Penguin Composites signs contract for Hawkei
Penguin Composites has signed a three-year contract worth over $8 million with Thales Australia to build components for the Hawkei protected vehicle, the Australian Department of Defence (DoD) announced on 17 October.
The company - which specialises in the design and engineering of moulds and plugs, fibreglass and composite component manufacturing - will build components including bonnets and various parts, with the manufacture of prototype parts already underway and production parts scheduled to be available from late December.
Minister for Defence Industry, Christopher Pyne, said: ‘This is a textbook example of how Australian small-to-medium enterprises are building their capabilities and contributing to our sovereign defence industry capability.’
Thales Australia is supplying 1100 Hawkei vehicles and over 1000 trailers to the Australian Army under a $1.3 billion contract signed with the Australian DoD in October 2015.
Related Equipment in Defence Insight
More from Land Warfare
-
![K9 rolls on as Egypt unveils systems, Australia fires and Vietnam and Norway place orders]()
K9 rolls on as Egypt unveils systems, Australia fires and Vietnam and Norway place orders
Hanwha Aerospace’s tracked K9 Thunder 155mm/52-calibre self-propelled howitzer has had notable success in the market over the past few years in Europe and Asia, with Poland alone ordering 316 systems.
-
![De-Risking the Future: Manufacturing Certainty for Unmanned Systems]()
De-Risking the Future: Manufacturing Certainty for Unmanned Systems
How strategic manufacturing partnership solves the industrialisation triad — Scale, Compliance and Cost — for hyper-growth defence tech innovators.
-
![Battlefield mobility, made in the UK]()
Battlefield mobility, made in the UK
How does Britain ensure that we can preserve the lives of our soldiers and allies – now and in the future – with homegrown innovation and resilient domestic manufacturing? At Pearson Engineering, we are proud to be a central part of the answer to this increasingly important question.
