Air Power: SAFRAN builds Australian presence | ADM Feb 2011

Gregor Ferguson | Sydney

French aerospace conglomerate SAFRAN has flown under the radar in Australia but is starting to promote a brand name that dominates entire layers of the ADF’s aerospace supply chain.

Anybody tracking the progress of established ADF suppliers such as Turbomeca Australia and SAGEM will have started to notice the individual brand names are now subordinate to the identity of their parent company, SAFRAN. The Paris-based technology group has set out to establish itself as a significant, long-term player in Australia’s defence and security sectors, according to Francois Romanet, managing director of SAGEM Australia, and SAFRAN’s Group National Executive in Australia.

The aerospace sector is familiar with the brand names making up the SAFRAN group: Messier-Dowty, Messier-Bugatti, Hispano-Suiza, Microturbo, Technofan, Labinal, SLCA and SAGEM: these, along with Turbomeca which manufactures and supports the RTM322 and MTR390 engines, provide pilot’s visor displays, flight controls, navigation systems, pilotage FLIRs, roof mounted sights, wiring harnesses, auxiliary power units, landing gear, air conditioners and oil coolers for the Army’s MRH90 and Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters (ARH). The group represents almost an entire layer of the MRH90 and ARH supply chains, and will do the same for the NH90 NFH if the RAN orders this platform under Air 9000 Ph 8.

In addition, the company also supplies and supports the Inertial Navigation Units (INU) for the RAN’s Collins-class submarines and Huon-class minehunters and the VAMPIR Infra Red Search & Track (IRST) for the RAN’s eight Anzac-class frigates (it is also offering VAMPIR for the RNZN’s forthcoming Anzac self-defence upgrade), two Canberra-class LHDs and three Hobart-class Air Warfare Destroyers.

With this installed product base in Australia and further sales opportunities coming down the track, Romanet told ADM his ambition is for SAFRAN to become a long-term player in Australia with a major industrial presence here. To achieve this, the various components of the group need to be a more integrated entity, hence the promotion of the SAFRAN brand name and the creation of SAFRAN Pacific Pty Ltd as an umbrella for the group’s activities in defence, aerospace and security, he said.

The new company, which will be launched formally at the 2011 Avalon air show, will integrate SAFRAN’s defence activities in Australia and New Zealand. Romanet hasn’t disclosed a revenue target for the growing business here, but says his strategy over the next year or two is to showcase SAFRAN’s potential to the ADF and in particular demonstrate it can handle large projects in Australia as a prime contractor in its own right.

The company won’t be a platform prime, Romanet acknowledges, but if for example the RAN were to select the NH90 NFH under Project Air 9000 Ph 8 then key components such as the pilotage FLIR would be assembled and tested locally as well as being supported in-service by SAGEM in Sydney.

To make this happen, SAFRAN has invested heavily (and steadily over the last few years) in its local footprint. While the security side of the business, especially the Morpho biometrics technology arm, will remain at the firm’s Lane Cove facility in north-west Sydney, the defence arm has begun moving to a purpose-built facility adjacent to Turbomeca Australia at Bankstown Airport.

Turbomeca’s Wackett St site at Bankstown has seen three extensions in just six years and now employs 123 staff plus four apprentices a year. The SAFRAN site on an adjacent plot just outside the airport perimeter maintains this trajectory and provides the office and workshop space necessary to support a further major expansion.

Here SAFRAN has spent over $1 million on a new assembly, test and support facility for electronics and electro-optic systems including a 100m2 Class 7 clean room and an environmental test facility capable of replicating the entire operating envelope of the Tiger ARH and MRH90: from -40oC to +70oC.

At present, this supports the Tiger’s Roof-Mounted Sight (RMS) and Laser Range-Finder and Designator (LRFD) and enables stripdown, repair, re-assembly and then camera and optical alignment and testing. It also supports the INUs for the Collins and the Huon-class minehunters. Longer-term, however, this will also support the VAMPIR IRST system and will be the assembly, test and repair facility for the pilotage FLIR on the NH90 NFH.

Both SAFRAN and the ADF have already experienced the benefit of having such a facility in-country, according to Romanet. By doing the work in Sydney rather than sending items back to France for repair, the turnaround time for some Shop Replaceable Units has fallen from up to four months to as little as a week. This has obvious benefits for both operational availability and the level of spares holdings.

This investment is scaled for both current work and future contracts, says Romanet. Many of the opportunities SAFRAN is pursuing are in the land domain: the company’s JIM LR infra red multi-function binoculars have been shortlisted by the NZ Ministry of defence for an Army contract; the RFT is due later this year. JIM LR is the first handheld sensor of its type to be able to fuse day and IR views in real time and enable operators to see through camouflage.

It’s already in service with the French, British, German, Canadian and US Armies and US Marines in Afghanistan, and a further software upgrade should be granted French government export approval this year, says Romanet.

Here in Australia it competes with Thales’s Sophie optronic sensor system which is already in ADF service, but the opportunity to secure a sale will come in the Ninox Night Fighting Equipment Technology Refresh under Project Land 53 Ph.1BR which explicitly calls for an image fusion capability as well as other capability enhancements. First pass approval will be some time over the next couple of years.

Another relatively short-term opportunity is in Project land 125 Ph 3C – Austeyr lethality upgrade for which SAFRAN will offer the SAGEM Sword Light thermal weapon sight.

However, the major opportunity and the one to which Romanet believes SAFRAN brings unique skills, is the ADF’s soldier combat system program, Project Land 125 Ph 4, and its adjacent capabilities. These include JP2070 as well as Land 400.

SAGEM has taken a global lead in the delivery of an integrated suite of soldier combat equipment with the recent deployment for the first time by the French Army of the company’s FELIN (Fantassin a Equipements et Liaisons Integres) system. The French Army has ordered 22,600 FELIN kits consisting of a vest to which is integrated a power supply, radios and hardwire links to the sensors on the soldier’s helmet and rifle. Romanet emphasises that SAFRAN isn’t trying to sell the FELIN solution to the ADF, however, but the company’s integration smarts.

The complete ensemble was designed for lightness and comfort and includes the weapon sight and night vision goggles, which together allow an off-boresight or “round the corner” viewing capability, communications system with a GPS unit and an osteophone head set, a Personal Data Assistant for individual soldiers and an iPad-size data terminal for platoon commanders.

This is powered by a rechargeable battery system and managed by a system controller which, among other things, enables graceful degradation as the battery power runs down. A progressive shut-down feature ensures that the most vital function – communications – is the last to shut down when the battery finally dies.

The French Army’s first 1,000-strong FELIN infantry battalion is now operational with a second due to become operational this year. SAGEM is delivering 4,500 sets a years and is the only company in the world able to offer a proven, operational integrated soldier combat system, says Romanet, who told ADM SAGEM’s technology and systems integration smarts are vendor-independent so far as the individual components are concerned. The technical challenge is to achieve maximum utility at minimum weight and with maximum battery life, using whatever combination of sensors, communications and other devices the customer requires.

The integration challenge doesn’t begin and end with the individual soldier, he points out: the Land 125 Ph 4 system, for which 1st Pass approval is due over the next 12 months or so, must also interface with the Battlespace Communications System (Land) being acquired under JP2072 as well as with the vehicle-mounted internal and external communications systems which will be a part of the Army’s new Land 400 family of combat vehicles.

The FELIN system is being integrated with the French Army’s Nexter 8x8 VBCI (Armoured Infantry Fighting Vehicle), which is already in service and was developed in parallel with FELIN so they would be properly integrated from the ground up.

This enables the vehicles to act as communications nodes and allows soldiers and particularly section and platoon commanders to plug into the network through the medium of the vehicle to communicate with commanders and subordinates. The VBCI, whose sensor fit is provided entirely by SAFRAN, will also be a contender for Land 400 but the FELIN technology and architecture is platform-independent, emphasises Romanet.

The combination of Land 125 Ph.4, Land 400 and JP2070 presents a significant opportunity, says Romanet: design, integration and testing and then ongoing system support and periodic upgrades. Add to this the potential sales of sensors and aircraft equipment if the RAN buys the NH90 NFH, the potential to sell optical and infra red sensors into the Land 400 program, regardless of which platform is selected, and then communications, radar, optronics and INU equipment and mast upgrades for the Collins and new equipment for the Future Submarine, and SAFRAN is looking at a significant portfolio of growth opportunities in Australia.