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Aviation History
1986
1986 - 0084.PDF
Breaking free Simon Beavis reviews the current programmes, problems, successes, and future of the Australian aerospace industry, with photography by Janice Lowe. When Senator John Button, Australia's Minister for Indus try and Commerce, revealed the results of a Government review of Australia's aerospace industry in August 1984, he was bullish. "I am confident that in the next decade or so the aerospace industry will continue to show significant increases in export sales of both civil and military goods. In this period the total export market avail able to the industry amounts to several billion dollars. We can gain a significant share of that business." Outsiders to Australia, well used to governments making breathtaking procla mations of their hopes, might be tempted to dismiss Button's determination with a healthy amount of scepticism. But they would be wrong to do so. Button's state ment is as hard-hitting and realistic as it is optimistic. He makes no pretence of the difficulties the industry has faced and is likely to face, and he prescribes nothing more than the need for industry to meet the challenges of growth and development independently. "The drive here must come from indus try itself," he says. "Government has an important role to play in the creation of a secure policy framework that will facili tate growth. But no amount of Govern ment support can substitute for the industry's own drive and commercial judgement." Australia's aerospace industry has traditionally survived as a vital limb of the Australian Defence Forces, dependent on the support work thrown up by the equip ment already in existence and picking hungrily at the offcuts of new equipment buys. Support work has flowed steadily through the industry, but, by virtue of Australia's limited requirements, new equipment buys are not regular. When the new equipment comes in, industry feasts richly. In the long periods between, the diet is more plain. The F-18 Hornet, now entering service with the RAAF, is replacing the Mirage III bought 20 years ago. As Button himself puts it, industry has been the subject of boom or bust cycles that have made forward planning at best very difficult. The "overdependency" on work for the Defence Forces still persists, and will necessarily always be an important part of the industry's function. In 1984 the privately-owned Hawker de Havilland Senator John Button, Australia's Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, and leader of the Government in the Senate company recorded sales of A$71 million, with 47 per cent coming from Australian Government contracts and 40 per cent from exports. But in an effort to counter act the uncertainties of boom and bust, and in an effort to gain more freedom from local work, greater emphasis is to be placed on export. HdH's target is to strike a 50/50 balance between Government and export work. In November HdH won a A$130 million contract from Boeing to be the sole-source producer of 747 leading-edge devices. It is, says HdH Commercial Director Peter Smith, "seen by Boeing as a real test case". If HdH proves that it can compete on the international market successfully, then the contract will be a forerunner to HdH joining Boeing's 7J7 programme as an associate. Commonwealth Aircraft Cor poration, since July a wholly-owned subsidiary of HdH, will benefit from this latest contract and the State-owned Government Aircraft Factories is now negotiating a share for itself. These are the three main actors in the Australian aerospace scene. HdH and CAC were merged on July 9 this year as part of the reorganisation that Senator Button saw as so necessary in his industry review. David Rees, CAC's corporate manager for market development, says of the merger: "Emotionally, many of us felt a little disappointed but, equally, it was the right way to go." The merger has produced a more streamlined organisation but, impor tantly, has given the two companies the range of skills and a large enough work force to compete internationally, and to countenance risk-sharing projects. But the merger has also left GAF, already the odd man out as the only State- owned manufacturer, as the distinct outsider. As a State-owned concern, GAF's dependence on Government work, and particularly defence work, is even greater. Increasingly, GAF has looked for more commercial work in the civil sector and currently holds civil contracts with Boeing and Fokker. But the difficulties of competing on the world market, prodi gious even for Australia's private-sector companies, is still harder for GAF. In recent years GAF has been overmanned and unprofitable, yet technologically probably more advanced than any other Australian aerospace firm. With the accent on breaking free from an overdependency on Government work FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 4 January 1986
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