Helicopters: Tiger ARH starts to growl | ADM July 2009
This will add fresh impetus to a training schedule which has been affected by program delays and issues with logistic support.
Julian Kerr | Sydney
Colonel Neil Turton, Director Aviation Capability Implementation in the new development and plans branch at Army headquarters, is responsible for the Tiger's acceptance into operational service (AIOS).
This is being progressed via Plan Peregrine, a program which coordinates fundamental inputs to the ARH capability and draws on analysis initiated in 2001 on requirements ranging from personnel, organisation, major systems, collective training and supplies to facilities and command and management.
"We set up the training base at Oakey and once we had the first personnel trained they brought three aircraft up to Darwin in July last year.
"Those will be replaced by 1 October with four of the operational aircraft - the current aircraft we have here are really only a training capability," Col. Turton commented.
"Because of the knock-on effect of delays in the Franco-German Tiger program we don't have the number of operational aircraft here that we expected so it's been quite a challenge to balance all the other inputs like personnel, training, facilities and supplies.
"By the end of 2010, all 22 AHR on order will have been delivered and the last of the 17 fully-configured Tigers to be based at Darwin will have arrived three months earlier.
"Of the other five, one will be undergoing maintenance in Darwin, one instrumented ARH will be based at the Aircraft Research and Development Unit (ARDU) at RAAF Edinburgh, and three aircraft will be deployed to the Army Aviation Centre at Oakey, where another will be in deeper maintenance."
Moving 1st Aviation Regiment units from Sydney, Oakey and Townsville to Robertson Barracks in Darwin to be co-located with Army's 1st Brigade was a major but necessary undertaking, to facilitate the integration into the combined arms environment that is seen as being critical to the effectiveness of the ARH weapons system.
Most of the aircrew training takes place at Oakey, which is equipped with a full flight mission simulator and a cockpit procedural trainer (CPT).
A second CPT is located in Darwin to allow operational crews to maintain currency in mission training and emergency procedures.
"The CPTs do all the things a full flight simulator does; they're just cheaper to operate because they're not on a motion platform," Col. Turton said.
Eight qualified aircrew are now based at Darwin and four more will arrive shortly from Oakey after training on the EC135 glass cockpit helicopter before transitioning to the Tiger.
All are from the 1st Aviation Regiment and all, at this stage, are former Kiowa rather than Black Hawk pilots.
Exchange of skills
An exchange program has been underway since the 1990s with the US and British armies and the US Marine Corps, and also involving RAAF personnel who provide valuable gunnery skills.
Major Dan Bartle, officer commanding 161 Reconnaissance Squadron, completed a two-year exchange with the US 101st airborne division flying OH58D Kiowa Warriors in the reconnaissance role.
Other army pilots on exchange with the UK and with the US Marine Corps are flying Apache and AH-1W Cobra gunships, both of which utilise a tandem cockpit similar in concept to that on the Tiger with the pilot in front and a second, more senior pilot sitting above and behind him as Battle Captain, commanding the aircraft and operating the sensors and weapons systems.
"Tandem seating is something that takes a while to come to grips with, but the simulator at Oakey is the best in the world by a significant margin," Maj. Bartle commented.
"We're currently getting about two-thirds of our aircrew training on simulators.
"For operational pilots this reduces to about 50 per cent for currency and proficiency.
"Obviously we have a very big suite of ground training aids as well - we have weapons systems trainers where the guys learn to load on a simulator, we have all the maintenance training suites, ie a guns systems trainer, an air conditioning trainer, a hydraulics system trainer, all those things."
Although the focus was currently on allowing aircrew to exercise the skills gained over the past two years, mission support crew were also ready "barring a few issues we've got to sort out which will come with the next iteration of the aircraft in October."
Maj. Bartle described maintenance training as "very mature," and praised the level of integration with the program's industry partners.
Although about 70 air and ground crew are currently involved in flying and supporting the Tiger, the regiment's full strength will ultimately be about 300, with some reservists in addition to that number and various positions which will only be only filled prior to operational deployment.
Mission support
The introduction of the ARH has led to the new speciality of mission support crewman being hived off from the more traditional aircraft handling role.
While ground crew continue to arm and refuel the aircraft, mission support crew handle the secure communications and datalinks between the ground and the aircraft and support the command elements of the squadron and the aircraft.
Some mission support crew have been involved in live exercises with the US Army in South Korea and ground crew have worked with British Apache helicopters, arming and refuelling the gunships in their lead up training to deployment in Afghanistan.
"Ground handling is a major area where we've had to develop new skills and that has suffered from the program delays, because you train up these very clever young men and when there's no job to do, they start to drift on to other areas of Army where they can get the challenges," Col. Turton said.
"Retaining them is a significant challenge.
"They're across the whole of the aviation capability and none of the training is wasted, it's just that they're not doing the ARH task that we've particularly recruited them for."
Several elements of the ARH have yet to be certified by ARDU, including the Top Owl night vision capability, and some of the electronic warfare self-protection equipment.
Some restrictions currently remain on instrument flying.
"The DMO has a schedule to fix all these things, and the aircraft we will get in October will have all those capabilities operational.
"There will still be a few areas we have to do some training in because we haven't had the capability up till now but in October I'm expecting to have aircraft that will do all the things that we expect them to do," Col. Turton commented.
Introduction into service has also benefited from the Tiger buildup group established in 2003 between the armies of the Tiger's four operators; France, Germany, Spain and Australia.
The group meets twice a year to exchange information on Tiger trials, while the DMO's resident project team in France has access to usage data and integrated logistics support information from the manufacturer.
Additionally, an army pilot is currently attending the French test pilot school and will soon take up a test pilot position at ARDU.
Training regime
Current training activities are being aligned with those of the 1st Brigade Predator crawl, walk, run and gallop training activities through this year and into 2010.
In May, the Tigers operated out of Tindal air base for a week and then moved to the Mt Bundy training area, conducting low level troop training with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment with junior officers directing the aircraft to targets.
According to Maj. Bartle, the current focus is on gunnery, but one eye is always kept on the core reconnaissance task.
The next series of training exercises in August will incorporate both live fire and dry fire exercises as part of a combined arms battle group undertaking basic tasks such as route clearance and convoy escort.
The August exercises will also see the first live firing by Army of a Hellfire II anti-armour missile from a Tiger.
Integrating the US missile onto the European helicopter had been assessed as high risk but in fact, said Col. Turton, it proceeded almost without issue.
What continues to be a problem, however, is the reduced number of flying hours caused not only by delays in the Tiger program, but also by reliability.
"The Rolls Royce Turbomeca 390 engines have been very dependable but we've had problems with other less reliable parts.
"The time taken to get these so-called repairable parts back in the system has been unacceptable, there's no two ways about it.
"It's improving markedly, but I'd like it to be much better," Col. Turton said.
(Australian Aerospace, prime contractor for the Tiger program, told ADM it had successfully negotiated and executed repair and support subcontracts with ARH equipment suppliers, in advance of similar support arrangements being put in place in Europe for the other Tiger variants.
The benefits of these contracts were now being seen in improvements to the times taken to repair and return ARH components, and in the improved availability of serviceable spares).
Conops
Familiarising troops with ARH concepts began as far back as 2001, with the incorporation of ARH operation into operational courses at Puckapunyal and elsewhere for both officers and troops.
"When we didn't know the exact capability we gave generic classifications to the aircraft," Col. Turton commented.
"We did a lot of work on that doctrine about five years ago and we're updating that as we go along.
"Trying to get all this information into other Corps' doctrine was quite a challenge."
While the original concept of operations had not changed, tactics, techniques and procedures were being amended virtually every day.
"There's a constant review process for those in my squadron and those in the regiment who are Tiger qualified to test and adjust as we learn more about the aircraft itself, as we learn more about what's going on overseas and what we get from our aircrew exchanges," said Maj. Bartle.
"That's the way we keep thing current, keep things ticking over.
"We really start to accelerate next year, when we start to do the operational evaluation of the capability."
Although Final Operational Capability (FOC) is generally expected not to be achieved until the end of 2012, Col. Turton said some capability to deploy into the region would be available in 2010.
"In 2011 we'll be further down the line, but I don't want to go into details for obvious reasons' he added.