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The Army’s Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter and Taipan (MRH 90) Multi-Role Helicopter have now both been in service for several years, but both still face challenges, particularly with regard to sustainment.

In Tiger’s case it is a decade since the first two were delivered to Army and even though all 22 have been delivered, it is still not delivering the required availability.

This is causing concern to both Army and the DMO, to the point where if there is not a significant increase in availability and commensurate decrease in the cost of ownership, Tiger may not have a future in the ADF in the longer term.

From a capability standpoint however Tiger has performed very well in recent exercises and it is considered a very effective weapons system.

The MRH 90 program is more recent, with the first helicopters delivered at the end of 2007. Today 30 out of the 47 have been accepted by the Commonwealth and since it was ‘re-baselined’ last May, has shown marked improvement in terms of aircraft delivery and sustainment.

It has however not yet achieved the first operational milestone, which is the delayed Initial Operating Capability (IOC) for Navy and is still facing technical challenges.

Taipan Mrh
The ‘re-baselining’ of the MRH 90 program was the result of two years of negotiations between the Commonwealth and the prime contractor, Australian Aerospace (now Airbus Group Australia Pacific, or AGAP).

Known as ‘Deed 2’ the contract effectively rescheduled aircraft delivery and structured new sustainment arrangements to address a lower than desired rate of effort. It also added a 47th airframe to the program at no additional cost to the Commonwealth.

Brigadier Andrew Mathewson, the director general of Army Aviation Systems for DMO says he is comfortable with the new arrangements.

“We’ve put in place a ‘repair by the hour’ support mechanism and the advantage is that it motivates everybody to make the aircraft fly. Industry gets more money the more we fly and that makes Army happy, it makes Navy happy and it makes DMO happy,” BRIG Mathewson explained. “The new contract has positive effects in terms of sustainment. It motivates industry to continually improve their support and we’ve seen some positive outcomes from that.”

BRIG Mathewson describes the MRH 90 as being ‘on a journey’ with regard to remediation of some of the technical deficiencies experienced in operations so far.

“We are making good progress, but I would say that the time it takes to resolve these technical issues still remains a problem for us,” he said. “We’re unhappy with the time it takes, and of course we know that is, in part at least, a resourcing issue. It is also the complexity of the NH 90 program worldwide, because it’s been a very successful product with sales to at least 13 nations and they are all suffering some of the same challenges, so Airbus Helicopters has to remediate these issues for all nations, not just Australia.”

Navy IOC has been delayed by a technical fault found on the rotor head of MRH17, which BRIG Mathewson described as ‘unusual’. The problem was found aboard HMAS Success in the Indian Ocean during the search for MH370 and, subject to the outcome of an investigation into the event, IOC should occur during the currency of this issue.

“As a result of that technical investigation, which has not yet been released, the Chief of Navy must naturally be absolutely sure the investigation isn’t going to identify new or concerning issues before he declares his first operational capability,” BRIG Mathewson explained. “Navy’s first operational capability milestone is expected to be endorsed shortly, while all of the other enabling elements are in place and agreed. We need to be sure that everything is ready for Navy before declaration of that capability.”

Navy IOC is just the first of the many operational objectives to be achieved and there are still a range of fixes for technical issues which have been solved and agreed to, but yet to be implemented. One example of this is the strengthened cabin floor, which has been developed but is yet to be fitted to all MRH 90s.

“The serviceability of the helicopter has improved over the helicopter’s life; the production process is now working ahead of schedule. We’re receiving aircraft at a substantial pace now and the sustainment system has to keep up with that,” BRIG Mathewson noted. “We currently own 30 aircraft, so every time we deliver another we are putting yet more pressure on the supply chain, but so far we’ve seen that performance continue to improve.”

Tiger Arh
It is Tiger however, which is causing concern in the sustainment area, despite being in service for 10 years.

As an older program, the 15-year sustainment contract is structured differently than that of the MRH 90 and much of the work normally done by the project office has been outsourced to AGAP.

“Ten years into that relationship the support arrangements really aren’t delivering the outcomes to Army that will meet their needs,” BRIG Mathewson reported. “It’s certainly fair to say that we, in DMO and industry, are not delivering the capabilities to Army and Army is still not happy with the product that we are delivering.

“There is a plan in the DCP to undertake a capability assurance program for Tiger and I think it’s fair to say that without a sharp improvement in support and reduction in the cost of ownership, it is difficult to imagine that Tiger will have a long term future in the ADF.”

One of the key problems is the maintenance support network for the aircraft and the length of time it takes to cycle repairable components through the repair system in Europe.

BRIG Mathewson said AGAP has a program to improve the situation and, following a recent visit to Australia by Airbus Helicopters CEO Guillaume Faury, a personal commitment to improve Tiger in Australia.

A further issue is with the MTR 390 engine, which is more expensive to support than contemporary products. This casts a shadow over the possible selection of the more powerful MTR 390 Enhanced engine for the CAP upgrade.

“It’s fair to say that the costs of supporting the MTR 390 is not where we want it to be, it’s very expensive,” he detailed. “It is the most expensive engine of any ADF helicopter in operation today so therefore it would seem to us that a move to the enhanced engine, despite the obvious benefits, is unlikely to be supported until we see a commensurate reduction in cost of ownership.”

BRIG Mathewson said the sustainment issues were not typical of the broader ADF helicopter fleet.

“I think it’s fair to say that we don’t observe the same issues when we when we support the American helicopters: Chinook and Black Hawk and Kiowa,” he said.

However he also noted that there is regular and detailed communication between AGAP, Airbus Helicopters and the Commonwealth on the sustainment matter and progress is being made.

Towards a new Tiger Capability Assurance Program
One of the limiting factors in Tiger operations today is the old sustainment contract which, although a performance-based contract, is neither as robust nor as effective as the one under which MRH is now sustained.

“We are working very closely with AGAP to improve the contractual arrangement, to give the Commonwealth an assurance that all of those measures that are being put in place will deliver a reduction in the cost of ownership and an improvement in the performance from a support perspective,” he reported. “We are all working together towards an improved contractual arrangement to support Tiger.”

Looking ahead to decisions around the Tiger CAP, which will be made sometime in the 2017-18 timeframe, BRIG Mathewson said that Australia was working with the French, German and Spanish projects to determine a common upgrade in order to share costs.

“The concerns we have stem from the cost of ownership, it’s really expensive for us to operate and the weakness is sustainment, which continues to frustrate Army in delivering their capability,” he noted. “What we want now is a very clear path to that decision point on the update of Tiger, because we all want to see Tiger upgraded and a long-term capability in the ADF, because we know it works. We know through our relationship with the French that it is absolutely formidable on operations.

“While I am clearly unhappy with the support arrangements as they are, when Tiger works it is a formidable weapons platform. It has recently performed very well on Hamel 14, so when all the components are there and when the aircraft is mission-capable – and we’ve also picked this up through the work that the French have done through a range of operational scenarios – the product itself is really capable,” he explained to ADM.

“When Tiger operates it’s brilliant, from a capability perspective it’s very, very impressive. Army love it when it works, but they get very frustrated when it sits on the ground. We have faith in the future, but we really do rely upon Airbus Helicopters continuing to invest, because some of the support mechanisms are simply, after 10 years, still not mature.”

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