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Nigel Pittaway | Melbourne

 

In the last financial year the Tiger fleet achieved only 3,500 flying hours, half of the mature rate of effort required and frustrated senior Defence officials were wondering aloud whether the helicopter would have a long-term future unless immediate improvements were made.

In particular, over the last 12 months, senior DMO officers have worked closely with industry executives, both here and in France, to ensure the true level of this frustration was not being lost in translation.

The frustration is primarily with the Tiger sustainment system, for instance the length of time taken for repairable components to return from Europe and re-enter the supply system can extend to more than a year. Altogether the sustainment shortfalls contributed to a cost of ownership well in excess of what was acceptable to the Commonwealth.

In response to these concerns, Airbus Helicopters’ still relatively new CEO Guillaume Faury visited Australia in August last year. Following this visit an industry ‘Tiger Task Force’ has been established to remediate Tiger by improving the supply chain process and has already achieved some positive results.

Most recently a Deed has been signed between the Commonwealth and Airbus Group Australia Pacific (AGAP, formerly Australian Aerospace) which restructures the existing Tiger through life support contract into a ‘repair by the hour construct, whereby industry is remunerated if the rate of effort goals are met.

The good news is that if the remediation process continues as it has begun Tiger will be on track to achieve Final Operating Capability by the end of the year.  

 

Tiger remediation

The agreement between the Commonwealth and AGAP was signed on December 19 and draws upon the existing (and to date successful) Deed Two arrangement set in place to address issues with the MRH 90 Taipan helicopter. It is intended to place a cap on the cost of ownership of Tiger and improve the rate of effort.

Under the agreement, known as the Viability Review Deed of Agreement, or VR Deed, AGAP will be remunerated for hours flown by the Tiger fleet and will therefore take on much of the risk previously borne by the Commonwealth.

It is estimated that the fleet will fly around 4,000 hours this calendar year and the goal is to increase that number by 1,000 hours each year until the desired rate of effort of 6,000 hours is achieved.

If the remediation process is a success, the cap on the cost to the Commonwealth and the doubling of flying hours over that achieved last financial year, will see Tiger cost of ownership effectively halve over the next two years.

“The Deed effectively restructures the way the TLS contract will work and really changes the relationship between Industry, Defence and Army,” Brigadier Andrew Mathewson, director general of Army Aviation Systems for DMO, explained to ADM. “Simply put, it means that everyone is working towards the same goal and it’s a very positive way of supporting Tiger, where you want everything to be in place so that Army realises the best possible use out of the product.

“That way industry is very much focussed on delivering the capability, as is DMO, and Army is then a happy customer.”  

A key component of the remediation program undertaken by industry will be a reduction in the length of time taken to repair components within the Tiger’s European supply chain.

During Guillaume Faury’s trip to Australia last year he met with all of the senior industry and Defence leaders, from the Minister down, and one of the outcomes of his visit was the formation of the Tiger Task Force by Airbus Helicopters and AGAP.

“The Tiger Task Force is specifically focussed on the remediation of the Australian Tiger support system and in the longer term, it will benefit our other Tiger customers as well,” Jock Crocombe, AGAP’s vice president Governmental Helicopters said to ADM.

“The remediation that we are putting in place deals with improving our support capabilities, in particular ensuring faster turnaround of off-aircraft repairs, better engineering support and improving that cost of ownership. We are doing that through reducing repair costs, but also improving the mean time between failure of a few systems which have been problematic.”

The Task Force is working with Airbus Helicopters’ suppliers to improve their processes and is conducting a detailed engineering analysis of the worst 15 components or systems and examines ways to improve them, either by redesign or perhaps by varying the way in which is operated. As each item is rectified it is replaced by another at the bottom of the list. 

One example of this work is a problem with the MTR 390 engine, which resulted in more than a dozen unscheduled replacements due to an apparent lack of torque. The engineering analysis revealed that it was an error in the torque indication system, caused by a binding ‘O’ ring. Understanding the problem means that only the torque indication module needs to be replaced in the interim, avoiding the costly (in terms of both money and time) return of the engine to Turbomeca at Bankstown. A redesign of the system will remove the problem entirely.

Crocombe also notes that local repair schemes are being developed for many engine components, which in the past have been deemed uneconomical to repair due to the low number of Australia’s variant of the MTR 390 in the world.

This is good news as the MTR 390 had previously been identified as having the highest cost of any engine in the ADF.

“MTR has worked very hard to resolve some issues and change some processes and deliver a much reduced cost of ownership of the engine and we are very pleased with that work,” BRIG Mathewson noted.

If the overall goals are achieved, Crocombe predicts Tiger’s cost of ownership will be very comparable with other ADF helicopter types which have advanced sensors and weapons systems.

“We believe that containing the cost and doubling the rate of effort will make Tiger a very attractive cost of ownership platform and that’s the basis upon which we are going to be then launching into the Capability Assurance Program,” he said. “We believe it is going to make us quite competitive in 2018 when Defence is going to make a decision about how they are either going to upgrade Tiger or move to another platform.    

 

Upgrades present and future

 

The requirements of a Tiger Capability Upgrade Program (CAP) are yet to be fully defined and agreed upon, but one item which will be arguably high on the list will be an integrated Tactical Data Link (TDL).

Australian Tigers currently use the Eurogrid system, in use with the French, German and Spanish Armies, but it is not capable of integration with the broader Army battlefield management system. It is used for communication between Tigers and between Tiger and a dedicated ground station but is not capable of communicating with other air and land platforms.

In the meantime however, Joint Project 2089 Phase 3B is introducing an interim TDL (iTDL) capability to 21 of the Army’s 22 Tigers. The 22nd helicopter has been instrumented for flight test purposes and is not compatible with the iTDL modification.

The project, announced by then-Defence Minister David Johnston last October, will add an additional radio in the form of an Elbit EPLRS system into the helicopter, which will then interface with tablets supplied to the crew.

Elbit has engaged with AGAP to produce the iTDL system, which is currently in the production prototype stage at Oakey and it is planned to have three modified Tigers available to participate in Exercise Hamel in the middle of the year. The remainder of the Tiger fleet will be modified by AGAP at Robertson Barracks in Darwin.

Looking ahead to the CAP project later in the decade, AGAP’s Jock Crocombe said that Airbus Helicopters is starting to invest in the research and development of what the company is calling ‘Tiger Mk.3’ which would form the basis of an upgrade offered to the Commonwealth.

“Tiger Mk.3 will feature more advanced sensors and a number of other avionics systems such as a new generation GPS, because it needs to be compatible with changes to civil airspace regulations over the last ten years. We’re also looking at changing Tiger’s software architecture to an open architecture philosophy so that more sensors and/or different weapons can be rapidly integrated,” he noted.

“Whether or not the upgrade occurs in one go or whether it’s a spiral upgrade is something which the customer will determine. We need to be able to respond to both and that’s why we’re very keen on enhancements such as iTDL and IFF Mode 5, which is being delivered under JP90 and is another capability which will be a significant improvement to Tiger and something which will differentiate us from other platforms.”

To return to the present, Crocombe says he believes all the enablers are now in place for Tiger to turn the corner and predicts that 2015 will be a year of executing all the measures identified.

Brigadier Mathewson says the measure of success will be in terms of delivering enough flying hours to meet Army’s needs.

“The measure of success from my perspective is when we can deliver mission success to Army and of course from a DMO perspective, deliver value for money that the taxpayers expect,” he summarised. “We have been very frustrated by the lack of progress in the past but within a very short period I think it’s fair to say that industry are providing us some strong support and working very co-operatively with us to improve the support and reduce our cost of ownership.”

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