Private Wings

The aircraft will be based at RAAF Base Pearce north of Perth and will replace the RSAF’s fleet of SIAI Marchetti S. 211 jet trainers. All 19 PC-21s are expected to have been delivered by the end of 2008.

Private Wings The program aims to pro-vide 7000 flight hours and an additional 2000 hours in two full flight simulators per year, with the aircraft being oper-ated by the RSAF’s 130SQN using its own instructors.

The BWC will provide basic training to students looking to transition to other RSAF fixed wing types, including the F-16C/D, the forthcoming F-15SG, C-130, E-2C, or even the planned F-35 Lightning II.

Advanced and lead-in fighter training (LIFT) for RSAF crews will continue to be conducted on TA-4SU Super Skyhawks based at Cazaux in France and by the NATO Flying Training operation in Canada on the BAE Hawk.

The RSAF has stated it pursued a private-public partnership to take advantage of commercial practices and efficiencies, and to better manage risks.

Since winning the contract Lockheed Martin has em-barked on a training needs analysis in preparation for a three phased introduction of the program. “One of the interesting parts of this contract is that for the first eight months we are doing what we call the training needs analysis,” explained Lockheed Martin’s vice president of flight solutions, Lorraine Martin, in an inter-view with Australian Aviation in Singapore. “That will cover not only the Basic Wings but a broader perspective as well. The analysis looks at optimising how we are going to use what kinds of assets and when. The RSAF will be running the services of 19 aircraft, but we then will work hand in hand with them in building the syllabus and course-ware that optimises the students’ time, the money, and the assets in the most cost effective and efficient way. ” The contract has three phases. “The first phase is called ‘mobilisation’; it’s about a two year process, where we will be putting in place all of the various components of the training program,” Martin said. “BWC is a contract between us and the RSAF to build a ‘turn-key’ training program which includes all kinds of devices to help with the training but also setting up the course-ware, the syllabus, the approach that we will be taking to do the Basic Wings course. We will start to have both simulators and aircraft in position in Pearce in the early part of 2008, and we will start our initial service commencement, our initial training activity in June 2008. So it is a fast program; we knew we would have to get out of the gate quickly. ” Indeed, the partnership wasted no time in getting to work on the project, with both the decision being announced and the contract being signed in Singapore on November 3, and work com-mencing on the first aircraft at Pilatus’s Stans facility in Switzerland on November 6.

“The next phase of the program is ‘transition’,” Martin continued. “They have a Basic Wings Course today in Pearce, and they have an aircraft that is being retired. It’s been in service for some time, and we will have some parallel operations for a little while. We have to make sure that we work the transition from the current training operation to the new train-ing operation in an effective fashion.

“And then there is ‘service commencement’ phase which starts in June 2008 and continues for a 20 year period over the life of the contract. Each phase is a little bit different, depending on what is going on and how many people are being used depending on the phase of the program. It is a pretty fast start, I can say. ” The Singapore Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) commenced an evaluation of contender aircraft and systems solutions for the RSAF’s BWC replace-ment program in 2005. As well as the PC-21, the Alenia Aermacchi M-311, Embraer’s EMB-314 Super Tucano and the Raytheon T-6 Texan II were also looked at.

“Singapore wants quality trained pilots with the right kind of skills coming out the other end, which is the whole focus of the contract,” Martin explained. “They left that up to each of the bidders to understand how you would tackle that problem, with what kind of asset, with how many of them, with what quality, what version. Each of the bidders had a different aircraft, all with different strategies, simulators, desktop computing and training. ” Pilatus has been building advanced turboprop trainers since the late 1970s in the form of the PC-7 and PC-9, of which the RAAF currently operates more than 50 for basic training, forward air control development training, and the Roulettes demonstra-tion team. In 1998, Pilatus commenced privately funded development of the PC-21, and the aircraft’s configura-tion was defined in consulta-tion with several potential customers including Australia, Switzerland, South Africa and the UK.

Although based on the PC-9 airframe, the PC-21 features a more radically stepped tandem cockpit, a 1600shp (1193kW) PT6A- 68B turboprop driving a five bladed Hartzell composite propeller, and a mild 12. 3 degree wing leading edge sweep. The fighter-like cockpit features three large main multi-function displays (MFDs) and two smaller standby MFDs for each pilot, a heads-up display (HUD) for the front cockpit and the option of a HUD repeater for the rear, full hands on throttle and stick (HOTAS) controls, and all instruments are night vision goggle compatible.

For Singapore’s require-ments, Pilatus is reportedly planning to incorporate a number of changes to the PC-21’s advanced cockpit layout, including changes to its HOTAS arrangement and some software and symbol-ogy enhancements to its flight control system displays to more closely resemble those systems used on its F-16 and forthcoming F-15SG fighters.

“The PC-21 cockpit is reconfigurable, which is a really nice aspect of the aircraft that we have chosen,” Martin explained. “It’s also a glass cockpit, which is what some of the next genera-tion aircraft are like such as the JSF. This helps a pilot early in his career to get more accustomed to that kind of environment. It’s really im-portant to get them focused to that kind of reaction, that kind of environment, that kind of display symbology. ” A similar PPP solution to that chosen by Singapore is one of a number of options currently under consideration by the RAAF to replace its PC-9s at Pearce and East Sale and the BAE Flying College’s CT-4 Airtrainers at Tamworth under Project Air 5428 from 2008, and Lockheed Martin is expected to build on its current relationships with Pilatus and Hawker Pacific to offer a PC-21 based solution to Australia.

In the meantime, Switzerland will likely be the lead customer for the aircraft after signing an MoU for six aircraft for delivery from mid 2007. The UK also announced on November 30 that the Lockheed Martin UK led Ascent Consortium, a teaming with UK defence contractor VT, had been selected as the preferred bidder for the Military Flying Training System (MFTS), the first step in a £10bn (A$25bn) program to over-haul the UK’s military flight training for RAF, RN and British Army air crews.

Although the top tier BAE Hawk 128 is the only new platform selected to date for the MFTS, and ground based systems to support the Hawk will be the first training ele-ments to enter service under the new system, the PC-21 is a leading candidate to replace the RAF’s Embraer Tucanos for the basic and advanced elements of the training syl-labus. MFTS is also expected to eventually provide primary, mission specialist, multi-en-gined and helicopter training aircraft and systems.

In the meantime, Lorraine Martin told AA that Lockheed Martin would be very interested in pitching a similar solution to that chosen by Singapore to the ADF, as well as a basic training focused one to replace the CT-4s, for Air 5428 when it matures in 2008. “We’re looking at the whole continuum, including the basic program,” she said. “My organisation’s primary focus is to prepare pilots and crews associated with air activity for their missions. So the Australian training program is very much of interest to us. ” The ADF seems open to the idea of a PFI arrange-ment for Air 5428. “Whilst there are no specific joint proposals at this stage, when you’re talking about the pos-sibility of a (private finance initiative) arrangement, there’s definitely ways to leverage this,” the ADF’s Air 5428 project manager, SQNLDR Grant Christensen, told AA in an interview last July. “We would definitely give it consideration. ” Interestingly and to this end, in order to be better informed on the tendering processes, program structure, and the viability of such an arrangement, the RAAF was granted official observer status in Singapore’s selection process.

If the RAAF were to leverage off the Singapore program when it makes its Air 5248 decision sometime in 2008, it would already have an insight into how to establish and support such an operation, and perhaps even an opportunity to form some kind of combined training system with the RSAF, an air arm that has a similar force structure and training standards to those of the RAAF.