Orbital Corporation (Orbital UAV) recently hosted Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price and Vince Connelly MP, Federal Member for Stirling, Western Australia, at its Balcatta headquarters. The tour provided the opportunity to showcase Orbital UAV’s growing capability and production capacity for the manufacture of integrated engine systems for military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The visit follows Orbital UAV’s inclusion in this year’s Australian Defence Sales Catalogue, released by Price earlier this month, and the company’s announcement of a new international engine development and supply agreement with Lycoming Engines, a subsidiary of Textron.
During the visit, near-term tactical UAV programs currently underway within the Australian Defence Force (ADF) were discussed. The Army’s Land129 Phase 3 program and the Navy’s Sea129 Phase 5 program represent two of the most prominent and strategically important programs. “Orbital UAV is delighted to be working with two of the leading contenders for both these ADF programs – Insitu Pacific and Textron Systems,” said Todd Alder, CEO and managing director of Orbital UAV. “We have already established ourselves as a world leader in the design and manufacture of integrated engine systems for UAVs. With our unique sovereign industrial capability, our objective is to ensure that any fleet of tactical UAVs purchased by the ADF is powered by our Australian designed and built engines,” said Alder.
Both Land129 and Sea129 are long term programs for the ADF and represent part of the government’s $270 billion investment in defence capability over the next decade.
Earlier this year, Price announced Orbital UAV as the recipient of an Australian Government Defence Global Competitiveness Grant ($223,000) to develop an accelerated test screening system for its patented FlexECU™ technology. The test system will improve quality control and productivity, helping Orbital UAV meet the demand from its growing global customer base.
In March the Company signed a new contract with Textron / Lycoming for the development and supply of an engine to be integrated into Textron Systems’ Aerosonde program. Textron Systems is a world leader in unmanned aircraft systems and one of the largest suppliers of tactical UAVs to the US armed forces. Orbital UAV’s current global customer portfolio now includes Textron subsidiary Lycoming, Boeing subsidiary Insitu Inc., Northrop Grumman and one of Singapore’s largest defence companies.
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