A New Era

Driven by a deep and close relationship with a US Navy keen to help a traditional ally and the first Romeo export customer, and informed by the harsh lessons of the Seasprite debacle, the Romeo remains on track as a model defence acquisition program.

“Four little words are magic for us at the moment: ‘On schedule, on budget’, and in reality we’re forecasting to complete ahead of schedule and under budget – it is gold,” RADM Tony Dalton, Head of Helicopter Systems for the Defence Material Organisation, said in Owego of the Romeo acquisition’s progress.

And memories of the Seasprite’s cancellation have played their parttoo in informing how the project is managed and risks are minimised, despite the short timeframe in which the Romeo is being acquired – in part because of the urgent nature of needing to fill the capability hole left by the Seasprite’s cancellation.

“I’ve got a lot of people on the project team who carry the battle-scars from the Seasprite project who were determined to make sure we didn’t repeat the mistakes of the past. We’ve been very adamant that where there is a lesson available from Seasprite we did learn it,” explained outgoing AIR 9000 Phase 8 project director CAPT Scott Lockey.

“We’ve also held to a number of mantras that have helped us get to this point very quickly – ‘MOTS (military off the shelf), scope and no’ – stick to the MOTS program, stick to the scope set by government, and whenever anybody comes up with a ‘good’ idea, the answer is no, not at this point in time. ” Indeed the main risk for the Australian Romeo project at the moment is not the aircraft itself nor training up to operate the new capability, but the new facilities being built at Nowra to accommodate the Romeo, as potential issues with the original plan to refurbish former 817SQN Sea King facilities meant it was deemed lower risk to build all-new facilities on the opposite side of the Nowra runway.

“The facilities build program is the critical path to delivering the mature program. [CO 725SQN] CMDR Frost and his team can’t start training in Australia until we have the training devices installed and we’ve got the training program up and running. So we are targeting February 2015 for that,” CAPT Lockey said.

RADM Dalton elaborated that staying in Jacksonville for anextended period reduced risk, allowing 725SQN to “consolidate alongside the US Navy where they already have three 60 Romeo squadrons and we can use their training aids, we can use their ranges, we can build on their experience, we’re using their safety program that they use when they stand up new 60 Romeo squadrons. So all of that makes a lot more sense in how to de-risk this element of the program, and it ties in with de-risking the facilities element as well. ” The result is a schedule and program that sits comfortably with 725SQN’s training requirements, allowing it to build up proficiency on the aircraft in the US alongside more experienced Romeo operators before returning to Australia where it will serve as the Romeo training squadron, with 816SQN later transferring from the S-70B-2 Seahawk ‘classic’ to the Romeo once 725 is training in Australia.

“The two-year schedule we havefor 2013 and 2014 is right on the money from my perspective at the tactical level, with the year of training not owning our systems and using all the US systems, and a year of using our systems in the States under the support network that is right there next to us,” 725’s CMDR David Frost said.

“One of the advantages of us being in the US is we’re operating under the US system, we’re being trained under the US system at the moment, we’ve got the ability right there, face to face, to be able to discuss tactics and process – ‘why do you do it this way?’ When you bring a new capability home to Australia, if you don’t have that interface, then you stand the risk of going off in your own direction. But when you understand why they got to that point, you can then sit back and say ‘does this work for us?’” Explained CMDR Frost: “The process of building and sustaining a new squadron takes time and resources. So to be able to have the squadron initially focus on their training when we first arrived at the beginning of the year was a great move. We’ve been very busy for the last three to four months as we build up to be able to meet the regulatory requirements as a squadron to operate the aircraft, but now we find ourselves at the end of the first year with 56 qualified, trained, competent and certified aircrew and maintainers now ready to take two aircraft, and then another two. Four aircraft I think is going to be a great number to play with throughout next year and we can build that competency, and we wouldn’t have been able to do that in Australia. ” And RADM Dalton too is confident that 725SQN will be able to generate its required rate of effort in 2014 to meet its training requirements before coming home to Australia at the end of the year.

“The idea of being able to sit here, in the same timezone, right next door to three other 60 Romeo squadrons, gives us a much greater confidence that we’ll be able to generate that rate of effort, and if we

The US Navy has really bent over backwards, they’ve been a terrific partner. RADM DALTON

run into an issue with a widget, we can go to the US Navy and go, ‘we don’t have this widget in our stock and can we borrow one and repay it later?’ So we don’t have to stop and wait for the widget to arrive. ” And 725SQN has also been able to watch how USN units take delivery of their Romeos and convert to the type from its SH-60Bs and Fs.

“We feel a lot more informed, both technically and operationally,” CMDR Frost said.

“The US Navy has really bent over backwards, they’ve been a terrific partner in this process, they’ve suggested stuff … they’re not just passively sitting there watching the Australians develop this process. They’re actively involved with us as a partner,” said RADM Dalton.

One point of difference with the US is Australia’s Seahawk crewing model of ‘single pilot, multicrew’, comprising the pilot, AvWO (aviation warfare officer) and SENSO (sensor operator), whereas the US Navy has a qualified co-pilot in the left hand seat.

“The person sitting in the left hand seat [the AvWO] is a qualified aviator, who can manipulate the controls, who can turn engines on and off, do emergency procedures and all those things, so from that sense the level of competence is the same.

“What we do have is the aviator who sits in the left seat is in charge of tactics, and when you don’t have 250 helicopters you want to get the most value out of every buck, and having a crew model that really puts an emphasis on the tactics provides a better outcome. ” CMDR Frost, himself an AvWO, says the US Navy has been showing a close interest in the Australian crew model.

“They’ve come to learn that the crew model we operate, which is the same we operate in our Seahawk Bravos actually works and works very well, and there has been a lot of comment amongst the US Navy about how productive it is when you’re flying when you have the pilot for safety and the mission commander in the left. ” Tactics will be another potential area of shared learnings.

Explained RADM Dalton: “We will take the tactics, techniques and procedures that the US Navy uses and take them home to Australia, we’ll initially operate it in a way that is going to look much like the United States Navy, but over time we will be able to use the aircraft in a way that Australians are famous for, to get a better result. We have a different crew model, we’re never going to have the same concentration of effect that the US Navy can bring to bear… so we will have to think about how we employ the aircraft, we will evolve over time.

“I’m very confident the stuff that we pick up and start doing with the aircraft will start to filter back to the way the US Navy operates the aircraft.

“Ultimately I think the question will be, do you think the US Navy will start operating their Romeos like Australia, and I think ultimately the answer will be yes. ” In the meantime the RAN is rapidly learning how to operate the Romeo, an aircraft that looks and flies very similarly to the classic Seahawk, but introduces state-of-the-art sensors and systems, including, for the first time in a generation for the RAN, a dunking sonar.

“It flies like a Seahawk… it’s a little heavier at the top end of the envelope but it flies just the same,” RADM Dalton explained.

“The difference is the avionics, it is a completely different jet from an avionics perspective. So for our avionics technicians it is a longer transition for them because it is verydifferent, but it is modern, state-ofthe art avionics. It’s a completely digital radar, it’s a completely digital EO system, it’s pretty much a completely digital ASW system.

Key to that ASW system is the dipping sonar, which Dalton, who flew Sea Kings before their dipping sonars were removed, described as “remarkable”.

Learning to use the dipping sonar is an embedded part of the US Navy training system for Romeo, likewise employing the AGM-114 Hellfire missile, as the RAN has never had a helicopter-launched guided missile before. Part of 725SQN’s training in the US will see it fire live ATM- 114Q Hellfire training rounds. “We have acquired 15 of those to give our aircrews experience with what really happens when you push the button,” CAPT Lockey said.

And while lacking the punch of the Matre missile offered on the Romeo’s rival in the AIR 9000 Phase 8 competition, the NFH 90, RADM was keen to point to out that “the Hellfire gives us quite a useful graduated option in terms of how you might respond to different threats. ” Those options span from just being present and seen, to the 50 cal gun – “a big noise maker” – to Hellfire, to sharing targeting information to the parent (or a another friendly ship) to fire a Harpoon missile.

It is certainly clear that the Romeo acquisition, from a capability standpoint, sits in a sweet spot. It is an aircraft that is now mature and performing well, and it has a parent service keen to work with Australia to ensure a smooth entry into service. RADM Dalton stressed in his address to the delivery ceremony that the event was just one key milestone in an ongoing partnership between Australia and the US on Romeo.

“The quality of the partnership gives me great confidence that we will be able to fly these aircraft into the future at the rate that we need to and in the spaces and places we need to,” he said.