News Review: King Airs in the air for RAAF | ADM Dec 09/Jan 10

1 January 2010

Hawker Pacific has signed a long term performance based, turn key lease and support contract with DMO to supply and support King Air 350 interim ADF light transport aircraft capability based in Townsville, North Queensland.

The contract is innovative in its support arrangements that are specifically tailored to meet the demanding RAAF Air Lift operational requirements.

The program will deliver an important strategic capability to the ADF in Australia and the Asia Pacific Region in roles such as air logistics; command and control; and reconnaissance.

The eight modified King Air 350 aircraft will provide a gap capability between the retirement of the Caribou and its eventual replacement under Project Air 8000.

"This program will build upon the success of the previous Army Fixed Wing capability at Oakey in Queensland and the existing Air Combat Officer (ACO) training capability in East Sale," Doug Park, Senior Vice President Australian Operations said.

"Hawker Pacific's approach of combining civilian efficiencies and tailored military specific customer outcomes will deliver Air Lift Group with a powerful complement to its existing Air Lift capabilities.

"The King Air 350 is a high performance turboprop aircraft that has proven itself to Army and RAAF as a most cost effective, flexible and reliable platform - and we expect that these attributes will be fully exploited by Air Lift Group in the coming years."

The Interim Light Transport (ILT) fleet of King Air 350 aircraft began operations under RAAF control at RAAF Townsville in November 2009 following the transfer of the existing Oakey based Army Fixed Wing fleet.

The ILT fleet will be at full strength by mid 2010.