Romeo rising

Training

The first two sensor operator (SENSO) trainees arrived at Naval Air Station Mayport in Florida on February 11 to commence their training on the Romeo’s advanced sensor and avionics systems with US Navy Helicopter squadron HSM-40, and follow on groups of SENSOs, pilots and aviation warfare officers (AvWOs – formerly called ‘observers’) were scheduled to join them through to the end of March. The first maintainers are scheduled to commence training at the nearby NAS Jacksonville (JAX) Centre for Naval Aviation Technical Training (CNATT) unit from mid-April.

“By the end of the year, we will have trained 56 aircrew and maintainers,” the AIR 9000 Phase 8 Project Director, CAPT Scott Lockey told Australian Aviation. “Their training completes around mid-year, at which time they’ll be allocated to one of three or four operational US Navy Romeo squadrons for 90 days of on-the-job training and consolidation.”

It was originally envisaged that HSM-41, the US Navy’s west coast fleet replacement squadron based at NAS North Island in San Diego might do the RAN’s training, but as Lockey explained, North Island is almost at full capacity.

“NAS North Island is very full, whereas JAX has space. The hangar we’re going to use at JAX currently only houses two squadrons out of an allocation of five. Unlike the way we do projects in Australia where we get approval for a project and then build facilities, they build the facilities first. So there was space available to us for a couple of years.”

The RAN’s first two aircraft are scheduled to be delivered to NAS Mayport in early 2014, at which time NUSQN 725 will be established alongside the US Navy squadrons there. Lockey added: “Once we take delivery of our first two aircraft, we’ll operate while we train a further 56 people and take delivery of another five aircraft in 2014. At the end of 2014 we will return 112 people and seven aircraft back to Nowra and formally commission 725SQN as an operational squadron, and be ready to commence operations in Australia in early 2015.”

“The RAN’s first two aircraft are scheduled to be delivered to NAS Mayport in early 2014, at which time NUSQN 725 will be established alongside the US Navy squadrons there.”

As the DMO’s Head of Helicopter Systems Division RADM Tony Dalton explained, the transition model to the Romeo was based heavily on that used by the RAAF’s 1SQN when it converted to the F/A-18F Super Hornet with the US Navy at NAS Lemoore in California through 2007 and 2008.

“We definitely looked at what the Super Hornet guys did,” he said. “It de-risks some of the other parallel stuff we’re doing back in Australia, that is, to make sure we have a mature training pipeline ready to go back in Australia when 725SQN gets back, and in term of making sure we have the buildings ready to house them all. Using the same language as the Super Hornet guys also helped us to effectively explain what we wanted to do to Government.”

“In terms of human resources, there’s a very detailed transition plan in place that looks at who, when and where, and that’s largely a Navy issue,” RADM Dalton added. “We’ve given them the Romeo slots and they’re populating them, but the idea is to maintain what we call a Seahawk ‘classic’ presence at sea until 2016.”

Progress on defining the new facilities that will be required by the Romeo squadrons as well as for the AIR 9000 Phase 7 Helicopter Aircrew Training System machines when they arrive at Nowra has reportedly been slow. One of the key considerations was that the RAN be able to maintain its Seahawk ‘classic’ operations while inducting the Romeo, so the sharing of facilities between the two sub-types and their parent units was not deemed practical.

RADM Dalton said that while the facilities part of the Phase 8 project was currently on schedule, there “isn’t a lot of float in it.” He said that the original plan had been to utilise the former Sea King hangar and headquarters facilities, but it was subsequently deemed more cost efficient to build new facilities on a green field site on the western apron of the base rather than upgrade the ageing Sea King facilities. Detailed planning for the new facilities is almost complete and is due to go before the parliamentary standing committee on public works in May for approval. Construction is scheduled to commence in mid-October and the training complex should be ready for installation of the first Romeo full motion simulator by mid-2014 and be ready for training by March 2015.

In total, the Romeo training complex at Nowra will have 13 synthetic training devices, including two full-motion simulators. CAE USA is building these devices at its Tampa Florida facility and CAE Australia will be the in-service support provider for six years under a stand-alone Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreement through the US Navy. Once that agreement expires, the ADF will look at the option of re-tendering the sim support, rolling CAE’s support into the company’s wider management and support of the ADF’s Aerospace Simulators contract or continuing it as a stand-alone arrangement.

Bromeo

Interestingly, the project will also acquire one of the original modified SH-60B airframes from storage at the vast Aerospace Maintenance And Regeneration Group ‘boneyard’ at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona to be used as a physical training aid. The US Navy had originally intended to remanufacture hundreds of SH-60B and SH-60F Seahawks to the Romeo standard – the ‘R’ in MH-60R standing for ‘Remanufacture’ – but soon found it was almost as cheap and certainly more efficient to buy new-build machines. In the end, only seven SH-60Bs were converted to the Romeo standard and these aircraft, now all in storage, have become known as ‘Bromeos’.

Lockey explained: “At the end of last year we assessed two of those seven airframes and we selected the one we’re going to acquire. That airframe will be acquired as a non-flying maintenance training device – it will fit in between the other training devices which are plumbed into the training facility, and the actual aircraft.”

The project team will take delivery of the Bromeo in July this year. It will initially be delivered to JAX where it will be refurbished to a standard as close as possible to the Lot 10 production machines the RAN will initially be receiving, and will then come back to Australia with 725SQN and be ready to support local training from early 2015.

“We’ll be able to tow it, to apply power and hydraulics to it, to spread and fold the blades, to change the gearbox, and make engine changes,” said Lockey. “All those are opportunities that don’t come up that regularly on the real aircraft, but which our maintainers will need to be able to get their competency journal signed off.”

RADM Dalton offered that one of the options looked at by the RAN for a Phase 8 solution was to refurbish the existing ‘classic’ airframes instead of buying new machines, but said while the airframe and engines weren’t likely to be a major issue, the avionics would be another matter. “The tactical data system in the classic is a first generation integrated combat system with the equivalent of a 256 chipset,” he said. “And it’s a federated system in the classic, which means if you’re going to start upgrading elements of it, you can’t do that without impacting other elements. So you’d effectively have to change the whole avionics backbone of the aircraft.”

With the US Navy’s experience with the Romeo, as well as Australia’s own painful experience with the SEA 1411 Seasprite as well as difficulties with the Seahawk classic’s SEA 1405 upgrade which saw it receive new FLIR and ESM sensors, it was determined the risk associated with further upgrading the Seahawks was “extreme”.

“…the risk associated with further upgrading the Seahawks was extreme.”

“We came to the same conclusion that the US Navy came to, that it’s better value for money to replace it and to go into a new system that has an open architecture and a planned spiral upgrade path, so you don’t trap yourself in a corner in the future. One of the strengths in the Romeo’s combat data system is that it’s truly an open architecture system.”

Differences

Indeed, the main physical differences between the Romeo and the Seahawk classic is in the generational leap in the avionics and mission systems fit.

“The airframe, engine and dynamic system is almost exactly the same,” explained RADM Dalton. “The only major difference mechanically between the two is the engines have a digital electronic control system rather than the old electronic one. There is a lot of ‘read-across’ for the black-hander (fitter) trades, Lockey added.

“There’s a limited use of composites, but there are a number of changes to the airframe structure, particularly the upper deck structure. Instead of it being a folded and riveted structure, it’s now a monocoque design to reduce environmental effects like corrosion on the aircraft.”

Because of these similarities, the project team is looking at implementing a ‘bridging course’ for some of the current ‘classic’ trained engine and airframe fitters to convert them to the Romeo. Lockey explained the bridging training would most likely not commence until the first seven aircraft were back in Australia, as the team thinks it’s important for the first two cadres of 112 people to receive the full US Navy Romeo training in order to have a core expertise of RAN people trained on Romeo.

In the case of the avionics, the RAN is entering a new era in technology, capability and situational awareness with the Romeo. The spiral upgrade path will see a two-year major build cycle and a 12-month minor build cycle for software updates. Australia’s aircraft will come from Lot 10 to Lot 13 build runs, and as such will all be configured with the latest Lot 13 loads once they achieve final operational capability towards the end of the decade to coincide with the delivery of the final Hobart class air warfare destroyers.

Indeed, the RAN is looking to integrate itself with the US Navy so it can automatically lock in any upgrades as they’re released. To this end, the RAN will have a permanent engineering presence within the US Navy’s PMA-299 program office so it can stay in step with US developments.

Classic wind down

Although 725SQN will eventually become the RAN’s Romeo training and support squadron, the first two Romeo flights that will go to sea will be drawn from 725.

“As we withdraw the last classic flight from sea in 2016, the flight parenting role and operational support role will transfer to 816SQN,” explained Lockey.

“There’s a detailed transition plan that shows where every single person transitions from classic to Romeo. But for the first couple of years 725 will be the primary squadron, and that transition for 816 down from classics and up to Romeo will be done in the 2016/17 timeframe.”

In fact, the drawdown of Seahawk classics has already commenced, with the first airframes already withdrawn and a plan in place to withdrawn more aircraft as they come up for a major service. The final Seahawk classic training is scheduled to be conducted in mid-2016, with the final aircraft to be withdrawn from service some time in 2017.

“The timings are driven by personnel, not by the materiel side of it,” said RADM Dalton. “We’ll actually have all the Romeos delivered by August 2016 which is ahead of schedule, but we’re going to stick with the original transition schedule we had because it’s all driven by personnel. That said, there is some flexibility to move those dates about – a lot will rest on being able to keep a capability at sea during that transition – that’s the key element from Navy’s perspective.”

But with deliveries ahead of schedule, the project team feels there is sufficient flexibility in the transition schedule to accommodate any changes in operational requirements.

“To mitigate the risks associated with obsolescence on the Seahawk classic, we were able to address that by having sufficient Romeo airframes early on,” said Lockey. “It suited the US Navy to release some slots to us, and when we negotiated the delivery schedule with the US Navy that also suited our budget forecasts at the time…even though that’s now moved a little bit.”

The transition will be largely dependent on the RAN’s surface ship disposition at the time. The Adelaide class FFGs are due to be de-commissioned later this decade, the Anzac class anti-ship missile defence upgrade will also be in full swing and the first Hobart class air warfare destroyers are due to enter service, so it’s difficult to predict Navy’s aircraft requirement at this stage.

Capability

Much has already been written in this and other publications on the capabilities the Romeo will bring to the ADF, but both RADM Dalton and CAPT Lackey offered some valid points and anecdotes.

While the open architecture of the Romeo’s systems combined with its digital engine controls and fewer parts in the airframe bode well for increased supportability efficiencies compared to the Seahawk classic, RADM Dalton cautioned against being overly optimistic in this regard.

“To be honest I’m reluctant to talk about maintainability at this point in time – we’ve been caught out in the past by accepting the glossy brochure,” he said. “But I think by this time next year after we’ve taken delivery of our first airframes and we’ve taken care of US Navy airframes as part of our on-the-job training, we’ll have a much better understanding.”

Lockey added: “We understand what the US Navy does with its airframes, but they have a three-level maintenance capability – operational, intermediate, and deeper level – whereas we will have a two-level capability – operational and deeper level. Through our logistics support analysis program we’re taking a three-level maintenance program and changing it to two levels, so that will change the balance of what we do on the back of a ship and back at the squadron, compared to what a deep maintenance contractor will do. So I think it’s going to be a couple of years before we understand fully what the maintenance aspects are like.”

But from an operational capability, RADM Dalton – who used to fly Sea Kings and the Seahawk classic – described the Romeo as a “game changer” in this region.

“The big issue for us in terms of Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) is moving back into a dipping sonar. I’m old enough to have done dipping sonar, and it’s a game changer – there’s one thing that makes submariners extremely nervous and that’s dipping sonar!”

“There’s one thing that makes submariners extremely nervous and that’s dipping sonar!””

The sonar the Romeo uses is a European design that has been modified by Raytheon for the Romeo.

“The detection rates, the smarts in the software, and the elements that Raytheon have added to it make it an incredibly powerful sensor that can monitor so much water,” RADM Dalton continued. “It’s a different way of dipping to what we used to do, and the detection ranges are better by a factor of more than 10 on what we were used to. This dipping sonar will enable us to get back into true ASW, and that’s a key game changer for us.”

Lockey also identified the high level of integration of the Romeo’s sensors as a highlight.

“There are a number of fusion elements that will bring together the (data)link picture, the underwater picture, and the surface picture in a very, very powerful manner that we’re quite excited about. In terms of situational awareness, the three crewmembers in the Romeo will have an unparalleled view of the world, and when you combine that with the EW (electronic warfare/ESM) capability, that makes it an extremely powerful system.”

RADM Dalton added: “The radar is just mind-boggling good! It has some fantastic capabilities. It’s a true ISAR (inverse synthetic aperture) radar – you only need a tiny bit of motion on the target vessel and the amount of data you can pull off it is amazing. And then there is the ability to integrate in the link picture – with Link 16 the Romeo will be a true player in any joint battlespace – from that perspective it’s a powerful change. When we operate with the US Navy in coalition of joint ventures, we’ll also be able to integrate more fully with the USN system because our aircraft will come with HawkLink which is a broadband directional datalink.”

“The radar is just mind-bogglingly good!” Radm Dalton

First of class

Included in the deliverables of Phase 8 the project is providing ‘first-of-class’ flightdeck wind and motion envelopes for the Romeos from the RAN’s Anzac class frigates and Hobart class destroyers. It is unlikely a Romeo will be embarked on an operational Adelaide class FFG cruise before those vessels are withdrawn. But due to the differences in the aircraft there will be little opportunity to leverage off Seahawk classic procedures for flight deck envelopes.

“If you look at the read-across, there’s very little from the classic that can be applied to the Romeo because of the increased weight of the Romeo – it’s almost 2000 pounds heavier than a classic,” said Lockey. “If you do, you’ll be limiting the weight of the Romeo such as that it’s not operationally capable – and you’re not going to be able to carry a weapon or carry fuel for more than 30 minutes of flight.”

“There are a whole range of things we’ll be introducing with the Romeo which we never had with the classic,” added RADM Dalton. “Certainly in terms of flight envelope development, but also with weapons. The Hellfire (air-to-surface missile) is a forward firing rail launched missile, which brings all sorts of interesting concepts when you’re operating towards a ship that doesn’t have a through deck on it. So, how do we bring back stores, potentially hung missile, these are all elements that we need to have considered. Our risk profile is quite often different than the US – in some cases we are willing to take more risk and in other places we’re more conservative. So there are some subtle differences that prevent us doing a direct read-across from the US too.”

Weapons & Support

The RAN’s Romeos will be equipped with the AGM-114N Hellfire missile and the Mk-54 torpedo in RAN service.

The ‘November’ variant of the Hellfire has been determined as having the most effective type of warhead for anti-ship missions, whereas the Army operates the AGM-114M ‘Mike’ version on its Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters for the anti-armour mission. The Mk-54 torpedo will be common to that operated from the RAAF’s new P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft which are due to replace the AP-3C Orion from late this decade.

RADM Dalton noted: “It’s worth pointing out that, even though this is an FMS process, we’re effectively buying off-the-shelf – this is an absolutely stock-standard US Navy aircraft. We’ve also bought seven years of FMS support and a lot of the team’s effort is going in to managing that because if we get that wrong, obviously we’ll have 24 shiny new aircraft we can’t use.”

Under the FMS deal, the US Navy will contract to Team Romeo and its Australian subsidiaries to support the Romeo in service for the first seven years.

To this end, it is likely Sikorsky, Lockheed Martin, CAE, Raytheon and General Electric will comprise part of the Australian support element, while being managed through the US Navy.

“It’s a very complicated part of this puzzle,” said RADM Dalton. “It’s very different from the model air force has used with C-17. It’s important to know what the US Navy is going to deliver to us, how that interfaces with our system inside the technical airworthiness management system – the aircraft have to go through all the Australian rules and regulations.

“How much control and influence we have over that system is a key element in the delivery which is often overlooked. Having a shiny new vehicle without getting that support element right, it’s just not worth anything.”