Jet nest

The new building gives the facility a total of 16 aircraft work bays, and has seen many of the offices previous dispersed around the site in demountables and smaller building consolidated together. BAE Systems runs two shifts a day, four days a week, and most of the maintenance staff works 38 hour weeks. This arrangement allows the company to surge into the fifth day if the workload dictates. “This way we can fit 1.25 weeks into a week, so it gives us nice surge capacity in our program,” Gerry Mann, BAE Systems’ Director of Fast Jet Support told Australian Aviation. “It’s good for the maintenance guys, and good for the environment and the community in terms of four trips to and from work on a normal week instead of five.”

The staff complement at Williamtown has come from a variety of sources, including a large proportion who have been developed internally through apprenticeships. “We’ve got more than 50 people on our staff on site here – about a quarter of our trades – that are home grown, and we’re pretty proud of that,” Mann explained. “Many of our other staff are ex-military and we’ve employed them, or they’ve gone somewhere else first such as Saudi Arabia or the mines and then come to us, and we also got a lot of the guys from the Qantas jet base down at Mascot when it downsized. I take particular pleasure in the fact that those who would otherwise be lost to Defence or the industry are back working with us.”

Other trades people have come from allied trades such as sheet metal workers or technicians with complimentary skills to those required at Williamtown. In many cases, the training those trades had received were recognised as ‘prior learning’ and it didn’t take much to bring them up from a Certificate II to a Certificate IV level through a combination of TAFE and on-the-job training.

Since 2004, apprentices have been employed initially directly and, more recently, through a scheme facilitated by Hunter Net Training with funding assistance from the Commonwealth’s Skilling Australia’s Defence Industry (SADI) program. Ten or 11 apprentices are taken each year, and they spend most of the first year of their traineeship attending TAFE in Tamworth and are housed at the BAE Systems Flying Training facility there. Upon successful completion of the instructional element, the company offers them a second year placement slot at one of its Australian sites, and most of those who are from the Hunter region are often recruited back to Williamtown for their third or fourth year, or as skilled tradesmen.

“If industry is going to deliver a capability, then it’s got to be capable of standing on its own two feet and generating capability, and that capability is your people,” BAE Systems’ Director of Aerospace, John Monaghan told us. “Across all of our maintenance sites we aim for something in excess of 10 per cent of our workforce to be apprentices. I think it’s healthy that if you’re going to be a capability provider, that you’re not just someone who turns up to do military work with just ex-military people. This is about industry doing what Defence wants it to do, which is finding a way to step up. We’re not going to go and raid the base for staff as that does nothing to add to the total capability of the weapons system. So we’ve taken an innovative approach to go and find these allied trades, get them upgraded and bring them on board as a capability.”

The Aerospace Division comprises several business units. “We have Aviation Solutions which provides the ‘turnkey’ services to the Commonwealth as we currently do through the BFTS (Basic Flying Training System at Tamworth) and as we provide overseas in our Saudi Arabia operation, and to look for opportunities in that space,” Monaghan said. “We also have the AMSS – the Aircraft Maintenance Support Solutions which looks after all of our non-fast jet maintenance operations which at the moment are at Nowra and Townsville looking after Seahawk and Black Hawk, and then we have Fast Jet Support which is here at Williamtown. I’ve also got another line of business run out of Melbourne which is our design capability which provides weapon system design support for P-3 (Orion) under the P-3 Accord, that that business also provides autonomous system design capabilities into the UK.”

The Fast Jet Support operation started with through life support (TLS) of the RAAF’s Hawk fleet following completion of the assembly program. The Hawk TLS work has been supplemented with F/A-18 Hornet support work since 2004, initially under the stillborn Hornet Industry Coalition (HIC) with Boeing and L-3 MAS, and since winning the RAAF’s Hornet deeper maintenance contract in late 2008, in partnership with L-3 MAS.

“About the time I got here in 2000, the Commonwealth was looking at the (Air 5376) Hornet upgrade Phase 2 and Phase 3 which was going to involve a significant amount of structural refurbishment work as well as the avionics work,” said Mann. “The Commonwealth wanted to make sure the program was able to be kept up with industry, and the Boeing-led HIC was formed in 2002.”

But the HIC got off to a slow start and it was 2006 before the coalition’s structure really started to come together cohesively, but by then the Commonwealth had decided to take a different path and put the work out to tender. It was also 2006 when L-3 MAS was awarded the contract to perform the centre barrel replacement (CBR) work on up to 49 of the RAAF’s Hornets, and BAE Systems was sub-contracted to tear down the jets at Williamtown before they were airlifted to Canada, and to rebuild them once they returned with their new barrels installed.

With the relationship between BAE Systems and L-3 MAS cemented through the CBR work, the two companies combined to bid for and to win the Hornet Deeper Maintenance (DM) work at the end of 2008. “Our previous relationship with L-3 had been very productive,” Monaghan said. “I think one of our strengths is we were good at working in coalition and other places and are good at hauling those things together. We formed our relationship with L-3 and we bid against Boeing for the DM work, and it became simply a commercial competition at that point.”

Running in parallel with the Hornet DM is the ongoing structural refurbishment program (SRP) under Phase 3.1 of the HUG program. “The Hornet is a 25 year old aircraft,” Mann explained. “But post the upgrades, it’s still a very potent one, and that’s on top of the excellent pilots who fly it. But it is 25 years old, and the good thing about the IFOSP (the joint Canadian/Australian International Follow-on Structural test Program) is that it’s given us a very accurate forecast – it predicts that cracks will occur and where they will occur – and we then leverage off the intellectual property L-3 MAS has developed for the Canadian program to not only analyse the damaged locations, but to also come up with effective repairs. What we’re really talking about is the intelligent management by the Commonwealth of the tapering of the Hornet capability to match when the JSFs will come on board, to identify how many aircraft the RAAF needs to take forward to the planned withdrawal dates.”

The DM R3 and R4 work and the SRP work are performed concurrently where possible to reduce the amount of time the aircraft are away from the flightline. “It’s about making sure we’re organised and set up to try and get through that work in a way that we can guarantee aircraft back when they’re offline, while providing good value for money,” Monaghan said. “The Hornet is at a mature stage of its life, and it’s an interesting stage of its life. Every 350 hours we do an R3 servicing, and every second one of those will be an R4. The servicings basically consist of a series of zonal inspections to check the aircraft is where you want it to be at this stage of its life.”

“In the early days we used to kick open the doors and there was not much to do because they were brand new aircraft,” added Mann. “On the Hornet, it’s just taken ten years of service to get almost all the way through the first iteration of the complete maintenance cycle, so it takes units of ten years to get through these iterations. On an aircraft that is a premium fighter with 25 years of hours under its belt, there is always corrosion, cracking, wear, and system replacements. We provide all kinds of services on the back of having highly capable people – we can provide people over to the base to do minor modification programs, and even to assist at the flight line level. Or we can provide people to do more complex repairs at remote locations. But the bulk of our work is to support the RAAF through the R3s and R4s plus the major structural mods.”

The centre barrel work, although it finished after just 10 aircraft instead of the planned 49, was technically a major accomplishment for BAE Systems and for prime contractor, L-3 MAS. The work at BAE Systems required a major tear down of the Hornet, an aircraft which was never designed to be ‘cracked open’ when it was designed in the late 1970s, and then a major rebuild after it returned from Canada with its new centre barrel. At L-3 MAS’s facility at Mirabel near Montreal, the three major structural centre sections of Hornet – those which carry the loads from the aircraft’s main undercarriage, forward fuselage and wings – were replaced with new build sections supplied by Northrop Grumman.

The overall number of RAAF CBRs performed was reduced after the first few barrels removed from RAAF and Canadian Hornets were subjected to fatigue testing by the DSTO and its Canadian equivalent, and it was found the overall condition of these key components was better than engineering models had predicted and better than those previously taken from US Navy jets. The CBR program was completed in June this year, and all 10 aircraft have been successfully returned to service.

“L-3 MAS continues to be joined with us to provide the engineering support that goes into the production of the SRP (structural refurbishment program),” Monaghan related. “And together we’re having further discussions with the Commonwealth about any ongoing modification work that may be required and what that acquisition strategy might be, and we would hope that we have got the track record and the performance to win that work as well.”

With the Hawk LIF, BAE Systems has been providing the through life support (TLS) for that platform at both Williamtown and its site at RAAF Pearce since the jet entered service in 2000. While the Hawk is not as complex as the Hornet and, being barely a decade old, doesn’t have the same fatigue and other ageing aircraft issues, it is equally important for the RAAF to have serviceable airframes on the flightline to maintain its training throughput and ADF support obligations.

“There’s nothing in the Hawk fleet that could be regarded as unusual or problematic,” Monaghan related. “There have been, as there are with any fleet, issues to be managed, but I can say they are being effectively managed. We’re keeping as many aircraft as the RAAF needs on line, and we are dealing with the issues as they arise. What the Commonwealth gets out of this relationship is the substance of their structural warranty – we undertake to keep aeroplanes on line and to fix any problems that arise out of fatigue tests that need to be done. While most of these things will come to the fore later in the life of the jet; we simply get ahead of the game and put in the mods early rather than later, so rather than being reactive and having fleets grounded, we’re being quite proactive and getting these issues resolved.”

Longer term, BAE Systems expects to be heavily involved in the Air 5438 midlife upgrade program for the Hawk which is scheduled for the second half of this decade. To this end, the company believes it is close to defining what could be included in such an upgrade, with many of the advanced elements such as avionics and cockpit displays likely to be leveraged from the latest iteration of the Hawk family, the 128 AJT as operated by the UK. “I think it’s a systems issue that the Commonwealth is most interested in,” said Monaghan. “So it will be about how a pilot gets the systems work done and the preparatory work done before they get into most expensive jet in the fleet. If you increase the systems capability it gives you the opportunity to download training into the lead in fighter, and I think that’s the goal of the lead in fighter.”

Through its ability to provide engineering support across the runway at the base, BAE Systems has picked up a contract from Northrop Grumman to provide modification work on the Hornets while aircraft are undergoing other servicings, either on the flightline or at BAE Systems’ facility, for the Litening AT targeting pods which were acquired under HUG Phase 2.4. While the new pods were originally planned to be carried on the Station 5 left ‘shoulder’ of the Hornet, operational evaluation by the RAAF and the US Marine Corps has found that carrying the pods on the Station 4 centreline provides a greater field of view for the pod’s sensors whilst allowing for a more flexible payload on the aircraft. To this end, BAE Systems has been contracted to perform modification work to the Hornet’s centreline station to cater for the pod and its associated umbilicals and other ‘plumbing’.

“The Commonwealth wanted a ‘turnkey’ pod support arrangement with Northrop Grumman, and we’ve been able to work with them to find that last yard,” said Monaghan. “It’s been a very successful contract for both the Commonwealth and for Northrop Grumman in terms of finding solutions – so much so in fact that Northrop is using that as their template for how to support Litening pods around the world.”
Looking to the future, a recent signing with Lockheed Martin has ensured BAE Systems already has a foot in the door, so to speak, in assuring the facility at Williamtown remains viable long after the Hornets have been retired and the Hawk upgrade has been completed. The agreement recognises BAE Systems Australia as a preferred partner for Lockheed Martin to provide in service support to the RAAF’s projected fleet of 100 F-35A JSF when they enter service later this decade.

“It means we are their preferred partner moving forward for providing whatever MRO capabilities that might be needed for the JSFs through their early years, and it also recognises our intention to work together over a range of other opportunities outside of MRO to expand BAE Systems’ scope in support to JSF,” Monaghan explained. “So it’s very much a nice position to be in, to have crossed that first barrier and now be in a position where we are in regular and constant dialogue with Lockheed over the evolving support solutions and what role we might play.

“It’s been a BAE Systems Australia initiative over several years to position ourselves clearly for this, and the home company has been supportive of those actions,” he added. “It’s always been, when you look at the original lead in fighter and the emergent and growing position of F/A-18, it’s all been directed towards establishing ourselves as a highly respected, efficient and innovative provider of fast jet services, and to evolve that into the next fast jet option in which is JSF.”