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Defence companies look to cover air, land and sea at Land Forces 2018 in South Australia

Defence

TAE Aerospace announces plan to expand across all sectors of defence industry, including fire and safety systems.

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The Australian-owned aerospace company has acquired the rights to take over the operations of Kidde Aerospace and Defence Australia Pty Ltd (KADA), which builds fire protection and safety systems for vehicles and is owned by American UTC Aerospace Systems (UTAS).

The deal, which is expected to come into effect by the end of September, includes an agreement with UTAS that will designate TAE Aerospace as the only licensed overhaul facility in Australia, New Zealand and much of the region for certain UTAS businesses.

Approximately half of KADA’s business supports the Australian Army’s fleet of land vehicles, including the M1A1 Abrams, ASLAV, Bushmaster and Hawkei vehicles.

TAE Aerospace Chief Strategy Officer, Darren Hutchinson said the business would be managed from the company’s South Australian facility in the Adelaide Airport Export Park.

The deal consolidates TAE Aerospace’s ability to work on air, land and sea systems.

“It has been part of our growth strategy for a while now to look for ‘interoperability’ between the platforms we service – particularly between air and land-based platforms, but also marine in the future,” Hutchinson said.

“Four years ago, we signed an agreement for total logistics support of the AGT1500 tank engine that powers the Abrams main battle tank for the Australian Army.

“At the time it was considered unusual for an aerospace company to work on a tank engine, but they are both gas- turbine engines and operate in a similar way – it’s just that one runs on diesel and the other on jet fuel – and we knew the skills were transferable.”

More than 620 companies are participating at the three-day exhibition at the Adelaide Convention Centre, including another 30 companies joining TAE Aerospace at the South Australian stand.

Although many South Australian companies have concentrated on the large submarine and future frigate projects awarded to the state, companies such as APC Technologies, Codan Defence Electronics, Redarc Electronics, Nova Systems and Silentium Defence all have land-based products.

This is a Creative Commons story from The Lead South Australia, a news service providing stories about innovation in South Australia. Please feel free to use the story in any form of media. The story sources are linked in with the copy and all contacts are willing to talk further about the story. Copied to Clipboard

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