Thales Delivers Hawkei Vehicles To Australian Army

Thales Australia has delivered a further two Hawkei vehicles to the Defence Materiel Organisation on schedule. 

The handover of the two Reconnaissance variants under Stage 2 of the Manufactured and Supported in Australia option of Land 121 Phase 4 means that all six vehicles are now with the Department of Defence for testing.

The six vehicles comprise two Command variants, two Utility variants and two Reconnaissance variants, plus a trailer. 

Vehicles already delivered have so far completed almost half of the planned 100,000km of testing scheduled for the evaluation period. Subject to successful testing of the vehicles, final approval of the project is expected circa 2015, as detailed in the 2012 Defence Capability Plan. 

Thales Australia CEO Chris Jenkins, said, “We are very pleased to deliver these final two vehicles to Defence on schedule. They are backed by the expertise of our protected mobility engineering teams, and we are working closely with Defence to support the testing and evaluation process.” 

“We have invested $30 million in Hawkei, and Australian industry has also put significant effort into the development of these vehicles. I’d like to thank all the companies in the supply chain who have helped us meet this important milestone.”