Coming Of Age?

“Those aircraft are notably more reliable. They don’t have some of the more annoying software glitches, things like that. We are actually seeing an improvement in the rate of effort. Every year we see increases in the rate of effort the MRH is achieving and the PBL3 aircraft are certainly contributing to that continuing improvement,” said DMO’s Head of Helicopter Systems, Rear Admiral Tony Dalton.

“The previous 13 aircraft are being retrofitted, with the first three aircraft in the retrofit program at Australian Aerospace in Brisbane. The first one of those aircraft is about to come out of that retrofit program,” he said.

The retrofitting involves a reasonably large amount of work, including hardware and firmware

We’ve worked our way through a lot of these issues well before the Europeans, Australia being a much harsher place to operate helicopters.

changes requiring some component boxes to be sent back to Europe for upgrading and updating. Despite the workload, RADM Dalton said work was progressing well and was currently being completed under the time scheduled by Australian Aerospace.

Italian operators have already deployed the NH90 to Afghanistan in “IOC+” configurations, a rough equivalent to the Australian PBL2, while the German armed services will soon deploy their own IOC+ machines in-theatre.

While the Italian aircraft have hardware and minor equipment differences to the Australian MRH, such as using the GE T700 engines, the German platform is a of a similar configuration, and RADM Dalton said Defence was watching with interest as they prepared to deploy.

“The Germans are about to deploy into Afghanistan with NH90. They just completed a pre-deployment trip to the United States. . . doing a trial with a couple of Tigers and some NH90s, just to familiarise the crew with dust landings and operating at high altitude.

“The Germans are operating a very similar aircraft to Australia and the certification basis for our aircraft is based on the German machines. We are keenly watching what the Germans are doing and the European deployments into Afghanistan are benefiting from the issues that we’ve worked our way through in Australia, like dust-landings and the potential vulnerability the windscreens had to stone chips, which NHI, Eurocopter and AusAero have dealt with for us by putting modifications in place. That’s now benefiting the Europeans as they move into Afghanistan,” he said.

“One of the interesting thing about where Australia is with the MRH is we’ve worked our way through a lot of these issues well before the Europeans, Australia being a much harsher place to operate helicopters. The Europeans hadn’t seen these issues before because the environment they operate in isn’t normally as harsh. ”

Australian experience growing

Navy had previously been expected to hit Initial Operating Capability (IOC) in the middle of 2010. The milestone was eventually pushed out to mid-2013 for a total delay of three years, a date RADM Dalton said Navy was on track to meet, marked by the first aircraft embarked at sea. “Navy is further down the route to IOC than Army is as it was always intended to replace the Sea King capability first,” said the RADM Dalton.

“IOC for Army is the ability to go out and do airmobile operations, which requires more aircraft, more tactics, more coordination. . . so it’s also a bigger step. The first step for Navy is not as great as the step for Army. ” “Navy already has five aircraft down at Nowra, they have a squadron flying plenty of hours, and they’ve taken aircraft to sea.

“They’ve done first-of-type flight trials both on the retired amphibious landing platform and on HMAS Choules, which will return to sea later this year. They’ve also done a limited trial on HMAS Tobruk. In the middle of the year they’ll embark an aircraft on whichever ship Navy will decide is appropriate, and that will mark IOC for Navy. ” The improved reliability of the PBL3 configuration is helping to increase the rate of effort achieved by both service operators, and in turn, on the throughput to raise, train and sustain aircrews and maintainers.

“Army is building its MRH workforce, both aircrew and technicians. Navy is a little bit ahead of Army still, they effectively have a squadron structure which will be commissioned as 808 Squadron, which is pretty well fully populated now.

“Navy retired the Sea King in 2011 as part of the transition to MRH. Because Navy is a much smaller organisation, they couldn’t run in parallel. They’ve been operating fully committed to the MRH now for quite a while. I think we’ll see the Army’s transition to MRH picking up speed, certainly over this year,” RADM Dalton said.

“One of the key milestones for us this year is achieving the Australian Military Type Certificate and service release, and we’ll go to the Airworthiness Board, which is an independent board that works for the Defence Airworthiness Authority, or Chief of Air Force, and that’s a key enabler then for us to progress the transition, and move towards those initial operational capability milestones. ”

Black Hawk sustainment

One limiting factor on the schedule for the ADF’s transition to the MRH 90 is the difficulty in sustaining the ageing Black Hawk fleet. While the fleet is unlikely to be pulled for airworthiness or broken supply chains, RADM Dalton said they had been “well used”, and sustainment issues were more related to the inevitable march of time than problems with the platforms themselves. Similar issues face Navy with their classic Seahawk fleet which is in the process of being replaced by the MH-60R Romeo Seahawk.

“Both Seahawk and Black Hawk are aircraft that we understand well. We’ve operated both now for more than 20 years. We understand the issues and they are getting old. We are running into obsolescence issues and we also have a degree of competition with other operators. The Americans are wearing out their Black Hawks at an unbelievable rate, and competition for repair venue slots, and so on, is increasing.

“Our aircraft have been well used. Just in November the last of the Timor aircraft came out of that deployment. Army effectively had Black Hawks deployed in Timor since about 1999, so that’s the ending of a big commitment. That’ll take some of the pressure off Black Hawk operations. They’ve served the Army really well, but they’ve been in service with the Army since the late 1980s and we’re dealing with all the issues that you deal with in aircraft of that age in terms of cracking and things like that. ” RADM Dalton said.

Australia’s platforms, particularly the Black Hawk, are unique in terms of sustainment requirements, making the maintenance process even more difficult. Australia’s Black Hawks, for example, are the only ones left in the world that still operate the older analogue engine control units instead of the digital control units.

“Our Black Hawks are unique in that we introduced them with a unique flight control system for a Black Hawk, which is effectively the same flight control system as a Seahawk, which is different from the US Army. As that system ages, it’s now become a critical system in the Navy Seahawks and Army

We’ll operate it in a way that benefits us, but it will be different to the way we operate a Black Hawk, just like Black Hawk was different from the Huey.

Black Hawks. The only other people who really operate that system are the US Coast Guard and they’re now changing their flight control system.

“So there are some unique issues that the longer the aircraft continues, the more challenging they become to manage. That comes with an overhead in terms of increased cost, increased risk and that’s really the underlying business case to replace them,” RADM Dalton said.

“Can we continue to extend Black Hawk? Yes. There’s no reason we can’t continue to extend the life of Black Hawk a few more years, but that does come with some cost and effort in terms of the resources we have to apply to manage those growing obsolescence issues. ”

Commercial considerations

MRH was first listed as a Project of Concern in 2011 and a remediation plan was put in place to put the procurement back on track.

“We’ve got a multi-deed program in place with Australian Aerospace. The first deed has been in place for over 12 months. That deed really was the roadmap for resolving the technical issues. That’s been agreed, we’re monitoring the progress on that and we’re seeing the delivery of those technical fixes. Some of them will come over the next year or so, with most arriving in 2013. Some might take a little longer, but we have an agreed process to do that. From an employability, usability, reliability sense, that’s the package that everyone has agreed to, and it’s progressing quite well,” RADM Dalton said.

“The second element of the deed deals with the DMO and Australian Aerospace commercial issues, looking at affordability, key performance indicators, things like that.

“That has been the focus in terms of what the then Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare had been focused on in terms of Projects of Concern, and that’s where we’ve been doing quite a lot of work with Australian Aerospace in terms of coming to an agreement that makes sense for both of us. ” Despite the program’s delays and obstacles, RADM Dalton said the commercial relationship with the prime contractor has remained an open dialogue, focused on the best result for the ADF.

“Whenever you have a program that is experiencing difficulties there’s always a degree of tension, but it has never degraded. We’ve always had a positive working relationship with Australian Aerospace. We’ve never gotten to the point where we can’t negotiate. I think we’ve seen some big steps from Australian Aerospace, Eurocopter and their partners in NHI to work with us to understand our issues. That’s all very positive. ”

Alternatives off the table?

Rumours have long speculated that the UH-60M Black Hawk could be an alternative replacement for the Army’s S-70A Black Hawks should the MRH 90 program fail.

But RADM Dalton would not be drawn on whether Defence had made formal or informal price and availability requests for the UH-60M, instead placing full confidence in the MRH to meet Australia’s service requirements.

“My focus is clearly to deliver a product against a contract and I think the MRH 90 will meet the intent of what we ask for. I’m quite confident of that. Do I think the MRH program is going to fail? No. I’m pretty confident that we will deliver a product that Army and Navy are going to find meets their requirement,” RADM Dalton said.

“There’s no doubt that MRH is not a Black Hawk. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just different. Will you be able to fly it in the same style as a Black Hawk? No. We’ll operate the aircraft with developed techniques, tactics and procedures that take advantage of the benefits of the MRH. Larger cabin size, fourth generation crash protection, digital flight control system, pilot’s forward looking infra-red, all of these are significant advantages.

“We’ll operate it in a way that benefits us, but it will be different to the way we operate a Black Hawk, just like Black Hawk was different from the Huey. ”