When average median house price growth in a regional Queensland city starts nudging 10% a year, you know there’s something fairly big going on.
After years of being regarded as the so-called FIFO (Fly-In, Fly-Out) mining worker capital of Australia, the army’s 1st Aviation Regiment moved into Townsville from Darwin, consolidating Army Aviation’s chopper shops and creating what has arguably been the helicopter capital of Australia.
As reported previously, it’s a $700 million shift that will bring together maintenance and sustainment, training and capability development into one area to create a rotary aviation-industry hub for the nation that also looks likely to follow Nowra’s path of becoming factory-accredited for full deep maintenance.
And it’s a project that’s moving at pace too, with Defence saying on Friday it had “reached an important milestone with the recent establishment of a $306 million Apache initial support contract with Boeing Defence Australia.”
The AH-64E Apache, a Boeing product, is the current US-issue attack helicopter and will replace the ARH Tiger when it is phased out of service in 2028. Australia hasn’t had a lot of luck with European military helicopters, with both the MRH-90 and the ARH-Tiger being retired early because of operational difficulties. The Tigers are not coming to Townsville, they are staying in Darwin. The Apaches, like the Chinooks and Blackhawks, will fly out of Townsville.
“Army Aviation’s command and control has been streamlined following the transfer of command of Army Aviation Training Centre and its subordinate units to 16th Aviation Brigade,” Defence said, saying the occasion was marked by commander of aviation command Major General Stephen Jobson,” along with members of Army Aviation and invited guests” attending a “transfer of authority parade at RAAF Base Townsville on April 4.”
“The transfer brings [the] Army Aviation Training Centre under the direct command of commander 16th aviation brigade Brigadier Fern Thompson,” Defence said, adding “A prominent aspect of the transformation was to reduce command, control and management complexity, enabling efficiencies across the capability and optimising [the] army for accelerated warfare.”
It also helps create a rotary-wing expert community by bringing training, flight and maintenance facilities together that more easily lends itself to becoming a regional heli-hub that can also service the needs of Australia’s allies and neighbours generating local employment and skills.
“While this is a period of challenge, I can assure all of you that the opportunity here is to set the army aviation capability up for success for many years into the future,” Jobson said.
“It is a great day for Army Aviation in our ongoing transformation and advancement of the army aviation capability. Let’s go forward with optimism, confidence, determination and discipline as a unified capability.”
READ MORE:
No flowers, plenty of tears, in Army’s swift goodbye to MRH-90 Taipans
