A brief history of naval aviation

In July 1947, the Commonwealth Defence Council approved the formation of an official Fleet Air Arm (FAA) to be controlled and operated by the RAN. Initial planning for the FAA included the purchase of two aircraft carriers, the HMA Ships Sydney and Melbourne, and corresponding aircraft and shore facilities, located at Nowra. In August 1948, the site was finally commissioned into the RAN as HMAS Albatross. HMAS Sydney’s maiden voyage disembarked to Nowra in May 1949. It saw the delivery of the 805 and 806 squadrons, known as the 20th Carrier Air Group (CAG), operating Hawker Sea Furies and Fairey Fireflies, respectively. Sydney returned to England in November 1950 to collect the 21st CAG, consisting of the 808 and 817 squadrons, also flying Sea Furies and Fireflies.

Since then, Albatross has grown significantly, as more complex aircraft have been acquired, and ground support facilities and systems have expanded in suit. In the 1950s, the RAN set about replacing its ageing piston-engine aircraft, with De Havilland Sea Venom all-weather fighter jets and Fairey Gannett AS1 turboprop aircraft. Both would be set to serve on HMAS Melbourne, which was undergoing modernisation in the UK at the time. These new aircraft required Albatross to facilitate radar workshops and test facilities, requiring upgrades. Later, in 1958, a new control tower was built, in response to an increase in aircraft and the necessity of stricter standards of air traffic control. Further expansions of facilities and services were required in the mid-1960s, after the introduction of Wessex helicopters, with a dunking sonar capability, and the addition of American aircraft – including McDonnell Douglas Skyhawks and Grumman Trackers – required avionics facilities to be built, to serve the complex equipment they carrier.

In recognition of the vital role that the on-shore infrastructure plays for the ongoing operations of the RAN and the FAA, Albatross continues to expand to this day. The HMAS Albatross Redevelopment project has been underway since 2011, when it was introduced into Parliament, in order to “assure future base operational needs and support capabilities for the next 30 years”, according to Commodore Don Dezentje, CSM, Commander of the Fleet Air Arm. While some alterations were required over time, CDRE Dezentje notes that “a range of base-wide underground utility services at Albatross had essentially not been upgraded since 1942”, necessitating the $200 million redevelopment. The development saw the improvement of “base capacity and performance” through the upgrade of trunk engineering services that supported “critical operational, training, security and administrative elements”.

“It provided significant reinvestment in engineering services, and common facilities necessary to ensure the base could support the introduction of MRH-90 helicopters, MH-60R Seahawk helicopters, and the EC135 training helicopters,” CDRE Dezentje says.

Meanwhile, Phase 8 of the AIR 9000 program involved the acquisition of 24 MH-60R ‘Romeo’ Seahawk helicopters – often referred to as ‘next-generation submarine hunters’ – as well as associated weapons and support systems. For Albatross, the project required the construction of a suite of new dedicated maintenance, training and operations support facilities, including simulators. This upgrade saw “broad-ranging changes” to Albatross, and included the co-location and construction of a Sikorsky “dedicated deep level maintenance facility”. This facility was purpose-built by Sikorsky (Lockheed Martin) and provides “synergy between contracted deep maintenance with the ADF”, according to CDRE Dezentje.

“The shared facility approach by the two Squadrons (725 and 816) has provided efficiency dividends,” he says.

For CDRE Dezentje and the whole of the FAA, the upgrades conducted over the last decade at HMAS Albatross have been “tailored to support the latest generation of naval aviation”. By concentrating all manners of training, sustainment, support and operations in the one location in Nowra, “temporal discipline has been enhanced, creating a multiplying effect”, for CDRE Dezentje.

“Collectively, these facilities are providing the foundation for success in the training of our people and provision of maritime aviation capability. Changes were considered as part of the operational needs of the new platforms that came into service and were an integrated element of overall project considerations,” CDRE Dezentje says.

“This approach has meant that the introduction of new aircraft was adequately and appropriately supported by the key infrastructure that modern aircraft, equipment and people supporting these systems need.”

Introducing Romeo

The MH-60R Seahawk helicopter, often referred to as ‘Romeo’, is known as the next generation submarine hunter and anti-surface warfare rotary wing aircraft. The helicopter is equipped with highly sophisticated combat systems, and is designed to employ Hellfire air-to-surface missiles and the Mark 54 anti-submarine torpedo.

“Equipped with air-to-surface weapons, torpedoes and advanced sensors, the MH-60R provides the maritime combat helicopter capability, optimised for anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare,” CDRE Dezentje says.

Further, the Romeo is fully compatible with the Australian Defence Forces’s network-centric warfare systems, which simplifies the helicopter’s integration and interoperability with other ADF assets, including the air warfare destroyer, submarine fleet, and P-8 Poseidon, F/A-18 Hornet and F-35A Lightning II fixed-wing aircraft. The MH-60R and its enhanced mission systems replaced the Navy’s fleet of S-70B-2 Seahawk aircraft, which were retired from service on 1 December 2017.

The $3 billion acquisition was approved by the Australian government in June 2011, with the first of 24 MH-60R Romeos delivered to the RAN in 2013. The acquired aircraft were purchased off-the-shelf through the foreign military sales (FMS) program in conjunction with the US Navy and manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

“We delivered the first two aircraft in December of 2013, and we achieved operational capability with the Royal Australian Navy in 2015. That was deliberately aligned to ensure that as the Hobart Class destroyers were fielded, that Australia’s naval aviation had a renewed capability in anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare,” Neale Prescott, business development manager for Lockheed Martin says. The final of Australia’s 24 Romeos were delivered by Lockheed Martin in 2017, with full operational capacity achieved 18 months later.

The aircraft were purchased and continue to be supported through an ongoing FMS contract with the US Navy and Lockheed Martin. The arrangement has seen Lockheed Martin establish purpose-built deep level maintenance and warehouse facilities at HMAS Albatross, to cater to the ongoing maintenance of the Romeos. This arrangement ensures the employment of almost 200 personnel on Australian shores.

“We’ve got over 180 people working on MH-60R, and 10 new apprentices,” Prescott reveals. He emphasises the work the Lockheed Martin are doing to provide greater opportunities for Australians, particularly with the recent introduction of three indigenous trainee sponsorships, and a range of graduate programs created in conjunction with Australian universities.

The significance of the RAN’s replacement of the S-70B-2 Seahawk fleet with MH-60R Romeos is two-fold. Firstly, the helicopters serve as a vital link to “extending the eyes and ears” of the RAN’s ships that forge below them, with future enhancements set to only expand their capabilities in surveillance and communication. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the “off-the-shelf” acquisition of the Romeos brought the Australian Navy back in step with its US counterpart, minimising unique Australian modifications, and paving the way for future expansion of not only the MH-60R program, but the future of the Australian Navy.

“Although the S-70B-2 and the MH-60R appear to be the same aircraft, there are significant differences between the two variants,” CDRE Dezentje says. He explains that the RAN has ultimately decided to “remain in lock-step” with the US Navy on both aircraft configuration and procedures, in order to have scope to expand and enhance both systems and procedures.

“This is different from how the Fleet Air Arm introduced and employed the S-70B-2, which had bespoke mission systems installed in an airframe purchased under a direct commercial sale arrangement. This meant the S-70B-2 was a stand-alone fleet of only 16 aircraft, leaving Australia without any economies of scale,” he says. “In comparison, the MH-60R system allows the RAN to leverage from the US Navy fleet of approximately 300 aircraft and the associated large support systems.”

One major impact of the off-the-shelf acquisition process was the RAN’s return to a forward-firing anti-surface warfare weapons system, as the helicopter is network-enabled with its own unique weapons suite. This was noted as a “significant change” for the RAN by CDRE Dezentje.

Despite this, he continues: “AIR 9000 Phase 8 has been successful due to the in-step alignment of configuration with the US Navy and minimisation of Australian unique modifications. Lessons learned from this and other naval aviation projects have been to buy off the shelf, proven aircraft that are in service with a comparable military service.”

While some may argue that the RAN and Australian Defence loses a sense of its unique identity by utilising this arrangement, CDRE Dezentje instead argues that in having “shared outcomes” for the capability of the aircraft and ultimately the Defence Force, “we often find ourselves aligned on which path to develop the capability”.

The use of FMS contracts for the purchase of off-the-shelf aircraft as well as ongoing service and maintenance facilities provides Australia with a “sovereign capability in a close partnership with the US Navy”, according to CDRE Dezentje, which also ultimately allow the ADF to work with the US Navy in expanding Australian capability into the future.

This then raises the question – what is the future of Australia’s MH-60R Romeos? A significant component of the Lockheed Martin manufactured aircraft is their “transformational approach” to future-proofing their products for the benefit of the defence industry, according to Prescott. He noted that Lockheed Martin’s “open system architecture” allows for the mission system within the aircraft to be continuously updated, which further necessitates the dedicated service and maintenance facilities based at Albatross in Nowra.

According to CDRE Dezentje, enhancements are already set to be made to the MH-60R’s “passive and active sensors”, which will essentially see the aircraft provided with increased ability to “share and see information more widely”.

“This will enable the helicopter to have better situational awareness and control networked enabled weapons,” CDRE Dezentje says. “The maritime and littoral battlespace is becoming ever more joint and collaborative, and the MH-60R is optimised to sit in the middle of that environment with the various weapons, systems and links that it provides.”

According to the Commander of the FAA, Australia is also heavily invested in the US Navy’s “ongoing technology upgrade roadmap”, which will ensure that the Romeos remain “relevant and capable”.

“The high levels of integration that come with the MH-60R provide a broad range of flexible capability options to meet the requirements of the contemporary embarked Combat Commander,” CDRE Dezentje says.

According to the FAA, this includes an ongoing supporting project, SEA 5510 Phase1, run by both the USN and the RAN in a joint Capability Assurance Program that is funded to maximise commonality of configuration and enhance interoperability between the RAN and US Navy’s MH-60R fleets.

The Future of naval aviation in Australia

As you now know, through the increasing focus on FMS and getting the Australian Navy back “in lock-step” with the USN, the future of naval aviation in Australia is largely linked to the programs that are currently being explored in the US. Perhaps the most relevant and critical program to focus on is what is referred to as Future Vertical Lift (FVL).

According to Prescott, FVL is the US Army’s “highest priority aviation modernisation program”, and Lockheed Martin has marked itself as a significant player in the future of defence aviation through a number of technology-based advancements in its aircraft.

“As we look at the type of warfare that’s occurring, land forces are needing to be able to be inserted over longer distances. They need to be able to stand back from the edge of the battlefield but then move quickly and safely into these areas,” Prescott notes, as a key starting point for the future development of Lockheed Martin aircraft.

“In March, the Sikorsky Raider X was one of the aircraft selected for the ‘future armed reconnaissance aircraft’ and … we were also selected with a Sikorsky Boeing Defiant aircraft for a program called the ‘future long-range assault aircraft.’”

Prescott elaborates: “So these are, if you like, a family of aircraft designed to modernise the US Army, and that covers everything from light reconnaissance right through to medium battlefield lift, and then there is a potential further phase that would look at the medium-to-heavy lift aircraft.”

For Australia, these developments, and particularly the technology that they bring to the US Defence Force, are going to be significant moving forward.

“Australia, in the next 10 years will look at replacing its armed reconnaissance aircraft, and start examining what it does with the battlefield lift,” Prescott says, referring to the Australian Army’s LAND 4503 program, which aims to replace the current fleet of EC665 Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters (ARH) by the mid-2020s.

According to Prescott, in conjunction with programs occurring in the US and the push towards FVL, Lockheed Martin’s Raider X technology could very well play a significant role in the future of Australian Defence and rotary aircraft.

“Over 10 years ago, we created an experimental aircraft which achieved a speed of 250 [knots],” he says.

For context, typically aircraft with conventional rotary wings operate at around 180 knots. The Raider X system consists of two main coaxial rotor blades, which are counter rotating, and a single pusher propeller. Prescott states that the success achieved by the helicopter is due to the control system, the management of vibration, and the use of “advanced composite material”.

“This means the aircraft fly substantially faster, and they have a longer endurance, a longer range and greater manoeuvrability,” he adds.

However, the future of naval aviation expands beyond simply faster, more maneuverable multi-blade rotary aircraft. According to the FAA’s CDRE Dezentje, the Navy intends to continue its investment in maritime unmanned aircraft systems (MUAS), and is currently in the development phase with 822X Squadron, experimenting with two unmanned aerial systems – the Insitu Scan Eagle, and the Schiebel S-100. The program is referred to as Project SEA 129-5 MUAS.

The ScanEagle is one of the most widely used tactical unmanned aircraft systems in the world, and has flown over 1 million flight hours in total across all its global fleet. The ScanEagle system consists of multiple remotely piloted long endurance fixed wing aircraft. The planes are capable of runway independent operations from both land bases and seagoing vessels. Meanwhile, the Schiebel S-100 camcopter is a small-medium sized vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, made of titanium and carbon fibre materials. The S-100 consists of one or more remotely piloted aircraft and a ground control system, with all associated interconnections necessary for RPA command and control. The aircraft is designed to carry multiple payloads simultaneously for up to six hours at a time.

Through the 822X Squadron, and the development phase of Project 129-5, the RAN continues to improve its knowledge and understanding of the UAS environment. The current development phase of MUAS technologies is “informing Project 129-5 and improving knowledge, operational experience, training, airworthiness management and development of capability options that support integrated warfare outcomes”, according to CDRE Dezentje.

The FAA appears to have a clear vision that the future of naval aviation lives in unmanned aircraft.

“An element of 822X Squadron experimentation activities has been on capability exploitation in order to ensure that we are fully informed when it comes to a decision for SEA 129-5. The manned/unmanned relationship will bring manned and unmanned aviation into shared airspace and provide opportunities for mutual tasking,” CDRE Dezentje says.

“This cross-over will potentially become more pronounced within a contested environment, where our most vital resource (our people) are utilised in a manner which minimises risk as far as practicable.”

As such, the continued investment in MUAS and the ongoing Project SEA 129-5 program will see enhancements made within Albatross, to better cater and support these technologies, and better expand new MUAS capabilities.

“UAS will be critical to operations in a contested environment. There are also tremendous opportunities within the unmanned system domain to extend the range and effectiveness of a surface vessel. This potential will continue to expand and develop over the coming years,” CDRE Dezentje says.