Issue 262: In Transition

In 2005, the aircraft was first chosen to fulfil the Air 9000 Phase 2 Additional Battlefield Helicopter requirement for a squadron of 12 helicopters to augment Army’s then battlefield transport helicopter complement of 34 S-70A-9 Black Hawks. An additional 34 MRH 90s were subsequently ordered in 2006 to replace Army’s Black Hawks under Phase 4 of the program, and to supersede the Sea King maritime support helicopters in service with the Royal Australian Navy under a more urgent Air 9000 Phase 6.

Following on from the successful Air 87 Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) local assembly program which will be completed in 2010, local Eurocopter subsidiary Australian Aerospace undertook to assemble all but the first four MRH 90s at its Brisbane Airport facility with an increasing degree of local content including composite components and electronic systems.

Acceptance

The first two aircraft were accepted into service in December 2007, and the last of the 46 MRH 90s is due to be delivered in late 2014. After the service entry of the first of six aircraft to Navy’s 817SQN early next year, a detachment of about six MRH 90s will be based at Oakey west of Brisbane for training, while Army’s A and B SQNs from 5 Avn Regt will begin their conversion process in 2011.

“We’ve accepted the first five aircraft, including the first Australian assembled MRH, and we’re in the process of accepting the sixth,” MAJGEN Fraser told AA. “The sixth is the intermediate level configuration. The first five were an initial configuration to enable us to commence the training and transition program.”

The aircraft will be upgraded with the mature software as it is developed and released. “We will see one more mature level which the Tiger ARH has just taken delivery of as well,” he added. “There are a couple of hardware issues but it’s primarily about software. The good thing about taking that initial configuration, although some people question it, is it helps us drive and shape the upgrades to develop the mature product, and we’ve found the company very responsive to listening to our needs. With a software driven Fly By Wire (FBW) aircraft, and this is the first production FBW helicopter in the world, the software updates and upgrades are important. We’re fortunate that under the ARH and MRH we have a software support facility here in Australia and we use that for a lot of the testing of anything that is Australia unique. In MRH there are only a few minor changes from the German aircraft on which the Australian aircraft is based. These include such items as radios and weapon mounts.”

Despite less than optimal availability of the first few MRH 90s, the initial cadre of Navy and Army test pilots and instructor pilots are currently training on the aircraft at Townsville and have budgeted to achieve 600 flying hours in the 2009/10 budget year. “We haven’t got enough hours on it yet,” MAJGEN Fraser explained. “We’re at around 150 hours at the moment on the aircraft and the flying rate has improved markedly in recent times, but we had some difficulties over the last year and that drove us to announce that we’re six months behind schedule of where we should be to achieve the Army’s IOC. It’s been mostly driven by a parts issue, and the contractor has been very active in improving this situation. There’s more than 500 aircraft ordered worldwide, of which only 27 or so have been delivered, so there’s a high demand for those parts. Most of the nations have experienced a challenging first year in building flying rates, and then their rates improve quite well after that, so it’s just building up the base.

“Australia has a particular system with its repairables where we’ll take an item and make sure it’s tracked all the way through for airworthiness issues, so it’s a difficult ramp up stage and typical for brand new projects from that perspective,” he added. “And for us, we’re half way round the world along way from where the aircraft are manufactured and from immediate support – you can’t just drive down to the facility and ask them for assistance or pick up some extra parts. But Australian Aerospace in particular has been driving that very well and we’re very pleased that the CEO of Australian Aerospace and the CEO of Eurocopter have made us the highest priority. So ours is the one that’s most on schedule of any of the NH 90 programs.

Indeed, the Australian program so impressed one French Army pilot that he has transferred over to the Australian Army as a lateral recruit and has brought with him a deeper level of understanding of the aircraft. “He used to be in the French Army and he enjoyed working with our people who were over on the project at the time and has applied and brought his family out to Australia,” MAJGEN Fraser told us. “And he has brought the skills which assist us with the French logic in the aircraft – they’re quite different but there’s no right or wrong – it’s a Ford vs Holden difference in scenario, but the American aircraft versus the French aircraft are quite different in logic.”

And any issues that the DMO may have had with prime contractor Australian Aerospace appear to be well behind them now after 2007’s ‘stop payment’ on the Tiger ARH program. But during that time the contractor continued work on Tiger without payment, an agreement was reached with Australian Aerospace in April last year on a way forward for the Tiger program and payments resumed, and this progress has moved across to the MRH 90 program as well. “We had some difficult times last year and the year before, but we resolved the dispute last April and I’ve seen that relationship strengthen considerably since then,” said MAJGEN Fraser. “There are always issues in any relationship, and if we have to revert to contract then we’re failing between the acquisition organisation and the provider in a particular company. So I’m very pleased with the relationship and very pleased with the commitment of the contractor who is aligned with us to deliver a capability, not just for MRH but also for the Tiger. Dr Lutz Bertling, the CEO of Eurocopter was out here a few weeks ago.

He and his team are providing great support to us, and the CEO of Australian Aerospace, Dr Jens Goennemann is very cooperative.

“So the more we fly the aircraft, the more confidence we’ll gain in the aircraft and its true strengths, and we can then provide increased aviation capabilities to our troops. Our task is to build the flying rate so we can train more instructors and crews.

IOC

The next major step in the lead up to Navy’s IOC, that is one deployable flight, will be First of Class trials later this year where the MRH 90 will be cleared to operate from the flight decks of Navy’s two LPAs, HMA Ships Kanimbla and Manoora. “For the First of Class flight trials we’ll be using an instrumented package to put on the aircraft to do that,” MAJGEN Fraser explained. “The technology for that is outstanding in that it will enable us to measure those things that in the past we weren’t able to do, so we can gain exceptionally detailed information about flight envelopes, sustainment of the aircraft, servicings and those sorts of things. The First of Class will be conducted by a composite of the AOSG (Aerospace Operational Support Group), Navy’s AMAFTU (Aircraft Maintenance And Flight Trials Unit), DSTO, our test crews as well in addition to the vast work undertaken by our project office and the contractor, so it’s a combination of all of us together.

“Then Army IOC is now planned for the following year. That milestone was to have been April 2010, but we’ve said that we’re about six months behind to achieve that at this time, so we’re looking at Sep/Oct 2010 for four deployable aircraft for Army. To have that we’ll need four full crews, then some additional crews, and on top of that you’ve got instructors etc, so it’s a deployable capability. But the main issue will be in getting enough hours up.”

The DMO is also conscious of the risk to the schedule imposed by potential delays in certifying the helicopter, a process which was the ultimate undoing of the ill-fated Seasprite last year. “For all of these aircraft, Australia is very demanding in certification,” said MAJGEN Fraser. “Software for all of us around the world is a challenge and making sure that we’re confident in that, particularly in this case where it’s a FBW computer driven aircraft. The certification is quite a high workload – it’s very demanding, but there are no ‘out of the box’ unusual issues for us to specifically look at.

“The DMO’s equivalent in France, the DGA, has been outstanding in the support they’ve provided to us. It’s well above what you’d normally expect – really tremendous. They’ve taken the lead role in certifying their Tiger upon which our aircraft is based, and we take that and base our certification on that. It’s the same with the German NH 90 TTH on which our MRH is based – we’ll take their work and base our certification on that. It’s really high quality work.”

The final Army unit to transition from Black Hawk to MRH 90 in 2015 will be 6 Avn Regt’s anti-terrorism and special operations support specialist 171SQN based at Holsworthy in Sydney. “Our objective will be to mature the aircraft first in a conventional role before we transition across to 171’s specialist role,” explained MAJGEN Fraser. “Because we have a very short notice standing requirement for the counter terrorism, domestic security and special operations work, we need to make sure we reduce the introduction into service risk before we transition them across to that unit.”

The MRHs will be a welcome addition to the ADF, as both Army’s Black Hawks and Navy’s Sea Kings have been working hard over the past decade and a half. Indeed, Navy has had a vessel and an aviation element comprising Seahawk, Squirrel and/or Sea King deployed to the Middle East region almost continuously since the first Gulf War in 1991, while Army’s Black Hawks have maintained a continuous presence in East Timor in varying strengths since 1999. “Our aircraft are maturing in age, so sustainment and in particular obsolescence management is becoming a bit of a challenge for us – our Navy sailors and our Army soldiers rely heavily on those aircraft,” MAJGEN Fraser explained. “So there’s a lot of stress across the complete supply chain including on the contractors and the deeper maintenance element, who have all been at surge since mid 1999 to match our operational tempo. There has been some tremendous work done across all of these elements.”

The operators will also have to come to terms with operating the MRH 90 which, by its very design and not just its French logic, is a very different aircraft than the tail wheel equipped Black Hawks and Sea Kings. “There are some changes,” said MAJGEN Fraser. “With the Black Hawk with its tail wheel and dust landings, we bring it in and drive the tail on and then roll the aircraft over, controlling it for a landing in a dusty environment. But the MRH 90 has a tricycle undercarriage which is a little more akin to Chinook. The Chinook is a very large aircraft with a lot of downwash, so in a dust environment we need to implement the similar techniques for MRH90 which also includes techniques for use of the rear ramp. There are strengths in both types – they’re just different operational techniques.

And whilst the MRH 90 and Black Hawk are very similar in their relative footprints, the MRH 90 has a much bigger cabin. But the Black Hawk has a lot of performance for its size of cabin, and invariably it’ll bulk out before it ‘weights out’, while the MRH 90’s cabin probably more closely matches the weight ratio and will rarely bulk out.

“The one big leap forward for us with the MRH I think is the Helmet Mounted Sight Display (HMSD) which is very similar to what we’re using in Tiger. We’re able to portray on the helmet the IR display, not just the normal night vision display. The IR will help us with a lot of the observation in being able to switch it back and forwards in pilotage IR systems, and that’s a great step forward as we haven’t had that on any of our helicopters before. Indeed, if you look at Afghanistan and Iraq, the figures are higher for the loss of US aircraft due to environmental elements, rather than operational elements.”

MAJGEN Fraser said he expects MRH training to migrate to Oakey once Navy and Army have achieved IOC and the simulator there is in place. “A simulator will be located at Townsville for those operational units where the majority of the aircraft will be based, but the main shared training environment will be based at Oakey and we’ll have a simulator there as well,” he explained. “There will be six or seven aircraft at Oakey working through training, but that number will vary up and down with training requirement and maintenance and those sorts of things. The simulators will be Level D, so we’ve taken simulation to the highest level standard as we did for Tiger. The Tiger sim has taken a little while to get there but it’s an outstanding and tremendously capable simulator. But until the MRH sims are in place, we’re contracted for some simulation and support over in Europe.”

While it’s desirable to have a simulator in place before the aircraft enters service in order to hasten the training process, this isn’t always possible with a new aircraft which is still under development. The modelling for a modern aircraft’s sim is derived from software loads in the real aircraft, but if the aircraft is insufficiently developed, then the simulator will not provide a realistic training environment.

Other Air 9000 Phases – Phase 5 Chinook

As was revealed in the recent White Paper and subsequently confirmed in this year’s budget, Army will acquire seven new CH-47F Chinooks to replace the current CH-47Ds in service early next decade. The CH-47Ds have been worked hard in recent years, with two aircraft almost continuously deployed to Afghanistan, and the other four either being reconstituted after a deployment, or preparing for the next deployment.

“The critical element for the Australian Chinook program and the transition from CH-47D to the F model whilst we are continuing to support deployed operations, is the personnel aspect,” MAJGEN Fraser explained. “Across Defence we have many tasks and demands, and the transition to seven CH-47Fs will give us a capability using the personnel we currently have.”

Most of the new CH-47Fs are remanufactured from US Army and allied CH-47Ds and retain many components such as the centre and rear fuselage, transmissions, rotor heads and other key elements of the donor aircraft’s drive train. Australia’s six D models completed a comprehensive upgrade last year which included the installation of more powerful T55-GA-714A engines identical to those of the F models, as well as ballistic protection for the cockpit and cabin, an enhanced communications suite, miniguns, and a comprehensive electronic self defence suite.

MAJGEN Fraser hinted that the new F models may be fitted with many of the dynamic components currently fitted to the CH-47Ds, thus insulating the Australian program from schedule risk associated with shortages of drivetrain components such as transmissions.

“Chinooks are currently in high demand worldwide and a major constraint on production is a specialist metals shortage, and transmissions construction which generated a lead time of about 36 months,” he explained. “But we’ve got good running gear in the D models which we’re very pleased to have, and because we have such an operational demand, we’ll keep flying the Ds until we bring the F models in.

“That’s why we’ve gone for new aircraft – it will allow us to transition very quickly, and then we’ll look at what we do with the D models. We’ll develop that over time and take that back to Government for consideration. So a lot of the running gear can come from the current aircraft across to the new aircraft, but we haven’t worked through that aspect just yet.”

Phase 7 Training Helicopter

Since last November’s industry briefing on the Commonwealth’s desire to explore a Private Public Partnership (PPP) arrangement for the acquisition and operations of Army’s and Navy’s Phase 7 Helicopter Aircraft Training Scheme (HATS), the economic crisis has hit companies large and small and finance for such large proposal has been difficult to come by for industry.

“Clearly when we looked at a PPP model we had gained experience and had observed other projects around the world with PPP which were quite successful, but that was before the current financial crisis,” MAJGEN Fraser explained. “We’re still looking at the PPP as there are some great strengths in the PPP model. One of the things we really like about it is it forces you to gain this true understanding between the contractor and ourselves, and it fully aligns our schedule and our cost understandings. We’re still looking at both the PPP option and the more traditional model for Phase 7, but we have not yet determined which way we are going. We hope to have a strategy confirmed within three months.

“Phase 7 timings were primarily driven by the need to replace the Navy Squirrel training system and we’re working closely together with the Air 5428 fixed wing training requirement office on this project. It was a concern to start with about which project went with first, primarily driven by the output from the Air 5428 basic pilot training aircraft into the helicopter. But for me, that’s not the real cost driver for Phase 7. We’ll still graduate the basic pilot, day/night and with instrument rating skills, so the real cost driver to me appears to be more about the scope of the helicopter training system, what we undertake in the trainer versus what we undertake in the operational aircraft. Specifically such issues as night vision training, door gunnery, roping and rappelling, and all of these other applications on a helicopter – that’s the bit that we need to lock down rather than the entry standard. So we need to be clear to the prospective contractors on the scope and our expectations of the helicopter training system, and to gain an understanding of what level of simulation is appropriate.”

Phase 8 Seahawk & Seasprite Replacement

The embryonic Phase 8 naval helicopter program was ostensibly brought forward in the White Paper as an “urgent’ requirement, although the definition of exactly how urgent it is won’t be known until the release of the DCP in July. Industry was asked for price and availability options for up to 27 helicopters as far back as late 2007 once it became clear the Seasprite program could not be saved.

The two contenders are the Sikorsky/Lockheed Martin MH-60R ‘Romeo’ version of the Seahawk, and Eurocopter’s NFH 90 maritime version of the NH 90. “Both are very strong aircraft for very different reasons, and that’s something we’ll have to analyse as to which is the best for us,” said MAJGEN Fraser. “The timing of when we would need to bring that in is dependent on the DCP. But what we have is two companies under two different acquisition cycles, and two different products posturing ready for future business which has been clearly announced in the White Paper as a matter of urgency.”

Because of its commonality with the MRH 90, on face value the NFH 90 appears to go further towards Air 9000’s stated goal of rationalising the number of operational helicopter types than the Romeo, but this is not as clear cut as it seems.

“Wherever it is practical to do so, we’d like to reduce the number of types, but only where it is practical to do so and value for money to do so while still producing the right level of capability within a schedule that’s right for us,” MAJGEN Fraser explained. “Seasprite was to have been in service by this point, so therefore Navy has a strong desire for a new capability as soon as we can get one. We just need to balance that up with the true value for money issues, balancing the capability itself between the two contenders. It’s the acquisition and the through life support, it’s building an operational capability and a mature capability – we need to asses that whole life-cycle cost rather than what we used to do many years ago when it was focused on the project acquisition.”

Whilst the Romeo is the more mature product and is available ‘off the shelf’ through a US Navy FMS deal, Eurocopter points out that the NFH 90 is also maturing and will be ready for operational service within the RAN’s desired timeframe. The European manufacturer also claims its aircraft has a much greater utility capability than the Romeo, which may be a telling factor in a Navy which operates its ships largely as single elements and whose vessels can carry just one helicopter.

“We have the current fleet we are buying in the MRH 90, so you can say the supply chain has been established for that,” MAJGEN Fraser continued. “But we also have a supply chain for Seahawk already in place, and if you look at some of our operations with US type fleets, then that provides some of that strength as well.”

Phase 9 Light Utility Helicopter

Whilst still an embryonic project which is unlikely to see the light of day in the 2009-2019 DCP, the ADF’s Capability Development Group (CDG) is known to be working up a project definition for a Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) requirement for Army which, for the purposes of this article we have dubbed ‘Phase 9’.

But with a current heavy workload and a requirement definition that is still some way off, the DMO has had little input into developing this project. “We’ve got plenty of projects on our plate right now,” said MAJGEN Fraser. “There’s a continual demand for helicopters, but as to whether a light utility is required or how the light utility helicopter question might be answered in the future is not a current issue for us in DMO. We’re fully focussed on the current projects and bringing them into service and maturing them.”

That said, MAJGEN Fraser did offer that he thought it might be possible to work in some kind of commonality between the Phase 7 training helicopter and any Phase 9 LUH that may be acquired in the future. “We’ve had discussions backwards and forwards with CDG and it’s been an issue open for discussion in the past. We’ll look at getting a training system in first, and I come back to that complete capability issue – we have a lot on our plate, an unprecedented level of aircraft change over, systems change over, whilst sustaining operations, all at the same time.”

Sea 1405 Seahawk & Air 5416 Black Hawk Upgrades

The DMO is in the finishing stages of the Sea 1405 Seahawk upgrade project which has seen the aircraft fitted with new electronic self defence systems, a repositioned and enhanced FLIR turret, and various avionics enhancements.

“The modifications have all been completed on the Seahawks, and there’s just a little bit of software work to finalise before we close the project,” MAJGEN Fraser said. “We’ve also improved the number of aircraft available as we’ve done a lot of work with the deeper maintenance in reducing the burden for not only Seahawk but also Black Hawk over the last six months or so.”

Indeed, the better aircraft availability has freed up some Black Hawks to be inducted into the delayed Air 5416 Project ‘Echidna’ electronic warfare and self protection system upgrade to a standard consistent with that of the Chinook’s upgraded systems. The first four aircraft have been completed and are currently undergoing trials, while MAJGEN Fraser says he hopes to have 12 modified aircraft delivered back to the squadrons for operations by the end of this year.

Complete Capability

“For us as a complete helicopter capability, I don’t just look at us as a DMO organisation providing sustainment or providing a project team, MAJGEN Fraser said in closing. “Overall, I’m very proud of what Navy and Army aviation are doing for our sailors and soldiers. But also the contractors – we don’t pay contractors for their value and contribution to the defence of the nation, and it’s very easy for them to be seen as just maintaining or assembling aircraft, so we need to make sure they are recognised that they’re doing a great job for the nation too.

“It’s also about Navy and Army operators, the support mechanisms and the support personnel, it’s about us in sustainment, and about aligning all of the services and everybody else to deliver that final output and final effect, and I’m very pleased with that alignment and the way it’s working with the operational commanders and all personnel involved in the ADF helicopter capabilities.”

“Finally if I may, one of the major challenges we face in these times of sustained high operational tempo and changeover of most fleets, is keeping the aviation community aware of our activities, which we do in the interests of our nation. As your readers would see we have some areas we still need to improve on and could have done better in, but there are many personnel in Defence and industry who are working extensively to enable our Australian helicopters to provide the critical support to our troops that they do.