Battle rhythm

But the MRH-90’s availability and rates of effort have been increasing rapidly in the past 18 months. So much so that, in the wake of successful operational deployments to Fiji and PNG, and its participation in Exercise Talisman Saber, the Australian Army’s 5th Aviation Regiment (5 Avn) at Townsville is now anxious to showcase the helicopter’s rapidly growing capabilities.

AIR 9000

Australia’s MRH-90 Taipan is closely based on the German Army’s NH90 Troop Transport Helicopter (TTH). It was acquired under multiple follow-on phases to the lead Project AIR 9000 Phase 1 which in 2002 resulted in the ADF Helicopter Strategic Master Plan.

AIR 9000’s goal was to rationalise the number of helicopter types in ADF service from nine types to five, partly through the acquisition of a multi‑role machine, resulting in greater “efficiencies in through‑life support and personnel requirements.”

The initial acquisition was for 12 MRH-90s through the AIR 9000 Phase 2 Additional Troop Lift Helicopter project to “provide the ADF with extra mobility for forces on operations, particularly amphibious operations.”

This phase received government second pass approval in August 2004 and an acquisition contract was signed with Australian Aerospace (now Airbus Group Australia Pacific – AGAP) in June 2005. The MRH-90 was selected ahead of the Sikorsky S-70M Black Hawk (the commercial version of the US Army UH-60M), and the AgustaWestland (now Leonardo) EH‑101 Merlin.

Phase 2 was followed by Phases 4 and 6 which sought to acquire 28 helicopters to replace the Army’s S‑70A‑9 Black Hawks, and six machines to replace the RAN’s Sea King MK.50As respectively. These two phases received simultaneous second pass approval in April 2006, and brought the total number of MRH-90s on order to 46.

In May 2013, Airbus Helicopters offered an additional MRH-90 to the ADF as part of a “negotiated settlement and release of commercial, technical and schedule issues”, taking the fleet total to 47.

A significant factor in the selection of the MRH-90 was Airbus’s undertaking to assemble a majority of the aircraft at its Pinkenba facility at Brisbane Airport using Australian manufactured and sourced components, and then provide ongoing deeper level maintenance to the fleet from that site.

The first four aircraft plus a later fifth were built by Eurocopter at Marignane in France, while the rest of the fleet was assembled at Brisbane.

The June 2014 ANAO report summary reads in part: “A core feature of the master plan was to form a partnership with a prime contractor to implement the AIR 9000 program through a strategic partner program agreement. This strategic agreement was to complement long‑term sole‑source helicopter acquisition and sustainment contracts, through the sharing of goals, risks and communication strategies, and by providing for cost visibility and audit access.”

A lot of people who have done a lot of hard work … and we’re seeing some good results. – LTCOL KIM GILFILLAN

Pain before gain

A strategic partner program agreement was signed between the then Defence Materiel Organisation and Australian Aerospace in July 2005, but as the ANAO report states: “The interim support system did not include important support elements such as an electronic warfare self protection support cell, a ground mission management system, a software support centre, an instrumented aircraft with telemetry, and full-flight and mission simulators” which were deemed “…critical for providing training and the ability to operate off ships.”

The report adds that these elements “…were removed from the MRH-90 acquisition contract to ensure AIR 9000 Phase 2 remained within its approved budget.”

Other capability issues with the MRH-90 included a composite cabin floor that was often being damaged by heavy equipment, the placement of the door-mounted mini-gun which restricted the ability of troops to quickly egress from the helicopter, reported problems with the rear cargo ramp fluttering when hovering in ground effect, and issues with the helicopter’s cargo hook.

These combined with an immature sustainment and logistics system saw two major pauses in acceptance of the aircraft by the ADF, the fleet delivered in several interim capability blocks, and the aircraft’s planned initial operational capability (IOC) delayed by more than four years from mid-2010 to late 2014. This in turn put pressure on the ADF’s operational budget due to the need to extend the service life of the Black Hawk fleet, and to cover a capability gap following Navy’s Sea King retirement.

“The difficulties experienced by the MRH-90 program are primarily a consequence of program development deficiencies and acquisition decisions during the period 2002 to 2006,” the ANAO report summary states.

“That period included requirements definition, the source selection process and the establishment of acquisition and sustainment contracts.”

Almost 10 years after the first two MRH-90s were handed over in December 2007, AIR 9000 Phases 2, 4 & 6 remain on Defence’s Projects of Concern list, but the program has never looked in better health.

An air of positivity

Townville-based 5 Aviation Regiment has undergone a restructure in 2017 in an effort to improve efficiencies and to best realise the capabilities of the MRH-90. The regiment comprises two MRH-90 flying units, A Squadron and B Squadron, while C Squadron operates the Boeing CH-47F Chinook.

A Squadron is the lead unit for experience on the MRH-90, while B Squadron was stood up in 2016 and is expected to have all of its personnel in place by the end of this year.

The regiment also has a Combat Logistics Support Squadron which provides refuelling, aircraft tugs and drivers, logisticians and other support tasks to all three flying units and the maintenance organisations.

The maintenance organisation is three-tiered, with the Delta Technical Support Troop (DTST) staffed by 35 Airbus technical and support staff, a uniformed Technical Support Troop (TST) for each squadron, and then flightline maintenance which is also performed by squadron staff with some Airbus support. Deeper level maintenance is performed by Airbus at its Brisbane Airport facility.

The DTST essentially ‘owns’ six aircraft upon which it performs maintenance, and these aircraft are cycled through the two flying squadrons to ensure each is able to field six helicopters of their own.

“The MRH-90 Taipan has had a lot of bad press over the years, but there’s a lot of people who have done a lot of hard work, and we’re doing our little bit now and we’re seeing some good results,” Lt Colonel Kim Gilfillan, commanding officer (CO) 5 Avn told Australian Aviation.

“I guess I think it’s a bit of a story of a long journey that’s leading to success. We haven’t solved all of the issues, but we are getting a lot more out of the aircraft this year than we have previously.”

Indeed, the projected rate of effort (ROE) for the MRH-90 for 2017 is expected to be double that of 2016. At the time of our visit, the regiment had flown nearly 400 hours for the month of August, on top of a combined 940 hours logged in June and July.

“A lot of that was operations-based flying in PNG and for Talisman Saber, and concurrently based off a ship,” explained Major James Pidgeon, officer commanding (OC) A SQN. “We had a bit of a dip in May due to some unscheduled maintenance, but we were able to recover immediately after that which is something we haven’t been able to do previously.”

“It’s not just the regiment, Airbus is really pitching in too,” LTCOL Gilfillan said. “They’re not quite where they need to be yet, but they’re travelling in the right direction and they’ve provided some positive improvements to our supply chain which is making a big difference. I think generating a positive relationship with Airbus is vitally important. It’s really important, in a complex activity like aviation that everyone works together for a common goal, and that’s what I think we’re doing.”

The Airbus presence at Townsville was bolstered earlier this year at the company’s expense with the formation of the DTST.

“Availability is the challenge for MRH-90 and we at our expense have placed 35 additional people into Townsville at the start of this year to improve the availability,” Airbus Group Australia Pacific managing director Tony Fraser told media in June.

“That makes a total of 41 [personnel] at company expense in Townsville, and that enables Defence to focus on maintaining the aircraft but also preparing for combat operations… and all the training activities that go with that, and [with] industry being able to provide a baseline level of availability of the aircraft.”

“It’s not just about having extra ‘spanner swingers’,” said MAJ Andrew Mitchell, 5 Avn’s operations officer. “It’s about having Airbus understand our parts supply issues from a Europe based aviation company, to get stuff to Australia when we need it, and to fault-find more in-depth problems. It’s been a huge success just from that perspective.”

“That’s been a really successful organisational change,” MAJ Pidgeon agreed. “Having a contractor workforce enables us to work more closely with Airbus, and really strengthens that relationship I think. That change has produced excellent results in terms of flying hours and availability.”

Battle rhythm

Another major factor in the MRH-90’s success has been the establishment of a regular flying “battle rhythm” when the flying units are in barracks at Townsville.

“I talk about a culture of belief; we’ve done a lot of work to set conditions to establish a stable routine in the regiment, and good planning, that helps us to deliver our effect but doesn’t drive our people into the ground while we’re doing it,” LTCOL Gilfillan said.

The battle rhythm essentially means the regiment is available for nonoperational support flying between set hours. This has allowed aircrew, maintainers and support personnel to establish family life routines away from work.

“What we really did this year was to focus more on planning,” MAJ Mitchell explained. “It wasn’t necessarily a case of allowing our maintenance to drive flying hours. While we’re in barracks and people need to go home to their families, we set a battle rhythm that can meet our tempo so we know when we’re flying. We pushed this out to the rest of Army and said, if you want to do something with us, this is when we fly, and we have a very good chance of being able to support that task.”

The MRH-90 was described by MAJ Mitchell as “a generational shift” because it has both calendar and hours based maintenance. Previous aircraft such as the UH-1H and the Black Hawk essentially only required hours-based services.

“Part of the challange is trying to align those,” he explained. “When an aircraft is in a hangar getting maintenance done on it, we need to where possible align its hours-based and its calendar-based maintenance to be done at the same time. So we had to work out, how do we let maintenance drive the hours we can fly to align these servicings, and a stable battle rhythm was key to that as well.

“It took a lot of change, and there was some initial pushback across Army because people thought we were losing flexibility,” MAJ Mitchell continued.

“But flexibility is what destroyed our tempo and some of our people’s personal lives previously. This has allowed our tradies to manage their workflow, they now know in advance when they have to have aircraft on the line.”

Another change under the new battle rhythm was to centralise the mission support personnel instead of each unit having their own mission support cell. This has allowed the regiment to surge that support for operations, while providing better training during the set barracks flying windows.

“Because of this new battle rhythm, the serviceability of the aircraft now is so good we’re actually putting more lines of aircraft on over a shorter window, and flying just as much or more,” said MAJ Mitchell. “That’s the perfect training solution of all when in barracks.”

Operations

The MRH-90 made its operational debut during Operation Fiji Assist, the support effort in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Winston which struck the island nation in February 2016.

“Our MRHs went to Fiji via strategic airlift on a C-17, and they came back on the LHD (HMAS Canberra),” said MAJ Mitchell. “That was quite a milestone for the aircraft to deploy to Fiji and was a big hours spike for us. Obviously a lot of attention in supply and parts went into keeping those aircraft flying, and that was a big deal at the time for MRH.”

The lessons learned from Fiji Assist were applied earlier this year when the MRH-90s of B Squadron made two deployments to Papua New Guinea, one for VIP tasking to support the visit of the Australian Governor General and Prime Minister in April, and the other in June to support the PNG elections.

“The MRH performed excellently in PNG,” MAJ Jason Long, OC Technical Support Squadron told us. “We had five aircraft and flew 460 hours in seven weeks. The aircraft loves to fly, and we had fewer glitches than Fiji the year before. We had a better ‘flyaway kit’ (spares holding) then we had in Fiji, although there is probably a little more work to do to optimise the ‘Fakits’.”

The PNG effort was immediately followed by Talisman Saber 17, in which A SQN played a major role, deploying to the exercise area onboard HMAS Canberra.

The MRH-90s had to work with ARH Tigers, US Army Black Hawks and Apaches, as well as RNZAF NH90s, and achieved a 95 per cent availability rate during the exercise.

“The integration with the foreign equipment was fine,” said MAJ Mitchell. “But more importantly, from a soldier perspective we’ve worked through a lot of the issues with cabin integration in the MRH as well.

Plus ‘Pidge’s’ guys at A SQN did a 110 nautical mile overwater insertion by night, where the expectation was 50 nautical miles!”

“I took the lead on the amphibious capability this year,” MAJ Pidgeon added. “Obviously we have the two LHDs going through their own intro to service windows as well, and we hit some really big training milestones this year. The joint force entry was an opposed landing operational scenario at Talisman Saber, and was a great success for Navy and for us.

“So after the CH-47Fs did their initial LHD first of class trials earlier this year, the benefit for 5 Avn now is, we’ve got three squadrons all essentially with an amphibious capability, which is a great flexibility for the ADF. In A SQN in particular we have a high level of expertise, and it’s been exciting times for us.”

Capability

“The Taipan is a fantastic helicopter, it’s the most capable helicopter I’ve ever flown, and we can make it work,” said LTCOL Gilfillan.

There has been much criticism over the choice of the MRH-90 over the latest UH-60M Black Hawk, with anecdotal reports of an Army ‘Black Hawk mafia’ actively lobbying for the ADF to buy Black Hawks for the Holsworthy-based 6 Aviation Regiment as recently as last year for the specialised special operations support role.

“The Black Hawk has certainly been a fantastic aircraft for the ADF, but we had a lot of problems bringing it into service and getting it to a mature state,” said LTCOL Gilfillan. “The Taipan is different to a Black Hawk, and in my belief in many ways it’s superior.

“Some of the real positives about the Taipan are the fully-integrated digital cockpit which is also integrated into the HMD (Top Owl helmet mounted display). So not only do I have my symbology in my helmet but I can also get FLIR (forward looking infrared) displayed in the helmet, and there’s not that many aircraft in the world that have that kind of capability.”

Indeed, this writer was fortunate to have had a ‘ride’ in the MRH‑90 simulator at Townsville and experienced the HMD first hand. Not only does the green FLIR imagery projected onto the helmet’s visor provide a surprisingly high-fidelity view of the outside world at night or in adverse weather, it also allows the aircrew to see through the cabin floor and the large instrument panel, giving exceptional situational awareness when flying at low level or in formation, or when landing.

“The Taipan also has far greater internal fuel endurance than any other helo in its class, which gives us the ability to fly longer distances faster,” LTCOL Gilfillan continued. “When you start putting external ‘jugs’ on the side, you restrict the weapons systems you can carry and the extra drag slows you down.”

Other work underway includes a new gun mount which will alleviate the previously described egress problems.

“For the trooping role and air assault role its not a significant issue,” said MAJ Pidgeon. “The current gun mount is an interim gun mount, and it’s ok for what we do.

“There is a Taipan gun mount project to replace that which will much reduce the problem and also allow minigun fitment,” he added. “That’s specifically to enable the special operations role as MRH gets closer to 6 Avn, but we’ll be quite happy to have that on our aircraft as well.”

The Black Hawk’s known ability to approach a landing zone quickly and to land while rolling forward due to its tail wheel and long-stroke main gear will be hard to match by the tricycle landing gear configured MRH.

“The Black Hawk certainly has that particular characteristic,” said LTCOL Gilfillan. “But the MRH has a flatter belly so it decelerates faster, so the total exposure is pretty similar. You’re talking seconds either way between the two aircraft – the fact that you can do one thing in a Black Hawk and another thing in a Taipan, in the end they’re about the same from that point of view. [And] the Taipan with its largely composite fuselage and pretty low radar signature is a real positive in its ability to penetrate airspace as well.

“In the end, Taipan is the aircraft the Australian Government chose to acquire, and we have a duty to make it work,” said LTCOL Gilfillan in closing. “What I’m trying to do is to be positive about the aircraft, because positive thinking is far more likely to bring success than negative thinking. But it’s a fantastic helicopter – I am not only very positive about the aircraft itself, but also in our ability to make it work. It’s been a journey and we have positive momentum, and I’m excited about what the possibilities are.”