Quickstep Holding, an aerospace composites manufacturer in Australia, has unveiled its new flare housing manufacturing facility at its Bankstown site. The facility is meant to manufacture composite housings for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter aircraft’s countermeasure flares, which form an essential part of the aircraft’s defensive capability.

The facility was launched by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price.

Mark Burgess, CEO and managing director of Quickstep, said, "This exciting new project has seen the further development of our world-class advanced manufacturing capabilities here at Bankstown Airport. We applied advanced tooling, robotics and process engineering skills to develop this facility, which will competitively position Quickstep to secure more F-35 work and other defence and aerospace projects in the future."

Quickstep has partnered with Chemring Australia for the supply of countermeasure flare housings. This partnership represents an evolution of Quickstep’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme work – from the production of composite parts, including fuselage components and vertical tail parts, to the manufacturing of consumable flare housings.

This capability highlights Quickstep’s increasingly important contribution to Australia’s sovereign defence industrial base and the world’s largest military aerospace programme.

Morrison said, "This really is an amazing success story for Australia, in seven years Quickstep has gone from a WA start-up, to a business that now employs 230 people.”

Quickstep is Australia’s largest independent aerospace-grade advanced composite manufacturer. It is a global provider of advanced composite solutions to the aerospace, defence, automotive and other advanced manufacturing sectors. Quickstep partners with some of the world’s largest defence organisations, including Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and Boeing Defence, and is a major supplier to the global F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme.