Power flight

However, relief has arrived in the form of three AgustaWestland 109E Power helicopters for Navy’s Retention and Motivation Initiative (RMI), which was established to allow its growing pool of junior qualified aircrew to con-solidate their skills on a more advanced

“The Powers will give us a capability which we currently lack”

platform prior to commencing OFT.

The trio of single pilot IFR capable A 109Es, provided by Raytheon Australia on a four year, $28 million ‘turn-key’ contract, will provide 1500 flying hours per year for Navy aircrew while offering a smoother transition from the Squirrel to operational types.

“The Powers will give us a capability which we currently lack,” said Defence Minister Dr Brendan Nelson during a launch ceremony of two of the heli-copters at Raytheon Australia’s Nowra facility on August 1.

“The innovative approach which Navy, DMO, and Raytheon Australia has taken in providing these aircraft means we’ve also got some additional capability for a number of other roles important to further enhancement of our naval aviation capability,” said Dr Nelson.

The Powers are not necessarily just for motivating Navy’s junior aircrew, its instructors are benefiting from them as well.

Rapid Acquisition

Getting the Powers into Navy’s hands was a very rapid process. In July 2006 the government released a restricted request for tender (RFT) to companies which held an authorised engineering organisation certification.

In December Raytheon Australia, selected as the preferred supplier for RMI out of four competing companies, signed a contract with the government and placed orders for the three helicopters.

“It has taken just over 12 months from the time the tender was released until the first pilots were using them” said Raytheon Australia’s general manager strategy Michael Ward.

“Navy set down a schedule and then kept to it. From an industry perspective it was fantastic to go through a process where there was a laid down process and it was adhered to. ” The first two FADEC equipped Turbomeca Arrius 2K1 turbine engined Powers arrived in Australia earlier this year to undertake an extensive modifica-tion program at Bankstown Airport with Heliflite. In one of the largest modifications completed on an A 109E outside AgustaWestland’s factory in Italy, Heliflite fitted a comprehensive avionics suite to the helicopters including an RNAV capable GPS, three axis duplex automatic flight control system, weather radar, a cargo hook, and emergency floatation equipment.

The first pair of Powers were acquired from the Swedish Defence Force and came already fitted with a 272kg rescue hoist and a Spectrolab SX-16 Nitesun search light. The third A 109E was sourced from a French EMS operator and is currently undergoing modification work for the RMI role before delivery in the next few months.

Of the first two Powers, N42-501 wears the traditional Navy grey while N42-510 sports an all-over gloss black paint scheme with metallic gold roundels and lettering. Navy officials chose to keep the Power in its black colour scheme saying the helicop-ter signifies Navy’s winter uniform (Navy officers wear a black uniform in the winter months and white in summer). The third, N42-505, will be painted grey.

A challenging issue for Raytheon Australia was the military type certifica-tion the Powers needed to attain for operation on the state (military) register.

“We brought them across from the civil register to operate on the state register but are maintaining compatibil-ity with the civil register so when we’re finished with them they can go back to being VH registered quite easily,” said Ward. “Getting them on to the state reg-ister was a big step but we got through that in pretty much record time. ” Raytheon Australia will make two helicopters available online each day for four sorties (two per helicopter), while the third helicopter will act as a backup for scheduled maintenance and unserv-iceabilities. Raytheon licensed engineers will maintain them at its Nowra facility in a second hangar commissioned earlier this year to accommodate the RMI and possible future projects.

“The expansion of our facilities allows us to look at the prospects of where Air 9000 Phase 7 might go and, although RMI is in no way associated with that project, we would like to bring our presence and our capability here at Nowra to bear,” said Ward.

Turning On The Power

Navy stood up A 109E Flight within training unit 723SQN to operate the A 109Es and to implement the RMI.

A 109E Flight completed its instruc-tor training on the type in early August and then commenced the conversion training of its first two pilots.

“Because of their experience we expect the training of the first pair to only take three weeks before they’re fully booted and spurred,” said Lieutenant Commander Pat Davitt, one of A 109E Flight’s senior qualified helicopter instructors (QHIs).

By early September the Flight plans to train two each of 723SQN’s recently qualified pilots, observers, and crewmen on to the Power.

“After completing a ground school we’d expect to have them fully trained in about six weeks,” explained LTCDR Davitt.

For 723SQN’s aircrew the Powers’ arrival is something to be excited about.

“It’s the technology in the aircraft that makes it exciting for us,” said Lieutenant Scott Gutterson, one of the first pilots to be trained on the type.

“For the observers sitting up the front in the Squirrel there is not a great deal for them to do. The Power has got weather radar and GPS plus it will involve them more as part of the crew rather than sitting there looking out the window. ” Once qualified on the Power, Gutterson and others will be able to fly the helicop-ters for the air crewman and observer training flights, allowing the QHIs to concentrate on training new pilots.

The RMI will have the capacity to train approximately 20 to 25 pilots, air crewmen, and observers per year, limited by the amount of office space the Flight has to accommodate its staff.

“The current bunch of guys have already been programmed for OFT so the idea is to have them complete the training and be 109E qualified aircrew then we’ll put them to work,” said LTCDR Davitt.

Power aircrew will be tasked to hold SAR watches for other Navy aircraft operating over water in the Jervis Bay training area, conduct flightdeck proce-dure training, transport VIPs, carry out search and rescue, and eventually assist with tasks at sea.

“We are a little restricted with search and rescue because over water at night we are limited to (not below) 200ft which is just a factor of the flight control system in the machine. So at night our capability would be search only but by day we’re only limited by payload capacity of the aircraft. ” The Powers will not be qualified to land onboard, but will eventually be able to operate with ships to do personnel transfers and load lifting.

“The Powers have got a winch and a hook which keeps the guys up to speed with all the skills they’ve learned at 723 (Squadron) and in addition the idea is to introduce them to multi-engined operations,” said LTCDR Davitt. “This helicopter has great performance with single engine operation and part of our job will be to teach them how to deal with engine failures and fly away rather than auto-rotate. ”

Relieving The Burden

Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Russ Shalders, a strong advocate of the RMI concept, says not only will these helicopters fulfil the RMI requirement but they will also be used for public relations duties.

“These helicopters in addition to their training role will be getting the Royal Australian Navy out into the community which will be just as important to the training role they have. They will greatly assist in enhancing our ability to attract people to the Navy – particular the Fleet Air Arm. ” “Recruitment is a by-product of what the Flight is doing,” said LTCDR Davitt. “Our main mission is to ex-pose the young aircrew to what waits for them at OFT. It just so happens that being visible in a machine like this, going to ADFA, going to schools, will generally stimulate interest in Navy and particularly the flying side. ” The Power Flight aims to relieve the operationally focused 816 and 817 Squadrons from non-operational and training tasks.

“Every VIP transfer and PR flight we do takes out a machine from the flying program at the operational squadrons. So what we hope to do is unload them of these non-training burdens and allow them to focus on getting things moving through their training pipeline,” continued LTCDR Davitt.

“So by us doing flightdeck procedures training, VIP flights, promotional and school visits, this alone will free up a substantial amount of time for these squadrons to continue on with their training. No one is motivated if their course takes a year and a half when they could be finished sooner and get to sea and do their jobs. ” In a perfect world once junior aircrew complete their course at 723SQN, and after a short period of consolidation, they would transfer immediately to an opera-tion squadron. But with up to a year’s delay before going to OFT, RMI will expose them to multi-engine operations, GPS, a glass cockpit, and retractable land-ing gear – all elements of operational and future types such as the MRH 90.

“The idea is, we hope, that once the four year RMI lease is up, 816 Squadron’s Seahawks will have com-pleted the integration of the (Sea) 1405 (upgrade project) software and will have more machines than is currently avail-able; 817 Squadron will have hopefully changed over to the MRH 90; and 805 Squadron (Seasprite) may be up and run-ning by then also. So there will be places for these guys to go directly from 723,” said LTCDR Davitt.

Motivation For All

The Powers are not necessarily just for motivating Navy’s junior aircrew, its instructors are benefiting from them as well. Previously a US Navy Seahawk pilot, American-born LTCDR Davitt has been with the RAN for just over 10 years and is now one of the senior instructors at A 109E Flight.

“I have been instructing here for about eight years now and for me the Powers have just as much motivation for me as it does for the younger guys. It gives me the opportunity to teach people on a new type, one that I have only just started to fly. ” Even before the first aircrew are trained on the new type VADM Shalders believes that the Powers are already paying off.

“I received an email from a duty pilot in 723 Squadron and it was effusive in the praise for the opportunity they’ve now been given. That to me says even before we start flying this aircraft we have achieved a part of the RMI project’s aim,” said VADM Shalders. o