“The long-term play for Honeywell is we want to be able to expand our capacity and meet demand with increased and resilient supply chains,” Honeywell executive Lee Davis told Breaking Defense. “The organization sees Australia as a good place to invest in a secure, like-minded nation.”
An on-the-ground look at the 2025 Avalon Air Show in Australia.
Industry showed up in force at the show, boosting foot traffic for a well-attended air show. American officials, however, were reticent to engage with the press, in contrast to their Royal Australian Air Force counterparts.
"I just think we don't quite understand how much this will change Air Force going forward," Australian Air Vice Marshall Nick Hogan said.
“[C]onceivably, based on where we are buying long-lead parts for Lot 21 we could make that happen,” said J.R. McDonald, Lockheed’s vice president of business development for the F-35 program.
"The next priority for production is Europe," Lockheed's Tim Cahill told reporters. "I would say the Middle East is the next area of direct priority and interest, both on the part of the countries and the part for us to produce."
In July 2023, Hanwha defeated Rheinmetall for a contract worth an estimated $5-7 billion AUD to deliver 129 IFV replacements for the country’s aging M113 fleet.
When Lt. Col. Eddie Miro, director of Papua New Guinea's tiny air force took the job, his country had one working helicopter. Today, Papua owns two PAC 750 single engine aircraft built in New Zealand.
“We’ve been flying a prototype for quite some time,” said Steve Parker, Boeing’s interim defense unit CEO. “And we won the program. So that is a maturity stamp that I’ll give you right then and there.”
Anduril has held talks with other countries in the region, executive David Goodrich said in an interview, but Australia is clearly a prime target.
Australia is transforming its defense industrial base, focusing on submarine and missile production to solidify its role in US and UK defense supply chains under AUKUS.
"We'll definitely look at air-ground in the future, but our focus priority is air-to-air," Steve Parker, Boeing's interim defense chief, told reporters during the Avalon Air Show.
AUKUS Pillar 2 is driving supply chain innovation and resiliency for non-submarine technologies that are key to the three-way industrial partnership.
Here's what the first day of the Avalon Air Show, located just outside of Melbourne, Australia, looked like.