t seen for many years to shape the defence
industry in Australia. Take the US as an example, the cur- rent administration is effectively moving a significant part of the supply chain and manufacture of major components for C4ISR and computing generally, especially semiconduc- tors, to the US from places like Taiwan and China.
Australia doesn’t yet have a clear industrial policy, really clear levers, to achieve the sovereign capabilities that we always talk about. That needs to follow the DSR and I think it will.
With the current state of the world and rising geopolitical threats, ensuring Australia has sovereign capability is abso- lutely crucial to defend our nation now and for generations to come. ■
and Ground Expendable Target concepts at Delamere Air Weapons Range. This is a re- mote-controlled vehicle that can go at varying speeds over lots of very different terrain.
Now we’re in the negotiation/bidding phase to take those trials to the next stage, where we can really project this capability in a sovereign way and use this vehicle directly in test and evaluation of ground fire and targets.
In addition to this, we’re working very
closely with the Victorian Government to help
them with their advanced air mobility and
the standing up of a range in Victoria, where
we can also introduce some novel test and evaluation tech- niques in reference to air mobility.
ADM: What opportunities is the business looking towards in the coming year?
MCDOWELL: Number one for me, absolutely, is Test and Evaluation, which is our bread and butter. We believe we can make T&E services absolutely 100 per cent owned and operated as an Australian partnership between Nova Sys- tems and its supply chain and the Commonwealth across the defence enterprise – that’s our number one priority.
We’ve also got a number of competitions in that technology
“AUSTRALIA DOESN’T YET HAVE A CLEAR INDUSTRIAL POLICY, REALLY CLEAR LEVERS, TO ACHIEVE THE SOVEREIGN CAPABILITIES THAT WE ALWAYS TALK ABOUT”
NOVA SYSTEMS
NOVA SYSTEMS