Page 28 - Australian Defence Mag Jul-Aug 2020
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JULY/AUGUST 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
 additional payloads, and other system upgrades, to the se- lected TUAS, Faulkner noted.
“When you’re involving yourself in a new capability for the ADF or something you haven’t supported previously, inevitably you have to draw forward from both your own companies and also from the partners you select,” Faulkner noted to ADM.
“We’re very happy with the very strong response from Australian SMEs that we got through our Australian part- ner portal when we opened that up to industry. It’s been quite a challenge to ensure that we’re bringing forward those companies that are best able to support Defence as part of our team.”
TEXTRON OFFERING
Not only was US defence contractor Textron Systems the manufacturer of Army’s Shadow 200s; it is now bidding as the Shadow’s replacement the Australian-heritage Aero- sonde 4.7 UAV through its local subsidiary, Textron Sys- tems Australia.
Aerosonde Pty Ltd was established in Melbourne in 1995 as a UAV developer and was acquired by the US company AAI in 2006. A year later AAI itself was pur- chased by Textron Systems, whose Australian subsidiary continues to evolve the Aerosonde system’s design and is involved in its manufacture.
As pointed out by Jack Kormas, Managing Director of Textron Systems Australia, the multi-mission Aerosonde 4.7, introduced in 2009, is field-proven with more than 450,000 flight hours of tactical land-based and shipboard missions undertaken in environments ranging from ex- treme heat to arctic cold.
The air vehicle has a wingspan of 3.6 metres, 50-60 knot cruising speed, 15,000 ft ceiling, an operating range
ABOVE: The Aerosonde 4.7 was introduced in 2009, with more than 450,000 flight hours in global service.
of 140 kilomtres and endurance of more than 14 hours. Payloads up to a maximum of nine kilograms include the Collins Aerospace TASE400LD laser designator, an elec- tro-optical/infrared camera for day and night missions, and communications, EW and signals intelligence capa- bilities. A synthetic aperture radar system was success- fully integrated in 2018.
Power is provided by the mature and reliable Lycoming EL-005 heavy fuel engine, and both the pneumatic catapult launcher and the hydraulically-actuated recovery net utilise the same piece of ground hardware, reducing the footprint for constrained land-based and shipboard operations.
The first-ever operational deployment of UAVs by the ADF involved four early model Aerosondes flown by Army in August 2003 during the peace restoration mission in the Solomon Islands.
Aerosonde now supports US conventional and Spe- cial Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq “and other parts of the world” on a fee-for-service basis, while design and manufacture of carbon fibre airframe components con- tinues at Textron Systems Australia’s Melbourne facility, Kormas said.
Uniquely, the Aerosonde is the only system downselected to compete both for the Australian TUAS requirement and for the US Army’s Future Tactical UAS (FTUAS) program, which also seeks an RQ-21 Shadow 200 replacement.
For this Textron is offering the Aerosonde HR (Hybrid QuadRotor); an Aerosonde 4.7 airframe with a quick-fitting
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