Air 7003 Team Reaper Australia takes shape

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), the leading manufacturer of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) systems, radars, electro-optic and related mission systems, today outlined the tangible progress of Team Reaper^® Australia towards achieving the Australian Industry Content requirements for this project. GA-ASI first unveiled Team Reaper Australia at AVALON 2017 when the team consisted of four companies dedicated to the support, development and manufacture of RPA for the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Since then, the team has grown to 10 members.

This past November, the Australian Government named GA-ASI to provide the Armed RPA system under Project Air 7003, with the specific variant – the MQ-9A or advanced MQ-9B – to be selected during 2019.

"We've brought together a world-class group of companies that make up Team Reaper Australia, and the team continues to grow," said Linden Blue, CEO of GA-ASI. "Following the Australian Government's selection of GA-ASI to provide the Armed RPAS, Team Reaper Australia activity has increased significantly and all team members committed to supporting ADF requirements."

While the specific support requirements are still in definition between the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG), the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and General Atomics, Team Reaper Australia is currently geared towards the following services and capabilities:

• Cobham Aviation Services Australia – Lead Partner – Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO), logistics
• CAE Australia – RPA training devices, training services, support material and courseware
• Airspeed – Sovereign payload pods and in-country composite repairs
• Flight Data Systems – Aviation services and products, including environmental testing of line-replaceable units, flight data acquisition, monitoring and analysis
• Raytheon Australia – Electro-Optical/Infrared image systems, and integration of payloads and weapons
• Collins Aerospace – Fast Attack (FasTAK) Network Joint Fires on Rosetta Data Link Processor Gateway for Digital Joint Fires
• Quickstep Technologies – Composite component manufacturing
• Sentient Vision Systems – Autonomous detection systems, including all environmental ViDAR Wide Area Motion Imagery
• TAE Aerospace – Honeywell TPE331 Engine MRO and other powerplant-related component manufacturing
• Ultra Electronics Australia – Electronic Warfare (EW) payloads

With the selection of GA-ASI to supply the ADF RPAS, Australia joins other top-tier military forces in choosing a MQ-9 variant because of its proven, multi-role combat performance and networking/interoperability effects. Known as the warfighters' choice, the MQ-9 is part of GA-ASI's Predator^® series of RPAS, which is the world's most trusted and capable Armed Medium-Altitude, Long-Endurance (MALE) RPAS, and hails from a family of RPA systems that recently surpassed five million flight hours.