Tanker touchdown

On hand to accept A39-003 on behalf of the Commonwealth were the Head of Aerospace Systems Division AVM Colin Thorne, Commander Air Lift Group AIRCDRE Gary Martin, MRTT Transition Team head GPCAPT Matt Hegarty, and the CO of 33SQN WGCDR Guy Gibson. Representing Airbus Military was Javier Matallanos-Martin, senior vice president and head of program.

The arrival of the aircraft, more than two and a half years later than the originally scheduled late 2008 delivery date, signals a major milestone for the project, which has been delayed by a protracted flight test campaign, conversion work on the first few aircraft which took longer than expected, and issues in publishing airworthiness documents and test reports that were deemed acceptable by Australian airworthiness authorities.

The second KC-30A and the first Brisbane modified example, A39-002, was expected to be delivered in June, while A39-004 will follow in October. The first MRTT to be modified by Airbus in Spain and the aircraft which conducted the bulk of the flight test campaign, A39-001, is currently undergoing heavy maintenance in Madrid and is scheduled to be delivered before the end of 2011, while a fifth ‘green’ aircraft arrived at QDS in Brisbane on May 25 and has begun its MRTT conversion process, and is scheduled to be delivered to the RAAF as A39-005 early next year.

The on again/off again delivery schedule, which saw several false starts in late 2010 and into 2011 has been mostly due to the technical documentation produced by Airbus Military for the aircraft not meeting Australian airworthiness standards in a number of key areas.

“The airworthiness paperwork has now been delivered to our satisfaction,” said Ewan Ward, DMO’s MRTT program head. “It has taken that period of time to be able to work through the test results, get the test results documented, get any shortfalls identified, and any remediation that’s necessary against the shortfall planned and agreed, in order to be able to take acceptance of the aircraft.

“There was also a small amount of residual flight testing,” Ward added. “So over that period it was analysis of the test results from the qualification testing that was performed at the end of last year, and as part of the negotiation process we had to document it and then negotiate it to ensure there was agreement that the test objectives were met or not met. If they were not met, we had to determine whether they were subject to re-test or were they suitable as they were. There were also a couple of final test flights performed in early May which had to be done before acceptance of the aircraft. ” But even though the first aircraft has been delivered, it will still be a few months before RAAF crews and maintainers can operate and work on the aircraft without Airbus Military oversight. The RAAF and Airbus Military are now concentrating on compiling the necessary documentation and test reports required for submission to an airworthiness board, before the type receives a special flight permit so it can commence operational test & evaluation (OT&E).

“It’s quite a structured process where the owners of all the elements of the system are all gathered in a room with the operational and maintenance board, and present their evidence,” explained AIRCDRE Rob Lawson, the DMO’s director general Airlift and Training Systems. “There is a lot of documentary evidence which the board members will go through in advance to identifyareas which they want to question deeper.

It’s quite a rigorous and structured process, and at the end of the day determines their recommendation on the issue of the special flight permit to enable the aircraft to commence the OT&E process. They then make that recommendation to CAF (the Chief of Air Force) as the ADF airworthiness authority, and if CAF accepts their recommendation, then the special flight permit is issued and they can start the OT&E program – that should be in August. ” The OT&E program will work through RAAF F/A-18A/B Hornet and F/A-18F Super Hornet receiver clearances, drawing upon work already performed with Spanish EF-18s, working up and validation of 33SQN’s flying orders and standing instructions, general familiarity with the aircraft, and building up the airlift capability.

In the meantime, while 33SQN has access to the aircraft, work performed must be supervised by Airbus Military personnel until the special flight permit has been issued. “While many of the maintenance technicians have received their ground training, there has been no on-aircraft training on the MRTT itself,” said Ward.

“There has been familiarisation training with Qantas on commercial A330s, but that has been somewhat limited because they have to work within the Qantas maintenance framework, so we have some support from Airbus Military over the next month to have some supervised on-aircraft maintenance training. There is also some servicing on the aircraft that needs to be done as well as just general familiarisation and ground handling access to the aircraft before it starts flying. ” The delays to the aircraft’s delivery were exacerbated by an incident in January when the first KC-30 lost part of its Advanced Refuelling Boom System (ARBS) after an air refuelling mishap with a Portuguese air force F-16. Fortunately, both aircraft sustained only minor damage and returned safely to base, but the boom separated from the tanker and fell to the Atlantic Ocean.

Australian Aviation understands that the boom’s loss has been attributed to an ‘uncommanded flyup’ after disconnecting from the F-16, which saw the boom strike the underside of the tanker and break off one of its two control fins, and oscillate wildly before departing the aircraft.

Even though the RAAF is now taking delivery of the aircraft, it won’t have an operational boom until late next year, and instead will focus on developing the podded hose and drogue refuelling and air logistics support (ALS) capabilities in order to achieve an initial operational capability (IOC). AIRCDRE Lawson explained that, although a recent software patch has seen the boom regain its certification through the Spanish military certification authority, Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Aerospacial (INTA), the ADF believes further work is required to get it to a satisfactory operational standard.

“We’ve got a boom that’s qualified to the extent of the INTA certification – the INTA outcomes match the contractual outcomes, but it’s not operational,” he explained. “There will be some further development and an element of improvement as well. As we’ve gone through the process over the past couple of years, there are things about the boom that we’ve all agreed would be good improvements, so there will be some more development and testing on the boom, and we’re still negotiating the details on that in terms of schedule. ” Ewan Ward added that the software patch was just the first stage of development required for the boom. “That was to identify issues that were identified after the incident back in January, and was the firststage that was necessary for recertification of the boom,” he said. “When the incident occurred in January, they launched the investigation and effectively suspended the certification of the boom, but because there was no customer flying, that process was really an internal process between Airbus and the Spanish military airworthiness authority. There were some HMI (humanmachine interface) improvements and some software changes made to the boom displays and boom control, and the technical certificate was re-issued by INTA at the end of April. The boom is now recertified, but there are further improvements that have been identified. ” The HMI issues are believed to have been a key contributor to the boom incident, and Australian Aviation understands that many key elements will require a redesign.

“HMI has been an area of considerable discussion,” cautioned Ward. “It’s a very subjective area of the tests. There were some differences of opinion from the various experts from both sides that had input into that process. ” Added AIRCDRE Lawson, “I think the point we’re at is there is more work required to burrow those out, so we won’t know if they’re major issues or not until we’ve done further work because of the subjectivity and the lack of sufficient definitive information to reconcile some of those differences of opinion. I wouldn’t call it non-conformance, but there is a bit more work to be done on the boom to get to a point where we can turn it into an operational capability.

There is a component that doesn’t meet the contractual requirements, but the scope of the overall improvement package has been agreed and it’s just a matter of working out the details of how that’s going to proceed to deliver the end-state boom. ” Other elements of the project are at or nearing completion as well. The new aircraft maintenance facility at Amberley incorporates 33SQN’s headquarters, as well as a large hangar and new ramp area for both the KC-30 and C-17 fleets.

Inside the hangar is a motorised docking structure which closes around the aircraft and which has virtually eliminated any working at heights hazards for maintenance personnel.

While line maintenance will be conducted by RAAF personnel, deeper maintenance and logistics support will be undertaken by QDS. Under the through life support (TLS) contract for the aircraft, QDS will also be the KC-30A’s logistics support organisation. Known as the Customer Support Organisation for the KC-30A, it effectively performs the role of a system project office, or SPO. In the KC-30’s case, the SPO is basically a small Commonwealth veneer, and QDS is the contracted support organisation that performs all of the logistics support for the aircraft, and is co-located with the HALSPO (Heavy Air Lift SPO) at Amberley.

Other support elements due for delivery soon include the simulation devices for the aircraft, including a full flight simulator, and part-task trainer which incorporates a refuelling operator console, both of which are Level D devices manufactured by CAE in Canada. At the time of writing these simulators were due to be installed at Amberley and commence an acceptance testing period prior to being delivered in December.

Under a contract announced in early June, CAE Australia will operate the simulators as part of its larger Management and Support of Australian Defence Forces (ADF) Aerospace Simulators (MSAAS) contract, which also encompasses the RAAF’s C-130H and C-130J simulators at Richmond, Navy S-70B Seahawk and Sea King simulators at Nowra, and the Army S‑70A Black Hawk simulator at Oakey. For the KC-30A, CAE staff will provide classroom and simulator instruction, courseware development, simulator maintenance and support services, and facilities management.

One of the final pieces of the MRTT puzzle is a recent agreement between Australia and the US to relax US export control laws for the installation of the aircraft’s Large Aircraft Infra-Red Counter Measures (LAIRCM) suite, after the US State Department withdrew permission in 2008 for the equipment to be installed in Spain.

“We have received notification back from the US to a request to consider relaxation of the export controls, that will allow some installation and limited testing in Australia,” explained Ward. “We’re now using that as the planning basis to complete the installation and the first of type testing which will encompass interface testing where you have to verify the electrical loads and those interface aspects of the installation. Airbus doesn’t have to do the testing, but I don’t think we have decided which way we’re going to go, whether the squadron will do it or whether we’d involve the flight test organisation (Aerospace Operational Support Group) or not. ” The project team is also in the early stages of establishing a joint user forum with other MRTT customers such as the UK, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Based on the C-130J joint users group (JUG!), the forum would share operational experience and have a common user base for further development and enhancements to the MRTT, and is expected to be up and running by mid 2012.