After a long and challenging introduction to service the MRH
90 Taipan Multi-Role Helicopter is now showing signs of maturity and has
recently achieved two significant milestones, but the program is running three
years behind schedule and has been a Project of Concern (PoC) since November
2011.
Following recommendations from the Airworthiness Board,
which met in March, the helicopter has been granted its Australian Military
Type Certificate and on May 9 a Deed of undertaking was signed with prime
Contractor Australian Aerospace and its suppliers, which covers a number of commercial
and contractual issues.
Both are major steps in the remediation process to remove it
from the PoC list.
“The agreement has resolved all areas of dispute and
re-baselined the delivery schedule,” said Rear Admiral Tony Dalton, Head of the
Defence Materiel Organisation’s Helicopter Systems Division. “It has given us a
lot more confidence in delivery schedule and support mechanisms.”
In a further confidence-boosting step the Navy formally
commissioned 808 Squadron to operate the MRH90 in July, a significant step
towards IOC.
Forty-six MRH90s were to be acquired under the original
contract to replace Army Black Hawks and Navy Sea Kings in the battlefield
airlift and maritime utility helicopter roles under three phases of Project Air
9000. The latest agreement will see a 47th machine added to the order, at no
cost to the Commonwealth.
It will be an airworthy airframe, but will allow one
helicopter to rotate through use as a fully-functional ground training aid.
Under the new schedule between six and seven helicopters per
year will be delivered from Australian Aerospace’s final assembly line in
Brisbane between now and the middle of 2017.
Now that the remediation plan, agreed to by the Commonwealth
and Australian Aerospace, is showing positive results, there is growing
confidence that the Initial Operating Capability milestones will be achieved in
the middle of this year for Navy and next year for Army.
“There is no doubt from a capability perspective in
Australia the MRH90 is maturing, but it still has some way to go, as we work
through the issues to get the helicopter into operational service,” warned RADM
Dalton. “It’s all starting to come together and I think the prospects for the
project are much more positive now than they were this time last year.”
Remediation deeds
The remediation plan includes three deeds, the first of
which dealt with the outstanding technical issues facing the helicopter, such
as windscreen cracking and a less than robust cabin floor. As a result of this
deed, signed in 2011, all known technical issues now have a resolution pathway.
“There were also a number of commercial and contractual
issues which needed to be addressed,” RADM Dalton said to ADM. “So while we
were looking at the technical issues we implemented a second deed, which looked
at a range of things, including supply and support over a twelve month period.”
Although the technical issues grab the headlines, the
project is significantly behind its original schedule due largely to a less
than expected rate of effort, in turn caused by the unavailability of spare
parts and the turnaround times of those components removed for repair.
“The second deed allowed us to work with Australian
Aerospace, to focus on those issues which were slowing down the rate of
effort,” reported RADM Dalton. “That has seen an improvement and together with
deliveries of helicopters in the latest mature configuration, the improved
sustainment measures have seen the MRH90s in service flying at pretty much the
same rate per aircraft per month as the Black Hawks, and that’s a great
improvement.”
The third deed was the agreement signed on May 9.
“The MRH90 represents the very latest in military helicopter
technology, an all-composite aircraft that can carry more troops further and
faster than any of its competitors,” Australian Aerospace CEO Jens Goennemann
said. “However, we’re the first to acknowledge that new and complex
technologies of the size and scope of the MRH can have issues, and when issues
do arise it requires additional effort from all parties to get the program back
on track. The Ministers have stated the MRH program is now back on track, and
with the difficult times behind us we can now move forward with clear goals,
openness, and a commitment to deliver.”
Maintenance
One of the features of the new helicopter is its composite
construction, which promises to ease the maintenance burden associated with
legacy metal airframes operating in the maritime environment.
In the recent Combined Arms Training Activity (CATA), held
in the High Range Training Area west Townsville as a precursor to the bilateral
Talisman Saber exercise, Army MRH90s reportedly performed very well.
“The big strength of a composite aircraft is lightness, the
MRH90, with its light airframe and powerful engines is able to fly longer and
harder and complete more missions than a legacy platform,” Richard Baughan,
MRH90 program director for Australian Aerospace explained to ADM.
“Remember, our aircraft has been bought to operate over land
and sea and it is just not as exposed to corrosion and all of those nasties
that have caused legacy platforms some real problems. When you are operating
from a hostile environment, which you do aboard ship, you don’t have to go
through the problems of marinisation and all those protective-type measures you
to need to do for a traditionally-constructed platform.”
The MRH90 has also been compared with a fourth generation
fighter such as the RAAFs Super Hornet in terms of complexity and to assist
with the transition to the helicopter, Australian Aerospace has positioned 17
support staff in Townsville.
The staff will carry out off-aircraft maintenance to allow
Army personnel to focus on operational level maintenance, and Baughan says that
building the helicopter in Australia provides a deeper level of support.
“Army and Navy are developing their capability, and building
the helicopter means we have people in Australia who understand how the
aircraft is built, how it is ground-tested, but also understand how to
fault-find it,” he said.
Baughan also says that as the type matures in service with
operators around the world, the original conservative calendar-based
maintenance program is being relaxed where possible as feedback is received.
“If you speak to uniformed personnel they will tell you
they’d like to see that happen faster and they don’t want to be encumbered with
more maintenance than necessary,” he explained.
“Now they have their Military Type Certificate they want to
go out and fly this helicopter, so that is something we’re working through at
the present time.”
Defence however are more circumspect in their overview of
the current maintenance regime and the issues of complexity.
“The operating procedures and field maintenance for the
MRH90 are still being trialled and developed by Defence. As such, the MRH90 is
currently more maintenance intensive than the Black Hawk helicopter,” a Defence
spokesperson confirmed in a written response to ADM questions.
“The fully composite airframe brings some complexities to
maintenance. Dedicated training and repair facilities are in place at the
operational level and MRH90 composite repair capability is slowly building
within units. Composite structures are more resilient in the maritime
environment and will reduce the volume of penalty maintenance as Army’s commitment
to the LHD program increases.”
Platform maturity has also seen a reduction in the number of
technical issues uncovered during the early months and years of operation.
“The number and frequency of technical issues has reduced
over the past two years as aircraft are retrofitted to the Product Baseline 3
(PBL003) configuration,” the spokesperson said. “This number is expected to
drop further as the aircraft and systems continue to mature.”
Configuration
The helicopters recently delivered are PBL003 standard and
altogether six of the 19 helicopters accepted by the Commonwealth by the middle
of the year are to this standard.
Similar versions of the helicopter are currently serving in
Afghanistan with the German and Italian armies and their operations are being
closely monitored by the ADF. Two Defence officers visited their Italian
colleagues in April to gain an insight into the problems being encountered and
these are reportedly similar to those discovered by Army’s 5th Aviation
Regiment in Townsville.
Navy currently has five MRH90s in service and IOC will be
achieved when the first helicopter is capable of deploying to sea in the
maritime utility helicopter role, a capability lost with the retirement of the
Sea Kings at the end of 2011.
“As they move forward under this new regime they will move
quite quickly towards declaring their IOC,” predicted RADM Dalton. “And as Army
starts to operate the aircraft more we’ll have a better understanding of the
residual capability issues and how we develop a plan to address any issues that
remain outstanding. We’re certainly in a much better place than we were at this
time last year.”
The project will be considered for removal from the
Government’s PoC list by the end of this year.
“There’s no doubt that I’m feeling more confident about the
future of the MRH90,” concluded RADM Dalton. “We will never recover the
schedule but it’s now making good progress and we’re seeing improvements every
day.”