By Lisa Gordon | February 1, 2013 Estimated reading time 4 minutes, 44 seconds.
Diverse aviation services company Discovery Air is merging two of its operating companies, Top Aces and Discovery Air Innovations, in order to better pursue the air combat training and in service support markets.
Top Aces, originally established by three former CF-18 Hornet pilots in 2000, and subsequently acquired by Discovery Air in 2007, specializes in providing realistic fast air combat support training to the Department of National Defence (DND) under the interim Contracted Airborne Training Services (iCATS) program. Since its inception, the organization has built a solid reputation and is very highly regarded in its field.
Discovery Air Innovations is the business development arm of Discovery Air. It focuses on identifying and developing new domestic and international business opportunities.
Together, the two operating companies will be rebranded as Discovery Air Defence Services (DADS). The new company will focus on the expansion of in-service support (ISS) programs to national and international government customers, particularly Canadian DND, and the pursuit of domestic and international combat support markets.
This doesn’t necessarily change our day-to-day work, said Garry Venman, DADS’ vice president, government services. It just better aligns the bulk of what we’re doing. It’s all one big team now, very much focused on government and defence procurement.
Venman explained the main reason for the change. It better reflects Top Aces’ relationship with its parent company, Discovery Air. We really want to communicate to the market that this is more than just a fighter operation. There’s a lot more to Top Aces than what people see on the surface, which is the pilots and the jets. The service Top Aces provides to DND is a complex operation. To achieve the extremely high level of aircraft availability that Top Aces does, it also takes engineering, maintenance, fleet management, logistics, quality control, supply chain management, operations, scheduling, finance and human resource management.
Venman said the new name will better reflect the fact that DADS is part of a much larger company capable of full spectrum ISS. We figure out what the customer needs and then deliver it from every aspect, in a completely turn-key fashion.
He said the Discovery Air management team has been discussing the rebranding for quite a while now, but the tipping point came when Airbus Military announced last October that it had selected Discovery Air as its primary in-service support partner for the C-295 Canadian fixed-wing search and rescue (FWSAR) program bid.
Clearly, our capabilities have been recognized by Airbus Military, said Venman. DND is implementing an industry engagement strategy on FWSAR. That engagement process will define the scope of the ISS work on the FWSAR fleet; but, regardless of what the scope of the in-service support ends up being, we can do it. We are already doing it.
At the end of the day, the Air Force needs a partner they can count on – a partner that can adjust to their changing demands, Venman continued. That culture needs to be there, and our company has that in spades.
At the time of writing, Discovery Air was communicating news about the change to its 850 employees. Venman said they’ve had several questions, particularly from the Top Aces crew. The guys there are extremely proud of the name and what they’ve done, and understandably so, he said. There is such positive energy around the name Top Aces and we want to continue to capitalize on that for the combat support market, but we also want to ensure that the Discovery Air name is associated more closely with the company.
DADS will be looking at developing international combat support opportunities, along the lines of what it’s already doing in Canada. The company is also equipped to offer surveillance solutions and military advanced fighter jet lead-in training.
