ARH Tiger…

They agree that the project is now positioned to move forward towards delivering all of the helicopters, support systems and logistic support that will meet the Army’s requirements and enable it to commence operational evaluation next year.

There’s little doubt that Army is champing at the bit to get its hands on a fully operational Tiger.

Program History

The Eurocopter Tiger program can be traced back to a 1984 joint requirement from the French and German governments for a multirole battlefield helicopter. A joint venture between MBB and Aerospatiale was chosen to develop the helicopter and, despite being put on hold for a couple of years due to rising costs, a contract for five prototypes was awarded in November 1989. The first prototype flew in April 1991, while the Eurocopter Group was formed in 1992 with the merger of the helicopter divisions of Daimler-Benz Aerospace AG (DASA) and Aerospatiale.

In the meantime, the ADF identified a requirement for an armed reconnaissance helicopter (ARH) to replace the UH-1H Iroquois Bushranger gunship and the unarmed Bell 206B-1 Kiowa in the reconnaissance and fire support role in support of land and amphibious forces, and Air 87 was establishedin 1994. Several years passed while the project’s requirements were firmed up, with Defence opting to specify a specialised tandem seat “skinny” aircraft with a comprehensive sensor package and the ability to carry precision airto- surface missiles.

A request for proposals (RFP) was submitted to industry in May 1998, and responses were received from six bidders, those being Italy’s Agusta with its A129 Scorpion, Bell and its AH-1Z Viper or ‘Zulu Cobra’, Boeing with the AH-64D Apache, a teaming of South Africa’s Denel and BAe Australia with the CSH-2 Rooivalk (Red Hawk), Sikorsky with an armed version of the S-70A Black Hawk dubbed the Battlehawk, and Eurocopter with the EC665 ‘Aussie Tiger’.

From the RFP responses, the Defence Source Selection Board shortlisted three contenders; the A129, the Apache, and the Tiger. A formal request for tenders (RFT) was released in December 2000, to which Bell was also invited to reply despite having been excluded from the shortlist, after appealing to the Australian Defence Inspector General over its omission.

“Four consortia from the USA and Europe have been invited to submit competitive tenders based on advanced helicopters already in service with other nations, and innovative proposals, including options for private funding, are being encouraged,” then DMO chief Mick Roche said in a statement. “With their enhanced capabilities, these helicopters will become a critical resource for the 21st Century Army. ” Eurocopter was selected as the preferred tenderer on August 8 2001, with the project designed to be the first conducted under new reforms designed to shorten contract negotiation times. “Air 87 has been a lead project in the overall reform of acquisition processes, designed to reduce the costs of tendering and to accelerate the introduction of new equipment into service,” a Defence Department release read. “In the past, it has typically taken two to two and a half years to get major projects from tendering to contract signature. If negotiations proceed smoothly it is possible that this project could reduce that time to less than 12 months. ” In the end negotiations took less than five months, and a contract valued at $1. 3 billion for 22 ARH Tigers was signed on December 21 2001. The contract also encompassed a 15 year support agreement with local Eurocopter subsidiary, Australian Aerospace, to commence at the in-service date (ISD), as well as the provision of simulators and other aircrew and maintenance training devices, training for the initial cadre of air and maintenance crews, a software support facility, and a ground mission management system (MMS).

A high degree of local content and manufacturing was a key part of Eurocopter’s bid, with the company establishing an assembly facility at Pinkenba on the eastern side of Brisbane Airport. While the first four Tigers were manufactured at Eurocopter’s Marignane facility near Marseilles in France, the remaining 18 are being assembled with increasing amounts of local content at Brisbane.

Australian Aerospace has partnered with several local organisations in the Tiger’s production and development. Thales Australia is responsible for the support and enhancement of the aircraft’s avionics and mission systems and is manufacturing and developing the Ground Mission Planning and Control System.

The Thales’s Training and Simulation division developed and produced the flight training devices including the twin-domed Full Flight Mission Simulator (FFMS) which was formally delivered in December 2007. Thales also supplies electrical wiring rooms.

Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) is developing and supporting the computer based training syllabus and provides qualified flying instructors (QFIs) to the program, while Adelaide based

Training delays for the lead French and German Tiger programs saw the same issues flow through to the Australian program.

Avalon Systems is responsible for developing the electronic warfare mission support system in conjunction with EADS. Ferra Engineering produces the Tiger’s flight control system mechanical components.

The first two Tigers, ARH1 and 2, were delivered to Army on the scheduled ISD in a ceremony at Oakey on December 15 2004, while the first Australian assembled aircraft, ARH5, was delivered seven weeks ahead of schedule on July 25 2005. At the time of writing in late April, 11 Tigers had been delivered to Army and are in service at Oakey, while ARH12, 13 and 14 were due to be delivered by July.

The original contract called for the Tiger’s final military certification to be granted in March 2006, with delivery of the final aircraft in April 2008. However, the project’s schedule has slipped by at least two years, in part due to delays in to the French and German development and certification programs, although it remains within budget.

Delays

In some ways, Australian Aerospace and the Air 87 team have been victims of their own successes.

In the early stages of the program after the contract was signed, production of the first helicopters both in France and at Brisbane, and the development and integration of the various systems, was proceeding smoothly.

“This contract, which has been extremely complex, is being delivered on schedule,” then Defence Minister Robert Hill told media when he visited the Tiger production line at Marignane in April 2004. “It’s on time. It’s on capability, meeting the designated capabilities and it’s also within cost. So getting close to the date at which the first of the helicopters will be delivered to the Australian forces it’s looking like a huge success and I think it’s important to acknowledge that. ” But training delays for the lead French and German Tiger programs saw the same issues flow through to the Australian program. Delays in getting sufficient instructors trained and enough training devices in place meant that the training of Australian instructors was consequently delayed, and therefore pilots coming to the program were also unable to receive training as scheduled.

“Australian Aerospace failed to deliver all of the requirements of the milestones that supported the achievement of an initial operating capability (IOC) by June ’07 as contracted,” the Director General of Army Aviation Systems (DGAAS), BRIG Andrew Dudgeon told Australian Aviation. “For a while we were unable to train anyone as the training system was running two years late, and they couldn’t deliver to us the capability.

Fortunately our relationship with the contractor is one that is based on trust as well as the business agreement, and our relationships with our counterparts in the French DGA (La Délégation Générale pour l’Armement) and German BWB (Bundesamt für Wehrtechnik und Beschaffung) are exceptional. ” As a consequence of the schedule delays, the DMO instituted an unprecedented ‘stop payment’ order on the contract in June last year. “Initial operational capability for the Tiger ARH project is defined as the ability to conduct collective training,” a departmental statement announcing the stop payment read. “Delays in the Franco/German Tiger program have negatively impacted the development of the simulators and establishment of the Australian based training needed to achieve this milestone. The Tiger throughlife support contract is unaffected and flying operations are continuing. Although payment has ceased, Australian Aerospace will continue delivery of aircraft and support systems. ” Despite the stop payment order, Army and DMO officials have praised the actions of Australian Aerospace throughout the period. “We’ve come a long way since our in-service date,” said BRIG Dudgeon. “The past two years have basically been a success despite the stoppage of payments last year. It’s a real tribute to the Australian Aerospace team that they’ve continued to deliver a quality product without being paid. ” While the contract issues were being addressed, Army Aviation was faced with having a number of pilots who had comeacross to the program ready to be trained as pilots and instructors, but no instructors with whom to train them. In an effort to give these pilots an opportunity to fly a modern EFIS equipped aircraft, Army arranged for them to receive instruction and training on a number of civil Agusta A109 helicopters based in the Brisbane region under a program dubbed ‘Lead-in skills. ’ “We conducted some commercial risk mitigation flying with A109 operators,” the ARH Program Office’s training systems manager, LTCOL Scott Harris, said. “Most of our Tiger pilots are also A109 endorsed, and all have received at least 10 hours on the A109 before progressing to Tiger to give them experience with an electronic FMC (flight management computer) cockpit.

Certainly for the original guys, the lead-in skills time they’ve gained on the A109s has set them up for success.

“Army has also placed an officer on exchange with the US Marine Corps flying AH-1W Cobras, one with the US Army on the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, and one officer with the British Army on AH-64 Mark 1 Apache, and we’ve conducted training incentive initiatives with some of our best maintainers with the British Army Air Corps in the UK, and with the US Army in Korea. ” There have also been issues with the aircraft’s actual versus claimed performance, as well as its overall availability.

The performance shortfall, mainly in hot and high conditions, has come about through the way Army measures its performance ‘deltas’ against those claimed by the manufacturer.

“There are many variations upon which we measure the performance delta of the aircraft, and it looks like the ARH will come up about three per cent short from what was specified by Eurocopter,” the project’s chief test pilot, LTCOL Andrew ‘Barney’ Langley said. “We’re really only looking at the extreme outer edges of the performance envelope here, so most of the time it won’t be an issue for us, but we’ll also be putting sand filters on the front of the engines which will take a little more power off. In a general sense the machine will meet our requirements. ” “Serviceability has been up and down, and there are certainly some issues to be worked through,” Australian Aerospace’s senior maintenance manager ARH Tiger operations, Dave McGovern, said. “There have been some delays as new issues are worked through, mainly related to introduction issues of a new platform. As we’re virtually the fleet leader there is limited local or global fleet information and experience to draw upon, so many of the issues have to be worked through here or from Eurocopter.

“The biggest difference is the delta between traditional helicopters and the Tiger – it really is a huge quantum leap forward. There’s a lot to understand, and in many cases we’re writing doctrine and procedures from scratch. Even little issues like tandem seating as opposed to side-by-side are quite significant to get around. But we’re starting to settle down and understand it a lot better. ” Certainly Army is not pushing the boundaries on the program, with many serviceability issues likely to be related to the service choosing to take a conservative path with the aircraft rather than flying with a known issue which will be better understood with maturity.

Delivering The Project

The DMO and Australian Aerospace have been working intensively over the last seven months to plan the final delivery of project outcomes and set the conditions for the through life support arrangements. The focus has been assessing and mitigating the effects the delays have had on the Army, and ensuring the through life support contract is performance oriented. Issues regarding aircraft and training system delivery timetables, certification efforts, instructor and maintenance training, systems integration issues, spares availability and contract penalties were all addressed, and final planning is being developed.

“Both parties realised we had to do something, as the project in its previous form was unserviceable,” the new CEO of Australian Aerospace, Jens Goennemann, said. “So we’ve agreed to implement contract changes over thecoming months. There is more work to be done to define the finer details of the plan to deliver this project and to best sustain the fleet in service. Our relationship with our customer remains strong in the spirit of achieving a common goal. ” BRIG Dudgeon echoed Goennemann’s comments. “We realised we were two years late, so we’re replanning the schedule and then hope to accelerate the delivery of capability to Army,” he said. “I congratulate Australian Aerospace on the work done to date in order to develop a robust, reliable and achievable schedule; thus setting a firm foundation for capability planning by Army. The drive of Australian Aerospace’s new CEO has been noticeable, and we’re both determined to deliver against the new schedule. ” In recognition of the negative effects that schedule slippage has had on the Army, the DMO and Army have agreed that Australian Aerospace will engage EC 135 a contractor to operate two EC 135 helicopters in Darwin for Army pilots for two years from mid 2008.

The initiative is intended to enhance the probability of ARH crews passing ARH conversion in minimum hours, maintaining their currency and developing operational procedures.

“We’ll have two EC 135s in Darwin from mid this year to reduce training risk for our Tiger crews,” BRIG Dudgeon confirmed. “The aircraft will be delivered in a standard form and will be civil registered, and will be supported by a contractor up there. ”

Capability

There’s little doubt that Army is champing at the bit to get its hands on a fully operational Tiger. The frustrations of the past two years are starting to give way to genuine excitement at the prospect of an operational capability.

“It is a great helicopter, there’s no doubt about that,” BRIG Dudgeon said.

“The Tiger is cutting edge in performance and technology, and it will save soldiers’ lives. The Hellfires and the cannon just do not miss!” “The helicopter and everyone who is working on it have matured a lot,” said LTCOL Harris. “It’s a pretty incredible capability we have – we’ve had to learn how to build it, how to test it, and how to train on it, and now we can’t wait to start operating it properly. ” Close up, the Tiger seems much larger than when seen flying in the distance. A fully loaded Tiger weighs 6100kg, its fuselage is 15. 06m long but only 1. 11m wide, it has a ‘stub’ wingspan of 4. 52m, and its four bladed main rotor is 15. 8m in diameter and stands 3. 83m off the ground.

The MTR 390 engines are tucked away in the upper fuselage and are neatly faired into the upward facing exhausts.

They will soon be fitted with squared-off sand filters for operations in Australia’s dusty northern climes.

The cockpit is a tight fit, but once in, is glove-like. The collective and stick fall easily to hand, and the avionics and radios are laid out logically. The avionics comprises four colour multi-function displays; an autonomous navigation system; automatic flight control subsystem; a digital map generator; and a comprehensive comms suite with VHF/UHF, HF, sat comm, and IFF.

The roof mounted sight is located above the rear cockpit and includes TV and IR sensors with various fields of view, and an RF/D laser and laser spot tracker, and is integrated with the pilot’s and battle captain (BC)’s Top Owl helmet mounted sights.

The Tiger cruises at 124kt, but can dash at up to 140kt. It is armed with a chin-mounted GIAT 30mm DEFA M781 gun with up to 450 rounds, and a combination of 70mm rocket pods with up to 33 rockets, and/or up to eight AGM-114 Hellfire II laser guided multipurpose missiles. It is fitted with a comprehensive AN/AAR-60 MILDS electronic warfare self protection (EWSP) with radar and laser warning, and missile launch and approach detection capabilities and an MBDA SAPHIR-M countermeasures dispenser system (CMDS).

The Tiger’s self-protection is also enhanced by the use of a high percentage of damage-resistant and radar-absorbentcomposite materials in the construction of its fuselage and rotor blades, as well as other active and passive reductions in the aircraft’s visual, radar, infrared, and sound signatures.

Training

Due to the Tiger’s complexity, Army and Australian Aerospace have developed a comprehensive training system in order to maximise the aircraft’s capability and availability. The training system comprises three major elements: the aircrew training devices (ATD); ground crew training devices (GTD); and the various training courses and course materiel. An underwater escape trainer (UET) has also been acquired.

The ATD component includes the Thales Training & Simulation developed full flight mission simulator (FFMS), two cockpit procedures trainers (CPT) also developed by Thales, as well as various computer based training devices and programs.

Located at the Army School of Aviation at Oakey, the FFMS was delivered in December last year after receiving FSD-1 Level 5 accreditation last November to train Tiger pilots and BCs.

It is the first twin-domed simulator to be accredited to such a standard, meaning pilots and BCs are credited with flight hours in their log books after an equivalent number of hours in the FFMS.

The two domes can be operated as coupled or independent devices, and have six degrees of movement and seat-shaker systems. Indeed, the level of fidelity is such that the rear seat BC dome moves less compared to the pilot’s during manoeuvres, as the rear seat is closer to the real aircraft’s axis of movement.

“We will actually give our simulator a ‘virtual’ tail number,” explained LTCOL Harris. “The Tiger is an expensive aircraft to operate, so the twin domed FFMS saves us a lot of flying hours. The fidelity is just incredible – not only does it have to cope with forward flight, but also high turn rates, hovering in ground effect and at altitude, and low altitude flight – the fidelity for these regimes really needs to be a lot higher than other moving simulators. It can also replicate day VFR, night-unaided, inadvertent IMC, targets, threats, and even other traffic. It will basically simulate almost any condition a pilot is ever likely to experience. ” But not all training is able to be done on the FFMS yet, as much of the aircraft’s software development and weapons clearance parameters are yet to be uploaded and validated. “As the full envelope of the aircraft is yet to be cleared, we’ve only done a partial acceptance on the FFMS so far,” said LTCOL Scott Benbow, commanding officer and chief instructor of the ARH Tiger School (ARHTS). “We’re currently concentrating on transition training with the sim. All of the aircraft’s flight modes and all weapons systems will be in place by June next year and will coincide with aircraft final certification. ” Army will also soon take delivery of the first of two CPTs, with the first to be based at Oakey from June and the second in Darwin from early next year. Similar in functionality and fidelity to the FFMS but with less complex graphics generators and without the realistic movements, the CPTs also feature a coupled twin-domed cockpit arrangement and provide very realistic procedural training environments.

At the lower end of the scale will be the computer based part-task trainers which are envisaged as high end PCs with joysticks and representative cockpit layouts, upon which new pilots transitioning to the Tiger can learn the cockpit layout and develop their ‘scan’.

“The initial training levels are the part-task trainers, that is, the computers and joystick,” explained LTCOL Benbow.

“The next level in order of training value is the CPTs, then there is the aircraft itself, and finally the FFMS. We actually rate the FFMS higher than the aircraft from a training value standpoint because we can quickly adapt aircraft configurations, change the weather or make it day or night, VMC or IMC, or scale back or up the threat environment with the click of a mouse. With the aircraft, you’re stuck with the weather on the day and the aircraft’s fuel state and weapons load-out.

In fact, the fidelity of the simulators is so good that we’re planning to do as much as 75 per cent of our flight training on the Tiger in the FFMS and CPTs. ” While a CPT or FFMS ‘pilot’ can currently fly in formation with other ‘aircraft’ generated by the simulator operator, once the appropriate network is in place, the two CPTs and the FFMS will be able to be fully networked not only with each other, but also with RAAF Wedgetail, C-130H/J and F/A-18A/F simulators to provide a much more realistic joint training environment.

“New pilots coming to Tiger complete six months at Tamworth (BAE Systems Training Academy), three months on Helicopter Conversion Course (HCC), and a further three months on a Helicopter Tactics Course (HTC) on Kiowas,” explained LTCOL Benbow.

After this, the student will commence Operational Type Transition (OTT) which, when broken down will see a pilot complete 63 days of transition training comprising 23. 3 hours in the aircraft, 36 in the FFMS, and 12 on the CPT; 84 days of pilot tactical training comprising a further 25. 5 hours on the aircraft, 48 hours in the FFMS, and 15 in the CPT; 30 days of BC transition training comprising 7. 5 hours in the aircraft, 21 hours in the FFMS and nine hours on the CPT; and 59 days of BC tactical training comprising 13. 5 hours in the aircraft, 42 hours in the FFMS and 10. 5 hours in the CPT.

The total hours are 69. 8 in the aircraft, 147 in the FFMS and 46. 5 in the CPT for a total of 263. 3 hours over 236 days. But it is not just the aircrews who are reaping the benefits of operating in a high fidelity training environment.

Army is in the process of taking delivery of five detailed GTDs comprising a mechanical systems trainer, a centre fuselage trainer, an environmental control system trainer, the underwater escape trainer, and a gun systems trainer, all of which outwardly look like actual aircraft or major cutaway sections.

“We’re really pleased with the GTDs,” said LTCOL Harris. “They were built by Total Aerospace Solutions at Narellan near Sydney and are as close to the real thing as you can get. In fact, the French and German Tiger guys are now discovering GTDs and are very interested in what we’re doing. ” Maintenance training for Army is being delivered at Oakey by Australian Aerospace. “Certainly from Army’s point of view, the training being provided to technicians at Wagga is much more focused on digital aircraft now,” said Dave McGovern. “We’ve had very little trouble training the Army technicians coming through. They are supervised with on-the-job training on the aircraft by us, and there are now a number of Army techs authorised under our system. ” In order to help smooth the training for and introduction of the Tiger, Army has pulled together the key stake holders in the process and formed a temporary training organisation to facilitate this.

“After ISD, for about eight months it was really difficult to get some traction on the program,” explained LTCOL Benbow.

“We were a little worried with the number of disparate stake holders, so we brought everything into one team called the ARH Tiger School.

“The ARHTS comprises, firstly, the Directorate of Aviation Capability Implementation – Army (DACI-A), which is the aviation development branch of Army HQ and is responsible for overseeing implementation for Army and for pulling it all together after the ARH Program Office (ARHPO) has delivered it. The Army Aviation Training Centre (AAvnTC) is also represented as Army Training Command will own the mature training system, provide support and facilities in standing up operations, and use the operational rules and procedures of the Commandant of the base. The ARHPO is responsible for providing the training systems, engineering, and through life support – essentially the whole support organisation during the transition phase to introduction into service. We also have two key members from 16 Avn Bde as part of the team – the brigade gunnery officer, and the ARH standards officer. Both are QFIs and are working with me to gain experience on the aircraft as well as the higher jobs.

“ARHTS also has representatives from Australian Aerospace as the training manager and the maintenance organisation, from Thales who provide support to the simulators, and KBR who provide the aircrew training. So as you can see, we have a diverse range of organisations and interests. Essentially all the military folk respond to me, and I respond to the Commandant for maintaining the airworthiness environment, safety, and the rules and procedures. The civilian organisations respond to Australian Aerospace, who in turn respond to me locally for operations. As the ARHPO run the show at the moment, they set the priorities.

“The reason for forming the ARHTS was to make sure we focus the resources efficiently,” LTCOL Benbow continued.

“There are not that many sufficiently trained and experienced people for what is such a complex and diverse program.

Attacking on a broad front disperses effort, so the school focuses that effort with a set of priorities provided by ARHPO. This is not an all encompassing remit – it really only extends to the establishment of aircrew flying training and operations. The other components of the program were more robust and simpler than aircrew training and the additional step was not required. We will return basic flight training back to the Army Helicopter School in August or September, and QFI training will return to AAvnTC in February ’09.

So in essence, ARHTS is a temporary organisation established to harness the collective power of a few resources until enough people are trained and the aircraft is sufficiently mature to return it to the ‘running system’. ”

Future

Despite much work still to be done to get the Tiger into operational evaluation during 2009, most of the key stakeholders appear to have confidence in the program’s future.

“The current status can be described as challenging, as every program with this level of cutting edge technology is,” said Jens Goennemann. “But I’m looking forward to delivering on those challenges as soon as possible. ” “We’ve got about 2500 hours to date on the aircraft,” said BRIG Dudgeon.

“There have been some software problems which are mainly indicative of the levels of immaturity in the program.

The first five aircraft were delivered with different configurations but have since been retrofitted to Product Baseline (PBL) 2 config. Aircraft six to 11 were all delivered with PBL 2, while 12 to 22 will be delivered with the current PBL 3 config which is based on that of the French HAP Tiger variant and will be very close to the full mature state. ” “Right now we have 11 Tigers in service, a sim with limited functionality, a maintenance management system, and a ground mission equipment system,” said LTCOL Harris. “The aircraft’s EWSP has been largely accepted, but we do have some parts problems which are being overcome. ” The lead Tiger, ARH1, has re-emerged from Australian Aerospace after being fitted with its flight test instrumentation and ‘orange wiring’ which it will carry for the remainder of its service life. “ARH1 has now been instrumented and has been positioned to ARDU (the RAAF’s Aircraft Research & Development Unit) at RAAF Edinburgh for test duties,” said Dave McGovern. “The aircraft has been handed over to Raytheon for operational support, while its deeper maintenance will still be conducted by us here at Oakey. ARDU, Army and Australian Aerospace will undertake deployments to Woomera in the next few months for weapons and other systems testing. ” Of the 22 Tigers to be delivered, ARH1 will remain at ARDU for most of its operational life, eight aircraft will each be allocated to 161 and 162 Reconnaissance Squadrons in 1 Avn Regt at Darwin, three aircraft will be based at Oakey for training, and it is projected two Tigers will be undergoing deep maintenance at any one time. Army plans to evaluate an ARH operational capability for deployment during 2009.

“The French are looking at having a deployable Tiger capability this year, while we’ll be looking at mid to late ’09 with at least 12 aircraft,” said BRIG Dudgeon. “After seeing the (British) WAH-64 Apache in action in Afghanistan, I’m very much looking forward to late next year when DMO can offer Army and the government a potent ARH Tiger capability for any potential operational deployment. ”