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Australia will run restricted competition for JP 129 replacement
Senior Australian defence capability planners have confirmed there will be a restricted competition process for the troubled Australian Army JP129 tactical UAV requirement.
Defence officials appearing before Australian Senate budget hearings 22 October had advised that a requirements validation process is now underway with the restricted competition to be fast tracked.
The head of Australian defence capability development Vice Admiral Matt Tripovich told the Senate hearings that ‘We are doing a quick review of the requirements to make sure they are still valid and there are no requirements that are impossible to meet, if you like, with the technology that is around so we can return to government with advice about the options available for government to quickly fill the gap left by the cancellation of JP129.
‘I think the important thing is to make sure our requirements match what is on the market, within reason, to try to shorten the time frame. There will be a delay, obviously, as we have to go back to the market in some form, but we will do that as quickly as we can.’
Australia cancelled its prime contract with Boeing Australia for the JP 129 requirement at the start of September. The project had been predicated on the acquisition of the Israeli Aerospace Industries I-View 250 system.
The head of the Australian Defence Material Organisations aerospace systems office, Air Vice Marshal Clive Rossiter, told the Senate hearings that Boeing Australia had ‘subcontracted about 70 per cent of that contract to Israel Aerospace Industries. Most of the development work and production work was being done by IAI.
‘Since awarding the contract, Boeing and their subcontractors have had some difficulty developing the solution, if you like. It was intended to largely be built with off-the-shelf level technology with a moderate level of integration work and be relatively low risk.
‘That did not prove to be the case. Despite a number of attempts by Boeing to replan and rescope the activity and look at different ways of solving the technical problems, in the end none of them provided acceptable capability outcomes or an acceptable schedule to Defence.’
Boeing was formally placed in default on the contract in August, a month before the cancellation announcement.
Rossiter confirmed that discussions had occurred on potentially proceeding with the I-View 250 acquisition: ‘We had a number of meetings to examine whether it was recoverable and concluded that there was not a sensible solution. On that basis, on about 4 September we terminated the contract.’
The Australian Government mandated repayment of AUD$6 million already given to Boeing under the contract. Rossiter told hearings that amount has now been repaid: ‘We got all the money back that we had paid Boeing, which was only about $6 million at that stage because we were withholding payments for failure to deliver against the contract.’
By Peter La Franchi, Canberra
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