On 1 March, the second day of Avalon Airshow 2023, CAE announced that it had received a contract extension from the ADF that covers comprehensive training and sustainment support services for all three services.
This programme is known as the Aerospace Simulator Integrated Support and Training (ASIST), and it builds on an initial contract placed in 2021. CAE Australia has been training the ADF for two decades already, but rolling extensions under this latest ASIST contract will see this work continue through till 20.
CAE Australia supports many different platforms with its flight training, including MH-60R, MRH90 and Tiger helicopters, KC-30A, C-27J, Hawk 127 and C-130J aircraft. The company also provides maintenance and engineering support for the RAAF’s AP-3C Orions, CH-47F Chinook and MRH90.
Matthew Sibree, Managing Director, Indo-Pacific, CAE Australia, said: ‘This contract signifies an enduring partnership between the Commonwealth and CAE Australia on training and support services across a range of platforms and training systems.’
Sibree added: ‘There is no better time to invest further in our ADF’s safety and mission readiness, and our highly skilled teams, many of whom are veterans, are honoured to contribute their training and engineering expertise to guide and shape our nation’s sovereign air combat capability. Our service personnel are our greatest asset, and their training is critical.’
Under the initial contract, CAE has achieved levels of more than 98% availability for its training devices.
Air Commodore Steven Pesce, Defence Director General Airlift and Tanker Systems Branch, commented: ‘This agreement today will ensure our emerging ADF pilots have access to the best equipment through the availability and development of flight and mission simulators, management of training materials, and management and delivery of aircrew training.’
CAE Australia stated, ‘The ASIST contract provides a flexible framework under which CAE Australia delivers aircrew training, specialised engineering support, sustainment and maintenance services, as well as training system upgrades across multiple ADF aerospace platforms.’
The contract is flexible as it allows platforms to be added and dropped. For instance, the C-27J Spartan was added in the past twelve months, while the MRH90 Taipan and Tiger helicopters will eventually be elided once they are replaced by the UH-60M and AH-64E respectively.
The ADF can achieve efficiencies by handing its training requirements to CAE. The Canadian-based company widely employs reservists, who make up about 30% of the Australian workforce. These are often reservists too. OF CAE Australia’s 230 or so employees, some 90 are engineers and 45 are instructors.
For the Royal Australian Navy, CAE runs simulators for its destroyers, amphibious ships, minehunters and replenishment vessels. As the ADF enhances its personnel numbers and new platforms, it becomes imperative that it also improve its training programmes to prevent any squeezes. Sibree said he was hopeful that New Zealand might choose CAE for its C-130J and P-8A training, but the country has not decided on its training programmes yet.
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