Page 39 - Australian Defence Magazine Dec21-Jan22

ADVERTORIAL
COLLINS AEROSPACE IN AUSTRALIA
Questions & Answers with Sonny Foster, managing director, Collins Aerospace
Collins Aerospace is a global company with
operations in 46 countries. How would you
characterise its presence in Australia?
At a glance, Collins Aerospace provides leading technology solutions for the aerospace and defence industries in Austra- lia. Our key focus growth areas include support to platforms already utilising Collins Aerospace technologies, such as Robotic and Autonomous Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Space, Guided Munitions, Cyber Security, Training Systems and Connected Battlespace.
Customers can access products and services that span all of Collins’ business units from a single, in-country entity. We have a proven track record in transferring technology from throughout our global organisation into our Australian team to support key programs and customers. This technology in- cludes the transfer of intellectual property rights into Austra-
lia to support programs.
How is Collins Aerospace supporting
key Australian aerospace and defence
initiatives?
For decades, Collins has provided on-going support and com- mitment to the growth of the aerospace and defence industries in Australia. Not only have we opened new facilities employing
and up-skilling more Australians, we also support a number of educational and community group initiatives. We’re engaged with various education institutions in Sydney and the greater New South Wales regions. For example, we facilitated several presentation and discussion panels by a female astronaut from NASA with a Sydney-based girls’ school about the opportuni- ties for women in space and engineering. Since we’re planning to significantly increase our business here, we will continue demonstrating our commitment and building in-country career opportunities in the aerospace sector.
From a technology perspective, you can see that com- mitment via our work on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. We build just over 40% of the total Distributed Aperture Sys- tems (DAS) in Australia using local industry capability and resources. These DAS units are installed on the global F-35 fleet. That is one example of how we’re helping scale up the Australian Industry Capability Program sponsored by the Department of Defence by developing leading edge manufac- turing operations, innovative technology and the best-trained workforce right here.
Another example is our new ProSim production and sup- port facility located in Lane Cover in Sydney. This location, developed with the aid of a grant from the New Air Combat Capability-Industry Support Program, is performing mainte- nance, repair, overhaul and upgrade (MRO&U) and compo- nent manufacturing for the F-35 flight simulators’ projectors.
Collins Aerospace provides the world’s most advanced biocular helmet-mount- ed display system bringing unprece- dented capability to the world’s most advanced tactical aircraft.