Avalon Airshow review 2011.

As promised, I thought I’d venture an opinion on the Australian International Airshow and Aerospace & Defence Exposition 2011, I attended last week. The show is more commonly known as the Avalon Airshow and this term will be used in this article.

The Avalon Airshow is advertised as the largest airshow in the Southern Hemisphere and is held every 2 years at the Avalon airport Geelong, ( approximately 50 kilometers West of Melbourne) Australia.

The Avalon airport predominantly services domestic routes within Australia, but has plans to expand to International routes in future years in competition with Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport. It is currently serviced mostly by Jetstar and Tiger but is utilised by smaller, local airline services as well.

The Avalon Airshow 2011 was celebrating a number of important milestones. Most visibly perhaps, was the celebration of the Royal Australian Air Force’s 90th anniversary as an independant air force, making it one of the oldest airforces in the world. Also being celebrated was the Centenary of passenger flight within Australia and the 10th edition of this airshow at Avalon airport, with the first such show taking place in 1992.

The airshow ran from Monday 1 March 2011 until Sunday 6 March 2011. The week is divided into 2 aspects, with an industry only exposition run from Monday until midday on the Friday.

These days provide the “industry” aspects of the show and many formal announcements were made during this time. These announcements included Industry Teaming arrangements formajor upcoming ADF acquisition projects including RAAF’s AIR 5428 Pilot Training System and Army/Navy’s AIR 9000 Phase 7 – Helicopter Training System.

Several notable Ministerial level announcements were made during this week as well. Significant announcements included the release of Australia’s Letter of Intent, formally acknowledging Australia’s requirement for a 5th C-17A Globemaster III aircraft and the related announcement that this aircraft the obviated the need for the programmed acquisition of 2x Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 Hercules aircraft as listed in the Australian 2009 Defence Capability Plan.

Other significant announcements were the signing of a $20.9m support contract spanning 6 years, between Defence and BAE Systems, for support of the Australian Army’s fleet of 6x CH-47D+ Chinook aircraft and the formal acknowledgement of the acquisition of a 3rd Heron Remote Piloted Vehicle (RPV) under RAAF’s Project Nankeen.

It was further confirmed that this 3rd Heron RPV will be remaining in Australia and will be utilised in training and development roles in support of Australia’s operational Heron deployment in Afghanistan as well as future force development studies for the RAAF.

The exhibit and aircraft displays for the 2011 Avalon Airshow, followed the usual pattern of 3 temporary exhibition halls for the Industry Exposition and static and flight displays at the airport. These included the ground exhibition, focussing on Armyand RAAF platforms and ground defence capabilities and consisted of a large exhibition of static platforms as well as demonstrations from Army and RAAF personnel and elements including Military Working Dogs.

Cont.