Strategic weight

Long Held Ambitions

The RAAF is known to have long held ambitions to acquire at least one additional C-17 in order to have a better balanced fleet of aircraft and to cover aircraft during maintenance periods, but spending restraints led by the Strategic Reform Process (SRP) and government’s desire to return the federal budget to surplus by 2013 meant funding was always going to be tight.

Therefore, the plan to buy an additional two C-130Js under Air 8000 Phase 1 was sacrificed in favour of the extra C-17. “When you talk about strategic weight, you normally talk in terms of the fighter strike capability,” Deputy Chief of Air Force (DCAF) AVM Geoff Brown told Australian Aviation at Avalon. “But what we’ve found with the C-17 is that it’s a really strategic weight aeroplane, because you can respond so fast to humanitarian issues with it and you can take so much equipment there. ” A fifth aircraft will also bring a much better balance to the RAAF’s small C-17 fleet, operated by 36SQN at RAAF Amberley west of Brisbane. The first aircraft, A41-206, is almost five years old, and all four of the original fleet will soon enter long heavy maintenance cycles in the US one after the other.

“For a fleet size, four isn’t an economical number,” DCAF said. “And we’re approaching a period where the existing C-17 fleet enters the deeper maintenance (DM) cycle, so that was one of the considerations influencing the latest decision. It’s a six month DM cycle, which the aircraft rotate through one after the other – one extra aeroplane means we will maintain the availability of four aircraft. Just one C-17 is so capable – if you are one aircraft down, you have lost a lot of capability. It will give us the ability to keep a more consistent fleet available through the life cycle of the aeroplane. ” The reconsideration of Air 8000 began more than two years ago, but due to the prolonged development and publishing cycle of the public version of the Defence Capability Plan (DCP), the two extra C-130Js were still listed in last December’s update.

“We’ve been looking at strategic lift options since the DCP,” DCAF explained. “Even though the public DCP comes out at a certain time, all those discussions about capability took place up to two years prior.

You are always looking at transport and what your options are – we have been examining options for quite a while, and we have since been able to get the rest of Defence on side.

“I think there’s been general enthusiasm right the way through – the Minister talked about the cyclones and the floods, and I think there’s a general realisation that the capability is great for us,” he added. “When we were asked to move 178 patients out of Cairns Hospital (prior to Cyclone Yasi), the aircraft were in Cairns in a little over three hours after receiving the formal tasking. So I think it’s just been highlighted in the last few months how good the capability is and how critical it is to Australia, not just from a military perspective. ” AVM Brown also noted that the RAAF and ADF as a whole hadn’t fully appreciated the capabilities the C-17 could bring to the table when compared to the C-130 and other types.

“When we first received the C-17, I suppose we hadn’t fully developed the operational concept and didn’t know all the things it could do,” he said.

“But we’ve found the capability is so useful, especially in the joint mix, it has really exceeded our expectations. It is actually proven such a reliable piece of kit, that Headquarters Joint Operations Command (HQJOC) asked us to reconsider Air 8000. They are really the prime user of the capability.

The Army has moved to heavier vehicles because of the IED threat, and that is where C-17 comes into its own. It made a lot of sense. ”

The Fms Process

The US Foreign Military Sale (FMS) request is expected to be a formality, especially as the RAAF already operates the C-17 and the USAF is supporting the acquisition. But the request is still required to go through the US Congressional approval process before a formal approval is given and a letter of agreement can be signed. In this case, the price of the aircraft will be negotiated between the USAF and Boeing, and Australia will pay an administration fee to the USAF on top of the agreed price. It is expected the aircraft’s price will be about the same or possibly below that of the first four RAAF C-17s, as it is part of a much larger USAF order and is being placed later in the production run.

“I think it might actually come in slightly less than the previous RAAF C-17s cost,” said AVM Brown. “I suppose part of this is, if the government decides to go ahead, we have a particularly good relationship with the USAF and we’ve done some pre-negotiation, so hopefully we will take one of their tail numbers instead of waiting until the end of the production run. I think that’s a testament to how close our relationship is with the USAF. ” DCAF added that a tail number could soon be allocated to the RAAF and, if the purchase is approved, the aircraft could be in Australia and operational by the end of the third quarter this year.

In order to accommodate the new aircraft, DCAF estimates 36SQN will need to increase its aircrew and maintenance ranks by about 15 people. “We’re still working those numbers now,” he said. “We’ll absorb that inside Air Force because, through the SRP program, we’ll be doing some restructuring which will release those people. ” And so what of the chances of a sixth or even seventh C-17 being ordered for the RAAF? “I think you’d always want to keep your options open, but there’ll come a point where the production line closes and you’ve got no more options,” said DCAF. “Defence is always a balance. If you talk to an Air Force officer, of course we’d always want an extra one – more is always better, but whether that fits in an overall balance in the defence portfolio [must be taken into account]. ” No doubt work would be found for more C-17s, but the window to order additional aircraft is closing. Boeing recently announced it was moving to a single shift production of about a dozen C-17s a year in order to extend production of theremaining backlog in the hope of capturing more international orders. But a decision would likely need to be made within the next 12 months.

And contrary to recent media reports, the acquisition of the fifth aircraft will not be directly funded from the recently reported 2010 ‘underspend’ by the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO). Rather, as noted earlier, money allocated for the previously planned Project Air 8000 Phase 1 acquisition of two more C‑130J Hercules transports will instead be brought forward, and with between $300 and $500 million allocated for the two C-130Js, ultimately funds from this Phase will be returned to the DCP.

“The DCP is resource capped,” stressed DCAF. “So what we’ve done is fundamentally looked at the money that was available for two C-130Js, and it actually tips money back into the DCP because the C-17 is cheaper than two C-130Js.

So even though the acquisition of an additional C-17 appears to have happened suddenly, we have been working away behind the scenes for quite a while. The airlift requirement has always been there, and any smart government is always going to be re-assessing their situation. The C-17 is just a different way to fulfil the existing requirement. ”

Airlift evolution

Industry sources have recently suggested the RAAF’s C-130H fleet, of which eight aircraft are nominally operational at any one time, may have its life of type extended by three years to 2016 due to forecast savings of operating a larger fleet realised through SRP modelling.

“The withdrawal date for the H is still officially 2013, and we’re just looking at what makes sense to extend them,” said AVM Brown. “Even though they’re operating as a sub-fleet, they’re still critical to the raise, train and sustain agenda for the ADF as a whole, so we’re just examining the option for what we do there. All 12 C-130Hs could all be brought back to the line if needed. ” Certainly, the support issues surrounding operating a subfleet of aircraft within a unit are difficult and expensive to manage, and concerns about operating two additional C- 130Js within 37SQN when the rest of the J fleet is already more than a decade old contributed to the decision to acquire the C-17 instead. AVM Brown confirmed, “That’s been part of the calculation – not only the utility of the C-17, but the issue of having two C-130Js after the rest of the fleet is 15-16 years old. ” Moves are also afoot to bring forward the Air 8000 Phase 2 Battlefield Airlifter (BFA) capability, the more than two decade long quest to replace the RAAF’s Caribou which were finally retired in 2009. Despite recent chatter that the RAAF was possibly looking at a smaller type rather than a high end solution like the Alenia C-27J, DCAF suggested the C-27J is still the favoured option.

“The C-130 still has a role, but we hope to gain traction on the BFA project – we need it a little more quickly than is currently planned,” he explained.

“There are arguments to go smaller, but that would not suit Australia’s geography.

C-27J would also work in places like Afghanistan because some of the loads are not full C-130 loads. If you look at the sort of distances we travel, a smaller aeroplane doesn’t make a lot of sense. ” Longer term the Airbus A400M, which has seemingly emerged from its troubled development with a successful flight test campaign to date, appears to be very much on the RAAF’s radar horizon as well. “We’re talking 15 years hence, around 2025,” AVM Brown offered.

“But one of the things we’re looking at is, the primary customer of these aeroplanes is the Army with those heavier outsize vehicles that Army is moving towards with all their projects, so that seems to push for a bigger aeroplane like the A400M.

We’ll keep a close eye on the A400’s development, but you never know – Lockheed Martin might come up with something as well. So I wouldn’t like to lock ourselves in that far out. ”