The P3 Accord team holding both awards with National President Julie Hammer and South Australian President Bill Filmer

The RAAF Edinburgh-based P3 Accord project team has been successful at the South Australian Engineering Australia Achievement Awards this week.

Delivering the Tactical Common Data Link upgrade to Orion aircraft that supports Coalition operations in the Middle East, the team first won the major Project Management award, and then grabbed the top prize - the Malcolm Kinnaird Engineering Excellence Award. 

“This prize is usually dominated by civil investment and infrastructure projects in South Australia and it is first time that a Defence Aerospace project has taken the award,” said Officer Commanding Maritime Patrol Systems Program Office, Group Captain Tim Pedley. “Considering the relatively small size and cost of our project, it emphasises just how good our project management and design had to be, in essence it was a David and Goliath scenario,” he said.

Defence, BAE Systems Australia and Australian Aerospace are part of the P3 Accord Master Agreement that provides capability upgrades and Through-life-Support for the RAAF’s Orion AP-3C maritime patrol fleet.  The P-3 Accord partners are especially pleased to have received the award which is named for Malcolm Kinnaird, AC, who was also responsible in his illustrious career for recommending the current Defence capability development and acquisition two pass approach with Government.

The P-3 Accord rapidly acquired, integrated, tested and fielded the AP-3C Tactical Common Data Link (TCDL) capability for the AP-3C aircraft that are deployed to the Middle East Area of Operation (MEAO). The Defence Material Organisation delivered the TCDL capability to a very aggressive schedule and under budget through the strategic alliance.  The capability is now being introduced on all AP-3C aircraft under the AIR 5276 CAP1 project recently announced by the Minister for Defence in Adelaide on 15 Aug 08.

The judging panel was impressed with the commitment of the parties to build an ongoing relationship and recognised the benefits of strong strategic partnerships to deliver not only this project, but other upgrades for critical Defence assets. As a result, there is potential for Australian industry to undertake comparable work overseas.

“Australian Orions are now better placed to support Coalition operations in the Middle East with the introduction of ‘real time’ tactical video links to support ground and maritime forces,” GPCAPT Pedley said. “The upgrade enables RAAF Orion crews to provide Coalition commanders with valuable real time aerial views of their surrounding environment. The introduction of TCDL technology means that detailed, aerial visuals of an area can be beamed to ground troops, day or night, to help identify hostile or suspicious activities. This has never been successfully done by any major Australian Defence systems to date, let alone from an aircraft to individual soldiers.”

AP-3C Orions are traditionally a maritime patrol aircraft but since late 2003 the aircraft have been conducting overland patrols of Iraq, in addition to watching over international waters in the Persian Gulf.