Rhino charge

Building Bridges

The new Officer Commanding 82WG and former head of the Air Combat Transition Office (ACTO), GPCAPT Steve Roberton, said the Super Hornet will bridge the gap to the JSF in three key ways. “The first thing the Super retains for us is capacity,” he told Australian Aviation.

“We can actually train the number of aircrew and maintenance crews we need to make the next transition, and importantlywe’ll keep an entire mustering of very talented aviators who will be around in our system for the next 15 to 20 years and who will be able to provide their oversight and their fast jet experience for projects and for command and control within the ADF as a whole.

“Obviously the second thing we get is a strike capability to replace the F-111,” he continued. “It is fair to say the Rhino has exceeded our initial expectations on capability.

I think the jet has proven to be even more capable than we had initially hoped – it’s a nice place to be in the modern project environment – and with technologies like low observables (LO) and especially the AESA radar, it is going to provide us with a look into the future and to gain expertise for operations, as well as for maintenance and the technical aspects that we would not have otherwise had. ”.

“The Rhino has exceeded our initial expectations on capability. I think the jet has proven to be even more capable than we had initially hoped. ”

GPCAPT Roberton was quick to stress that he felt the F-111 was still a very capable platform. “It didn’t just suddenly lose its capability overnight,” he said. “It is still the only platform we have that can go the distance that it can and drop the weapons that it can. But that said, the Rhino has far greater penetration and its got some indigenous air refuelling capability as well – we can do air refuelling ourselves and it can hit those same kinds of ranges as an F-111, and we can do it unescorted. ” The third point GPCAPT Roberton noted was using the opportunity of the Super Hornet’s introduction to bring about a cultural change within the Air Force, and particularly within Air Combat Group (ACG), to better prepare for thenext generation of combat aircraft. “It is fair to say the culture would have been an enormous leap to go from the F-111 era into the JSF, so the Bridging Air Combat Capability (BACC) offered by the Rhino is going to provide the bridge that we need,” he observed. “We get to establish a very forward looking aviation culture with a new generation aircraft which we are going to need for the JSF. And we’ve already learnt so much already about airworthiness, about high security operations, about environmental compliance with modern aircraft, and we’re learning about the personnel and trade structure of our workforce where we need different types of trades and different numbers of men and women who are technically skilled in avionics or in airframes. ” GPCAPT Roberton said the RAAF has been given an enormous opportunity to learn those lessons and set up that infrastructure now, well before the JSF arrives, which will make that transition much smoother down the track. “So we get that capacity increase, we get a cultural change which will make the next step easier, and we get a capability increase. ”

Training Year

The past 12 months have been an intense period for Commanding Officer 1SQN, WDCDR Glen Braz and his team. After the unit relinquished its F-111Cs to a combined 6SQN/82WG pool in 2008, the first cadre of about 25 maintenance technicians and eight aircrew arrived at the US Navy’s huge base at NAS Lemoore near Fresno in central California last March, to commence instruction on the Rhino with the Navy’s west coast Fleet Replenishment Squadron (FRS), VFA-122.

For the aircrew, former F-111 pilots and navigators went onto a modified Cat 2 syllabus for previous (non Hornet) tactical jet experienced crews to convert to the Super Hornet. The course is similar to that used to convert former USN F-14 Tomcat crews to the Rhino, but with some significant input from the RAAF due to the differing primary roles of the now-retired F-14 fighter and the F-111 strike/bomber.

“The course was based on the F-14 conversion but was customised for us and by us,” WGCDR Braz, who has an F-111 background, told AA. “It effectively took some of the knowledge that we brought from the F-111 and our significant air-toground experience, so we reduced those components of what would’ve been the standard USN Cat 2 course, and then we increased some of the air-to-air components that we were less familiar with. ” The first part of the Cat 2 course consisted of instrument flight, general flying circuits, emergency handling, and general systems knowledge, before learning some of the more advanced aspects of the aircraft and its systems. “From there we did a basic all-weather intercept phase which is getting used to intercept geometries, radar work, generic timelines and those sorts of things to develop skills for domestic parts of later flying,” WGCDR Braz explained.

“For example we need to be able to get a formation together using the radar, so that’s why we do those skills up front. From there we rolled into the air-to-ground phase and the low level training phase, so there’s some low flying, some air-to-ground deliveries in a variety of dive and level type profiles, sensor work, similar sorts of things we do in the F-111 but modified for the Super, and very similar to what we do in the ‘classic’ Hornet. Then we did some close air support (CAS) – we actually did some digital CAS using US Navy forward air controller (FAC) crews in other Super Hornets passing us digital briefs and target data and so on, and that worked exceptionally well and was great training. ” After the air-to-ground phase, the Cat 2 course moved to an air-to-air phase. “We started with BFM (basic fighter manoeuvring) leading into some ACM (air combat manoeuvring) with ‘2 v 1’, then ‘2 v 2’, then ‘2 v X’ intercepts, and that culminated with a trip away from Lemoore. We went to Key West in Florida which is a magnificent training area with adversary aircraft in location, so we had US Navy F-5s and classic Hornet adversaries which was awesome training. Then we got into the ‘2 v unknown’ and ‘4 v unknown’ scenarios, and DCA (defensive counter air) mindsets which was a lot of fun. ” For the former RAAF ‘classic’ Hornet crews, converting to the Rhino was relatively easy due to the high levels of handling and systems layout commonality between the aircraft. “It was a pretty quick evolution for those guys, and they were converted onto the Super with all the ground school and simulator stuff and flying within a month,” WGCDR Braz said. “The software is in a lot of ways very similar – it’s user friendly for a classic Hornet guy to jump in there and be pretty capable in a basic sense very quickly, so the Cat 4 course was really just a generic qualification on the aircraft in terms of safe to fly, instruments, systems knowledge, emergency handling and the crew concept to an extent. From there their knowledge of Hornet weapons systems gets them through much of the rest of it. For the Block 2 enhancements that takes a little bit longer, and that’s what we’re starting to get to know and explore in depth now that we’ve got regular access to Block 2 jets. ” WGCDR Braz described the initial RAAF pilot’s course as a 90 per cent solution, and said there was some ongoing minor “tweaking” to be done. “The coursewe did last year was still being massaged along the way to best suit what we needed, but it worked out really well,” he said. “The course has the right balance and there were very minor changes that we made. The aircrew enjoyed it, and it allowed most of our guys to roll straight into instruction with the US Navy, who are good people with good training, and it made us valuable instructors pretty quickly. There’s still a little bit of tweaking to be done, not only in what we include in the course but also in how we execute it. That’s one of the things our exchange officer is doing at VFA-122, managing that sort of thing for us, so he’s a critical player there. ” Most of 1SQN’s pilots left Lemoore having flown between 120 and 150 hours on USN Rhinos, plus another 15 to 25 hours on the first batch of RAAF jets after their acceptance in late February/ early March prior to the first ferry flight.

“The flying prior to the ferry was a combination of various things – some generic flying to shake the new aircraft down, and some max performance handling in the aircraft which was a lot of fun. We also interleaved some tanking work with some BFM, and then we started doing some sensor work, data transfer, targeting drills and stuff like that, and then some basic navigation work and ILS approaches around California to see how that (RAAF specific) system was performing and how well it was integrated. ”

PIG vs RHINO

For WGCDR Braz, as a former F-111 pilot the Super Hornet is a different world with entirely new levels of situational awareness and information.

Many of the former F-111 crews had flown in RAAF classic Hornets through various Fighter Combat Instructor (FCI) and other courses, so they had already been exposed to the Hornet concept and its capabilities. “But jumping out of the F-111 into the Super, the radar and the awareness and the systems and the amount of information that’s presented to you quickly is quite amazing, and just changes your awareness of what’s going on around you immensely, and that’s the big game changer for us,” he explained. “The digital cockpit is a big change and the ability the HUD (head-up display) brings as a really accurate flying instrument as well as tactical display is just awesome, so that’s probably the first thing you notice. After that the performance of the aircraft is quite remarkable – it has similar thrust to an F-111 with a whole lot less weight, so the thrust to weight is very apparent. And clearly the manoeuvrability, especially the high alpha (angle of attack) capabilities of the aircraft and its ability to point the nose where you need it to achieve tactical outcomes is just eye-watering. It’s really interesting but a lot of fun – the jet is so nice to fly, and so manageable, and can achieve so much with such a wide envelope – it’s really impressive. ” For the single-seat classic Hornet pilots, adjusting to the crew concept of the twoseat Rhino certainly took some getting used to, as did switching from the F-111’s side-by-side seating arrangement to the tandem seating arrangement of the Rhino for ex F-111 crews.

“It isn’t too different for the F-111 guys – we did actually talk a fair bit in the F-111,” said WGCDR Braz. “We used to talk about things where we were cross checking each other and making sure we had everything done perfectly if weapons were coming off the aircraft, so that was one ofthe reasons for talking in the F-111. But having said that, the ability to just point and say look in the F-111’s cockpit was a strength in some ways, and because we needed two people to do just about every job in the F-111, the Super is a big change.

“The main difference with the Super, in theory, is that you can do any job just with one person. So the model we’ve taken forward just fell out really naturally from the team – we were all pleasantly surprised how much common ground we had when we developed the Super crew model. We had some good generic background concepts, and when we got into the nitty gritty detail, there was very little disagreement between the ex-F-111 guys, whichever seat they were from, and the classic Hornet guys, so it was really positive sign that we’re thinking the right way and that the crew is a powerful thing. ” And even at this early stage the Rhino is already exceeding the RAAF’s expectations in terms of its capability, both realised and potential. “I guess the key aspects of this are the penetration of the platform itself, a combination of its survivability, its LO, its countermeasures and with the radar, it’s better than we expected,” said GPCAPT Roberton. “And importantly, that capability increase isn’t just about it being a good jet in its own right, but as a force multiplier – it actually makes the rest of ACG better as well. It is far better at increasing the capability of the classic Hornets in air-to-air and air-to-ground.

It’s an aircraft that has got two seats, and independent cockpits where you can filter the info up and down the chain and can stand in and be a command and control node at a tactical level, and that has far exceeded what we had expected. And it is probably yet to be fully exploited by the US Navy according to them – they’ve not yet begun to really delve into what they could achieve there. ”

IOC & FOC

Even with the initial cadre of crews qualified and the first delivery flight complete, the team at 1SQN will get few opportunities to rest in 2010. The squadron is scheduled to declare an initial operational capability (IOC) at the end of this year to coincide with the F-111’s retirement, and has plenty of work to do to achieve that important milestone.

The next seven jets are planned to be delivered to the RAAF at Lemoore in May and June, before being ferried back to Amberley in July. “We head over in May to do the acceptance and test flights to prepare the next bunch of aircraft for their ferry flights,” said WGCDR Braz. “We’ll do two separate ferries because one tanker won’t get seven jets across the Pacific, and we’ll use the same core team we used on the first delivery flight. ” “We may even do a fourth ferry later this year as that would relieve a bit of pressure on next year where we’re putting critical resources into starting training on Rhinos, and we’ll decide that in the coming weeks,” noted GPCAPT Roberton. “We’re looking at options now, but we’re planning on having all 24 Rhinos here by the end of 2011.

That gives us the jets and the freedom to do the syllabus work and the OT&E (operational test and evaluation) work we have planned to do this year. ” For IOC, 1SQN will effectively conduct a standard fighter squadron training cycle while it concurrently assesses each of the systems and the capabilities and the suitability of the aircraft to the role through the OT&E program. “On top of that we’re doing a couple of key events,” continued WGCDR Braz. “We’ll do an EW (electronic warfare) trial around mid year at China Lake, an air-to-air missile shoot around the August timeframe, and then in late August, early September we’re doing a trip to Edinburgh to use the Woomera weapons range where we’ll be dropping a whole bunch of air-to-ground weapons. So when you combine our standard training cycle which goes through all our roles – air-to-air, air-to-ground, CAS, maritime strike, all those sorts of things – and then you roll those three activities on top, then we’ll be pretty much doing all of our roles and functions this year, and often we’ll be doing it with live weapons to ‘end-to-end’ test the system and the technicians and all the people. ”.

“The next seven jets are planned to be delivered to the RAAF at Lemoore in May and June, before being ferried back to Amberley in July. ”

“We’ll basically be ensuring that the weapons fit,” added GPCAPT Roberton.

“We’ll release all weapons off the jet this year – JSOW, AMRAAM and AIM-9X, we’ll also do GBUs (laser guided bombs) as well as JDAMs. But it’s important to note that we deliberately chose US Navy com-mon weapons to be on our US Navy common jet, so whilst there are some intricacies there with fusing and GPS codes with J series weapons, effectively it should be a validation process this year, not a complete weapons trial. ” While RAAF fast jet units conduct missile shoots only infrequently to retain aircrew and ground handling proficiency, to use near time-expired rounds, and to test the missiles with various software upgrades the jets receive, 1SQN will be shooting a range of new weapons never before released by RAAF aircraft.

“At Amberley we’ll also be demonstrating the fact that we’ve got safe loading areas for forward firing weapons and all of those considerations we don’t exercise too often,” said WGCDR Braz. “We’ll also show that our technicians can order, handle, and manage the security issues associated with them, and to prepare and load and unload the weapons we’re employing off the Super. It’ll be an end-toend test and it’ll be good to get out there and show the system and the capability isn’t just on paper. ” Full operational capability (FOC) is expected to be achieved in late 2012, and will follow an equally busy period for 6SQN in 2011 and into 2012, and the delivery of all the planned supporting infrastructure, training and logistics elements.

“The main difference in FOC is really the rate of effort of flying and more or less the broad support system capability,” explained WGCDR Braz. “That means the maturity of the logistics system, the maturity in the training systems and those contracts being in place. On the operational side, the difference is that we will be what you call ‘fully capable’ in an aircrew operational sense, so instead of having an operational concept that may have a small number of aircrew operating across all roles at IOC, at FOC we’ll have a more mature rate of effort that aligns with our normal concept of operations within ACG. ” “We need to have the ability to deploy and operate and sustain operations from a deployed locality across all roles of the aircraft at the highest security levels, but those few little words come with a very high logistics overhead,” said GPCAPT Roberton. “We are also yet to get the ALE-55 (towed decoy) which is expected in the next 18 months, and the JSOW C-1 is still going through OT&E in the US and we hope to have that complete by then. But we need to have all 24 jets and a full number of crews and be conducting our indigenous training to sustain the workforce we need. ” One of the biggest elements in achieving IOC and then FOC will also be the establishment of the new and refurbished 1SQN and 6SQN facilities which the units will begin moving into later this year, and the ability to fully utilise those new facilities.

As part of the project, new facilities purpose designed for the new security aspects have been built, including a new 1SQN HQ. There are also new engine test facilities, aircraft wash facilities, ground support equipment storage, a refurbished 6SQN training building, a new simulator building, a new intermediate level maintenance workshop, and new training areas for the 278SQN technicians and instructors.

Additionally, more subtle changes have been made to the 82WG headquarters and in the spares warehouse.

Training

At the time of writing, more than 50 technicians and 12 aircrew from 1SQN had been trained with VFA-122 at Lemoore. While technical training has now switched to Australia, aircrews will continue to be trained at Lemoore in parallel with local training so that capacity can be built up fast enough for a fast transition to the Super Hornet.

“For aircrew, we start training within 1SQN at the end of this year,” said WGCDR Braz. “So 1SQN will conduct, if you like, the OT&E of the training course, and early next year 6SQN will pick that work up and start training 6SQN guys through from the Hawk, so the first guys that come direct from the Hawk to the Super will be early next year. In the meantime, we’ve already stepped away from Lemoore for technician training and this has been underway since January here in Amberley.

We’ve got training systems in place, we’ve got instructors trained, we’ve got classrooms built that are all customised for Super Hornet training, and that’s been going flat out. ” The RAAF took delivery earlier this year of the first of several virtual environment maintenance trainers to support technician training as part of the project.

“For 6SQN, they’ve got four F-111 crews at Lemoore and another tranche of four pilots and four ‘wizzos’ (weapons systems operators – the RAAF has adopted the US Navy term for its air combat officer Super Hornet back-seaters) will go over mid year for training there,” continued GPCAPT Roberton. “When they come back they’ll still need to do additional work to get their workups to a C-Cat standard in an Australian environment in an Australian airworthiness system and in Australian jets. ” A major component of the Super Hornet training system is the ground elements including simulators and other synthetic training devices. To that end, the RAAF has ordered two tactical operational flight trainers and two low cost trainers which will be run by a team comprising Raytheon Australia and Milskil under a training services support (TSS) contract.

The TSS contract was signed in February and will see Raytheon support the devices and other synthetic training aids from an engineering point of view, while Milskil will provide all the ground and simulator instruction for RAAF Super Hornet aircrews.

“The contract extends our existing pedigree to ready and sustain the force that has been built upon designing innovative solutions such as the Hornet Aircrew Training System and the RAN Retention and Motivation Initiative,” said Raytheon Australia managing director Michael Ward.

Newcastle based Milskil, comprised almost entirely of former RAAF fast jet Qualified Flight Instructors (QFIs) and Fighter Combat Instructors (FCIs), is already well established at RAAF Williamtown in the provision of ground and HACTS simulator training to pilots on operational conversion (OPCON) to the classic Hornet with 2OCU, and operational squadron aircrew undergoing continuation training, and will leverage off that experience as it sets up the Super Hornet OPCON.

“Milskil has been tasked with developing and maintaining the aircrew training system for the Super Hornet in addition to the delivery of all ground training and simulator events,” CEO John Lonergan told Australian Aviation. “This is a significant first whereby the RAAF fast jet community has entrusted such an important task to a contractor.

The RAAF training system will be pulled from a mix of the US Navy F/A‑18F procedures and current RAAF classic Hornet procedures, and will be developed in close consultation with the RAAF. ” “We meet regularly with the RAAF instructors at Amberley to ensure we remain in sync with their expectation during development,” added Milskil general manager Mike Kitcher. “We have a depth of experience in this task as many of Milskil’s staff were involved in updating the classic Hornet training system for the HUG 2. 2 upgrade in collaboration with the RAAF.

And we are on schedule to deliver the Block 1 training management package to the RAAF in August. ” Milskil says it prides itself on being an integrated part of the Hornet and Super Hornet workforce as opposed to having the more traditional contractor role. “We are focused on being part of the overall training system team, not just an isolated component,” Kitcher added. “Our instructors attend OCU briefs and reviews, OPCON briefs, and have input into and attend student reviews. Our opinions are valued and I think a big part of that is a lot of us have operational recency and significant F/A-18 training experience, so there’s mutual respect and trust there with our RAAF counterparts. ” Milskil will have 13 full time staff in place at Amberley by early 2011.

Structures

At the 82WG level, the appointment of GPCAPT Roberton and the arrival of the Super Hornets have also coincided with theimplementation of a structural and cultural change at the wing.

Formerly responsible for just the F-111s and their operating squadrons, 82WG now has four very different platforms and operating philosophies under its umbrella – the Super Hornets of 1SQN, 6SQN’s remaining F-111Cs, the FAC PC-9s of the Williamtown based 4SQN, and the newly formed 5 Flight and its Afghanistan based Heron UAVs – and as a consequence is regearing itself to focus on the irregular warfare scenarios which the ADF currently finds itself fighting.

“We’re going away from ACG being made up of a training wing (78WG), a strike wing (82WG), and an air control wing (81WG),” explained GPCAPT Roberton. “We’re now moving towards maintaining that training wing focus, and then having a conventional warfare wing and an irregular warfare wing, and my job is to gather all the synergies I can from the different platforms and units in 82WG, and focus them on fighting the current war.

Air operations and the command and control of airpower to support those kinds of operations in irregular warfare have got to be fundamental to the RAAF and to ACG, and that’s what we need to develop.

“Then we’ve got the F-111 which is on an unstoppable march towards retirement at the end of the year, but at the same time it is still our primary strike platform and we are continuing to have to invest in the F-111 heavily,” he added. “The reason we’re investing in the F-111 is not about the ageing platform – it’s all the ACG men and women who are in it that fly, maintain and support the jet, and they’re the ones we have to keep investing in as we transition to the Rhino. ” As for the future disposition of the ACTO and the Bridging Air Combat Capability (BACC) teams, GPCAPT Roberton anticipates they will continue to function in some form, possibly as elements of Air Force Headquarters (AFHQ). “It’s up for discussion at the moment within the Air Force, but there is a clearly identified requirement that what we did in coordinating all air combat issues for the Air Force is still fundamentally required,” he said.

“Something that looks across all those projects and their capabilities and aligning all the resources, and being the Chief of Air Force’s subject matter experts on air combat – that’s still a real requirement.

“I suspect ACTO will begin to fragment at the end of this year – some of it will remain here in Amberley and see the project through to completion as we still have more aircraft and more project liaison work to go as weapons come on board. But part of ACTO and I expect the GPCAPT position which I held will probably return to Canberra and work within AFHQ to be the liaison into NACC (New Air Combat Capability) as well as ACG, JOC (Joint Operations Command), the logistics organisations, and everyone else that has a piece of the really complex JSF transition which we’re still to face. ”

Seeing Out A Legend

Many at Amberley and in the surrounding community will be sad to see the F-111 go, but the potential of the Rhino for the RAAF is quickly being realised.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge of 82WG now,” said GPCAPT Roberton.

“I’ll have the privilege of seeing out a legend in the F-111, while bringing in a brand new jet, and focusing on emerging capabilities like 4SQN and the UAVs, so it’s a pretty exciting time for ACG. ” “Now that we have the jets in country it’s great to see them,” added WGCDR Braz. “I can look out my window and see Supers in the carports at Amberley which is a great feeling and a tribute to the team that have made it happen. Certainly in 1SQN we have an outstanding bunch of people who have worked hard to get here, but also in the project office, DMO, the US Navy and Boeing – it’s quite remarkable that we’ve made this happen in three years and it’s going very well. It’s in great shape, and clearly we’re committed and we have that willpower to make this happen, so it’s a really positive vibe.

“It is an incredibly impressive capability, and it takes us as an Air Force to those higher levels in terms of security requirements and advanced technology – the radar and the digital systems and the LO aspects of this aeroplane – they really do give us a leg up to step to the JSF, so as an organisation we’re certainly learning a lot. ”