Service ready?

IOC has been a long time coming and is now on track to be reached almost five years later than that originally planned, more than 10 years after the first aircraft was rolled out and fully 12 months later than the previous mid-2011 estimate given by program officials.

A much more recent development is the E-7 designation, which has recently begun appearing in ADF news publications. Unofficial inquiries have revealed the ADF has been working on a numerical designation for the Wedgetail to fit in to the US’s ‘E’ series for electronic platforms in order to aid in type recognition and employment during coalition operations. For the designation purists, the Wedgetail’s electronic mission correlates with the US designation series also occupied by the Northrop Grumman E-2A-D Hawkeye and Boeing E-3A-C AWACS AEW&C aircraft, the USAF’s Boeing E-4A-B and US Navy E-6B-C Mercury/Hermes flying command posts, the Boeing/Northrop Grumman E-8A-C JointSTARS ground surveillance aircraft, and the Bombardier E-9 (Dash 8-200) range control aircraft.

Missing from the list is the Windecker/Lockheed YE-5A which was a 1970s classified low-observable light reconnaissance project which never entered production.

The delays to the Wedgetail program have been well-documented – including radar development and stability, the integration of the aircraft’s various sensors and electronic systems, and development of the Elta/BAE electronic support measures (ESM) and electronic warfare systems. There have also been delays in finalising and implementing the aircraft’s maintenance, support and training systems at Williamtown.

As a consequence, the ADF and Boeing agreed to a phased and systematic introduction of the aircraft which commenced in late 2010, with two aircraft being based at Williamtown but retaining their US FAA ‘N’ registration and Boeing flight certificate while RAAF crews trained on and familiarised themselves with the aircraft. The initial two plus two more Wedgetails were transferred to RAAF ownership and the ADF register in March 2011, and from there 2SQN began to work up the capability. A fifth aircraft joined the fleet in late 2011, with the sixth now rounding out the fleet.

Rather than follow the traditional three-staged path of service introduction, IOC and FOC, the Wedgetail project has had a more convoluted path which has seen multiple sub-stages added. Indeed, the RAAF appears to be aligning its IOC milestone much closer to the requirements of a more traditional FOC, perhaps highlighting the complex nature of the aircraft and its support systems, and the aircraft’s painful development.

So despite all six Wedgetails now being in service and the support system operating at near capacity, IOC remains several months away. Still to come are the all-important operational test and evaluation (OT&E) of the final software load – the first employment of which was scheduled for the RIMPAC12 exercise in Hawaii in mid-July – and a requirement for a higher level of maturity of the spares and support systems. Certainly it is unusual that half of the Wedgetail fleet of aircraft has completed deep maintenance cycles and its associated training system has completed six flight crew courses and seven mission crew courses before IOC.

Boeing project officials say they are confident in the stability of the latest software drop delivered with the sixth aircraft, but the RAAF will continue to evaluate it in operational scenarios before it is satisfied it can offer the capability to the government for operational use. In order to validate the aircraft’s on-board and support systems, the RAAF has embarked on a packed schedule of exercises and associated events in 2012. Starting with Exercise Cope North in Guam back in March and Red Flag Alaska (see article elsewhere this issue) and a quick airshow appearance in the UK in June, RAAF Wedgetails will also participate in RIMPAC and then Exercise Pitch Black in the Northern Territory in July/August. Not only will the aircraft’s crews, radar, and other systems be tested during this period, but the operations, maintenance, training, spares, supply and engineering streams back home will also receive a full work out. Only after the entire system has been fully exercised and the results carefully analysed will the ADF be more confident in declaring IOC.

Anecdotal reports from Cope North and Red Flag say the Wedgetail performed very well against a number of high end adversaries, and that members of the US AEW&C community who flew with 2SQN during these exercises were very impressed with the Northrop Grumman MESA radar’s performance, particularly its ability to maintain simultaneous situational awareness over 360 degrees of sky while focusing in on airborne and surface threats in a particular sector. This feature of electronically scanned array radars – compared to traditional rotating or mechanically steered arrays – is unique, and is the key to the Wedgetail system’s flexibility. The MESA’s lack of moving parts and digital backbone will also ensure its reliability and stability into the future, as well as provide for easier upgrades through future software enhancements.

Boeing Defence Australia (BDA) is mid-way through a five-year In-service support contract (ISSC) to support the aircraft and its associated systems, for which the company is responsible for supporting not only the airborne mission segment (AMS) which comprises the aircraft and its on-board systems as well as the all-important attendant ground support segments (GSS). The GSS comprises the maintenance, simulators and training streams through the provision of engineering, supply, project management and training services. Line maintenance is undertaken by personnel from 2SQN and embedded BDA technicians at Williamtown, while deeper maintenance is performed at BDA’s Amberley facility.

While the DMO’s AEW&C project office under the direction of AVM Chris Deeble is expected to retain oversight of the project until after IOC, the ISSC is managed at a local level through the three-pronged ‘collaborative environment’ to support the Wedgetail and its systems and is made up of BDA, the RAAF’s 41 Wing, and the DMO’s AEW&C Systems Project Office, or AEWCSPO. To oversee this environment, a Joint Alliance Board (JAB) is made up of Boeing’s program manager at Williamtown, the Officer Commanding (OC) 41WG, and the OC AEWCSPO.

Several smaller management teams and boards made up of various skillsets from the three stakeholder groups feed into the JAB, and are responsible for contract resolution issues, configuration change management, business planning, integration support, and other issues. In support of the ISSC, BDA retains considerable ‘reach-back’ through its local head office at Brisbane and in to ‘big Boeing’ in Seattle for engineering support on Wedgetail and the commercial 737 program. BDA cites its considerable experience with the Wedgetail’s development as well as the JP2043 High Frequency Modernisation (HFMOD) and AIR 5333 Vigilare command and control programs as examples of its engineering capabilities, and is an Authorised Engineering Organisation (AEO).