As Martin-Baker Aircraft Company enters its 80th year, having saved over 7776 lives, 80 of which have been Australian, Martin-Baker Australia is going to celebrate its 10th Anniversary in 2025. From a very small beginning in 2015, the company has now grown to three sites providing MRO&U, spares, technical services and most recently training services for aircrew.
The current support for ejection and crashworthy seats in Australia extends to nine aircraft types for the ADF and the crashworthy seat support covers many more operators in the Police, EMS and search and rescue domain. Outside of Australia, Martin-Baker Australia supports New Zealand and many of our neighbours, including the global JSF programme.
The Martin-Baker Australia team now exceeds twelve personnel from diverse backgrounds. With this growth and expansion comes the need to look to the future and establish the bespoke infrastructure that the company needs to grow from a small to a medium enterprise, not only to support Australian sovereign requirements but those requirements of partners and allies in the region.
“Our aspiration for growth in the areas of training, manufacture and pyrotechnic storage and distribution fit well with the establishment of a regional depot facility for F-35 ejection seats.” said Andrew Eden, Managing Director of Martin-Baker Australia. “We firmly believe that these activities will strongly support the Australian Government’s desire for sovereign capability and with our IP primarily coming from the UK and the tangible support to Super Hornet, Growler and F-35 programs based in the USA, the alignment with the goals of AUKUS cannot be understated.”
“What has been achieved in the ten years since we established Martin-Baker Australia has delighted us back at the UK headquarters. There are innovations and approaches to tasks that the team in Australia have developed that I believe are a direct result of them being a small team on the other side of the planet. Australians have a different way of looking at things and that has only brought value to our organisation.” said Andrew Martin, Director of Business Development and Marketing. “We are committed to providing infrastructure in Australia to continue the growth and innovation from the last 10 years. We believe the ultimate benefactors of this investment will be the Australian Defence Force through greater efficiency, more streamlined service and providing a true strategic advantage to global programmes of which Australia is a participant.”
Long term investments in infrastructure require long term commitments and support in terms of policy and the greater Defence Industry to assist in the growth of local medium sized enterprises. This is potentially the greatest challenge in ensuring the growth required to achieve the aspirations above that will no doubt support Australian sovereign capability.
Martin-Baker Australia is a major sponsor of Avalon 2025 and will be exhibiting at stand 1M32
