Australia’s Defense Department removed three major projects, including the Joint 129 Phase 2 project for tactical unmanned aircraft, from its official list of contracts falling behind schedule or having cost overruns.
The announcement was made by the Minister for Defense Stephen Smith and Minister for Defense Materiel Jason Clare.
The Joint 129 Phase 2 is for two Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems, first approved in 2005. Each system consists of five aircraft, two ground control stations as well as associated support systems, logistics and training.
But the project was added to the Projects of Concern List in 2008 when the original contract to acquire TUAV systems from a commercial supplier was terminated because of technical issues and schedule delays.
Following cancellation of the original contract, in 2010 government approved the acquisition of two off-the-shelf Shadow 200 systems, made by AAI Corp., under a US Foreign Military Sales arrangement.
The first of these has been delivered for use in Afghanistan, allowing the government to remove the project from the list, the statement said.
Source: UPI