Bombardier Defense, a coveted solution on the rise across the world: an interview with Steve Patrick, Vice-President of Bombardier Defense

Main image: A generic rendering of a Global 6500 configured for medical evacuation.

Bombardier Defense continues to solidify its position as a leading provider of missionized aircraft solutions worldwide. 

Global Defence Technology spoke with Steve Patrick, Vice-President of Bombardier Defense, who shared with us the company's latest advancements, the strategic significance of their new office in Adelaide, and the versatile capabilities of Bombardier's customizable platforms.  

From VIP and Head of State transport to medical evacuation and multi-role aircraft, learn how Bombardier go about quickly converting their aircraft, and the unique offerings that truly set Bombardier apart in the defense sector. 

Lot Fourteen feels as though it's going to become the nucleus of a larger defense ecosystem. This location allows Bombardier to be well placed and in a strategic area where we can build networks, helping us form local partnerships and collaborations in both business and academia. Having that presence in Adelaide and a service center over in Melbourne, we've now got two feet on the continent. It's a great position to be in for us to better serve existing and future clients.

Classic business jets tend to go to corporations, to fleet operators, to high-net-worth individuals. There's a variety of uses for them: some are looking for a productive office in the sky, some are looking for an on-demand charter service, others as their own personal mode of transport in a comfortable and safe environment. When we look at what heads of government require, they need safe, reliable transportation for themselves and their staff. They need a workable cabin space to have meetings, video conferences and phone calls with other world leaders, and they need to arrive wherever they're going refreshed, and ready for business.  

What we do a little bit differently for governments and Head of States is how we lay the aircraft out. Typically, the Head of State might need their own separate, secure working space with a security detail, then you may have space for advisors or even members of the press. It's no longer the lounge, the dining room, the bedroom - as you will see on a business jet typically - but instead it's an office, a private state room, a security space.  

There is also a flexibility from our end in how we may connect the aircraft to the world. A Head of State wants to keep in touch with their government back at home, so they not only need high bandwidth communications, but they need them to be secure and encrypted as well. In some cases, we can do these adjustments in-house, or else, we partner with providers that can provide the capabilities needed by the client.  

Beyond the communication needs and the customized layout of the aircraft, you start getting into things like self-protection systems. A lot of these dignitaries fly into areas that are maybe somewhat challenged, so we can install laser-based self-protection systems.

For governments, it’s hard to justify having an aircraft that purely does VIP transport. So quite often, they look for other uses for that aircraft. A typical combination we might see is VIP and medical evacuation, transport of a disaster or crisis response teams, or transport of urgent cargo.  

Let's think about your own scenario down in Australia - you have research bases down in Antarctica, occasionally you have personnel down there that require urgent medical treatment. We can take your government VIP aircraft, remove a few seats and put a stretcher in, repatriate them back to mainland Australia, and do it probably quicker and more effectively than sending a huge military transport or tanker aircraft.  

With crisis response teams, what you might do is take your government VIP aircraft, add some extra seats to it and increase its passenger carrying capability. From a cargo perspective, sometimes it's a government need, maybe a military need or a scientific payload - if you must move something quickly from A to B, you can remove a few seats, and put in some cargo nets. Those alternate uses make it a much more valuable proposition for a government than just being the Head of State aircraft. 

We’ve done conversions on Learjet, on Challenger, and on Global aircraft. Just recently, in Poland, a couple of Learjet 75 aircraft have been doing medical evacuation from Ukraine. We announced an order at the Berlin Air Show from ADAC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club), where they got a Challenger 650 for the medical evacuation needs of their clients. Another example is a German company called FAI, and they do longer range medical evacuation with our Global aircraft.  

In short, our aircraft are being selected for short, medium, long-range needs, with a variable number of patients – a lot of it is because of the versatility we can offer. It’s not just “Take it or leave it.”, there’s always a conversation with our customers about “What do you need? And how can we satisfy your need?”.

Recently, we highlighted the roll out of Pegasus (Persistent German Airborne Surveillance System), which is a signal intelligence aircraft based on our Global 6000 aircraft platform. Then, we had some exciting news with a purchase made by the Finnish Border Guard. With Finland now joining NATO, Finland’s border is crucial for the military alliance. They bought a Challenger 650 aircraft with the RAPCON-X configuration. It’s basically Sierra Nevada Corporation’s airborne ISR-platform, which will give them a quantum leap in technology from their old turboprop, and we think that it's actually going to set a new benchmark for that category of aircraft and capability. If it's the right solution to patrol Finland’s borders, it's the right solution for many other countries who may have borders that they want to protect.

We were also present at the Farnborough International Airshow this past July, which was an opportunity to get back together with our customers, our suppliers and partners, and just keep the momentum going on multiple campaigns around the world. We're making every effort we can to make sure people understand how Bombardier platforms can help solve multiple problems.

Let us know what you need. We can find a solution - that is essentially our mantra.