AVIATION_AUSTRALIAAUSTRALIAN FLYING January - February 201536 General Aviation in China australianflying.com.au
they work on certain parts of large
aircraft. They don’t work on the
whole aeroplane.
“They’re absolutely blown away
that we can actually assemble a
plane and fly it and sign it out
ourselves. To go and just repair
an undercarriage or a flap or a
component in the aeroplane, have
one person pull it out, repair it, put
it back in and test fly it ... they just
don’t have that experience.”
Brumby will bridge the gap by
bringing manufacturing personnel
to Australia in January for a series
of courses and experiences designed
to make them effective on the
factory floor. The syllabus will
involve both technical skills, and a
more western way of approachingauthority and responsibility.
“In China it’s a high regime so the
workers are down below and everyone
else has to go to a leading hand and
the leading hand of course goes to
the engineering supervisor and right
up the chain,” he said. “We’re sort
of cutting that out and we’re having
one person, or two people in charge
and the worker will be directly
under them. We’re doing it a little bit
differently, we’re doing it in the way
we do it in the west. And that’s how
it’s going to be over there for us.”Inevitable brickbats
And in addition to battling the
material issues of investing and
building in China, Brumby has had todeal with naysayers at home who either
warn the company of having its designs
stolen, or accuse it of abandoning its
Australian roots. Goard takes issue
with both assumptions.
“I get disappointed because the
moment you do a big deal like
this people think oh, you’ve gone
overseas,” he said. “But you know,
we’re not going to live in China.
We’re not going to put people off,
in fact we’ve put people on here at
the moment because we’ve got a
backlog of planes, but when we start
bringing these aeroplanes across,
we’ve got to sell them and we’ve got
to sell an awful lot of aeroplanes in
the next five years and all that here
keeps our industry going. And I
think that’s the only way you can do
it, or you just sell the whole lot and
don’t be involved.”
Goard is similarly dismissive of
those worried that the Chinese will
simply reverse engineer the Brumby.
“If it was a cup or a chair or a
table they could copy it and make
thousands,” he said,“but it’s a plane,
it’s systems. And the way in which
the plane’s constructed, they don’t
have that experience and they can’t
just produce it. Then they don’t know
how to look after it as an ongoing
airworthy aircraft.”
But he believes the sheer size of
the market and possible returns will
reward the effort involved.
“Our theory behind it is to get the
planes in to the training environmentfrom the grass roots and it’s sort
of no good buying a Cirrus to go
training in China. These guys are
going to be low time and have very
little experience, so you want to
make it as easy as you can.
“So China is a big opportunity
but there’s also a lot of work for
manufacturers to do to get them
competent. They’re basically 100
years behind in GA aviation. I think
they’ll take 20 to catch up.”A tricky market
Brisbane based Aviation Australia
will be doing its best to ensure
Paul Goard has access to a cadre
of trained engineers in future.
Founded by the Queensland
State Government in 2001, the
company trains engineers and
cabin crew and over its years of
operation, has partnered with 60
airlines and aerospace companies,
governments, defence forces
and regulatory authorities, with
more than 1000 graduates in the
aerospace industry worldwide.
In September this year Aviation
Australia signed a partnering
agreement with a Chinese
education provider in Shanghai,
which already has strong ties in
the local aviation system, airports
and airlines. Under the terms of
the deal, Chinese aviation students
will study subjects such as aircraft
maintenance engineering, cabin
crew and technical English at
Aviation Australia’s Brisbane
facility and Aviation Australia will
also develop tailored training for
the Chinese market and deliver
subjects up in China.
Aviation Australia’s General
Manager of Aviation Training, Allan
Brooks, said the deal was the result
of years of study, visits to market and
relationship building in China.“you don’t go up there, have one
meeting and sign the deal”L E F T: Philip Goard, Director
of Brumby Aircraft, and Jiang
Congping, President of AVIC Fujian,
sign the 40-year partnership deal
that has seen the Cowra-based
aircraft manufacturer gain a
foothold in the Chinese market.
BOTTOM LEFT: Aviation Australia
is set to train aviation professionals
in both China and Australia.BRUMBY AIRCRAFT