Omnibus contract sought for Army helo training

There's some serious money to be made by the right contractor as a result of Army's plans to privatise much of its rotary wing flying and ground crew training.
With a $400 million, 10-year contract (by our estimate) in the offing, a number of major defence companies and service providers have waited patiently over the years for the opportunity to bid for the range of services to be commercialised under the Army's rotary wing flying training requirement. Now that the Army's program is being pursued separately from the Navy's helicopter leasing and training requirements, the indications are that the contenders will not have to wait much longer.

The ADF Rotary Wing Flying Training Review (RWFTR) project has been years in development, and then an extensive period in pause and review mode, as the Oakey-based project office wrestled with the complexities of melding the differing ADF rotary wing flying training requirements into a common performance-based contract, and for a while this major commercialisation activity seemed to be getting nowhere.

But since the decision that consolidation of ADF rotary wing force structure and longer-term rationalisation of Army/Navy helicopter training is to be addressed under Air 9000, the shorter-term rationalisation of the Army's rotary wing flying training requirements has moved forward, with an industry briefing in November 2005 when attendees were told that the Army RWFTR Board had agreed to a single phase acquisition strategy based on an open tender with a 10 year contract envisaged. Current plans are to release an RFT for RWFTR services in the first quarter of 2006, with the tender closing in the second quarter, and contract signature by the third quarter of 2006.

Army RWFTR manager LTCOL Paul Coulthard hopes to transition to the new contract by the first quarter of the following year (2007). At the briefing he pointed out that the Army RWFTR is largely being funded by 'harvesting' funds from those activities proposed for commercialisation however at the industry brief he was unable to indicate the current budget for Army RWFTR. (Our guess is that the total funding for all of Army RWFTR is currently in the region of $20-25 million a year and rising.)

The major services to be commercialised for the Army Aviation Training Centre are:

* selected non-tactical flying training, in particular the Helicopter Conversion Course and the Black Hawk Type Transition Course

* selected non-weapons maintenance training, in particular the Black Hawk Technician Avionics Course and the Black Hawk Technician Aircraft Course and the on-job-training that follows these courses

* selected courseware support

* maintenance of the AAvnTC's helicopter fleet of Kiowa & Black Hawk, and

* supply of piloted helicopters for loadmaster training and crash response (SAR).

The Army Aviation Training Centre has three training schools and one independent wing at Oakey. They are the School of Army Aviation, the Army Helicopter School, the Instructor Training Wing and the Rotary Wing Aircraft Maintenance School (RAMS).

The Army Aviation Training Centre is currently supported by Boeing for Kiowa maintenance, and the Aviation Support Group Workshop for Black Hawk and Iroquois maintenance. The Aviation Support Group Workshop is supported by Helitech for the supply of technicians.

All of these units and organisations will be impacted by RWFTR:

* the School of Army Aviation will rely on the RWFTR contractor for serviceable aircraft to support its training

* the Army Helicopter School will rely on the RWFTR contractor to manage and conduct basic helicopter training & Black Hawk operational type conversions

* Instructor Training Wing will rely on the RWFTR contractor to provide serviceable aircraft to support its flying instructor training

* the Rotary Wing Aircraft Maintenance School will rely on the RWFTR contractor to manage and conduct a number of its Black Hawk courses and to provide a venue for its first level of formal on-job-training for new graduate technicians, and

* the Aviation Support Group Workshop and the two maintenance contracts will be largely subsumed by the new RWFTR contract.

At the briefing LTCOL Coulthard stressed that a contractor was sought to take training and support operations that are going concerns. He added that a performance based contract was sought, not a labour supply contract. Coulthard said a single contract was sought, although it might be through an industry consortium arrangement or a prime contract with one or more subcontractors.

Army Pilot Training - The RWFTR contractor will be required to manage and conduct the Helicopter Conversion Course and the Black Hawk Type Transition Course, of 50 and 51 working days respectively, with both courses running every three months. Other shorter courses include the Black Hawk Refresher Course, Black Hawk Maintenance Test Pilot Course and the Kiowa Refresher Course.
Aircraft Trade Training-the RWFTR contractor will be required to manage and conduct the Black Hawk Technician Aircraft Course and the Black Hawk Technician Avionics Course. These 45 and 49 working day technician courses are run every three months. Both technician courses are competency based and underpinned by a combination of theory lessons and extensive use of the Black Hawk Maintenance Training Aid Trainer and the Black Hawk Simulated Aircraft Maintenance Trainers.

The RWFTR contractor will also be required to provide the venue for and conduct Black Hawk Technician Aircraft Phase 1 On-Job-Training and the Black Hawk Technician Avionics Phase 1 On-Job-Training. The RWFTR contractor will also be required to manage and conduct the Black Hawk System Manager's Course, the Loadmaster Rotary Wing Basic Course and the Black Hawk Aircrewman Loadmaster Course. The RWFTR contractor will also be required to manage and conduct the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment Course attended by all personnel posted to the AAvnTC as instructors.

Aircrew for Crash Response - The RWFTR Contractor will be required to provide pilots and loadmasters to sustain the Army Aviation Training Centre, Oakey Crash Response Helicopter (CRH) capability. The Contractor will be required to provide all CRH pilots and loadmasters but the CRH capability will be managed by the Commonwealth.

Loadmaster Training and Crash Response Helicopters - Subject to funding availability, the contractor will be required to propose a helicopter for the Loadmaster training and crash response roles. Under such an arrangement, the aircraft would remain contractor owned (on the civil register) and the contractor would be wholly responsible for providing and supporting the aircraft.

LTCOL Coulthard said some tenderers might propose the same helicopter type for the loadmaster-training and crash response tasks. While there was no mandatory requirement for this, it may provide advantages in a number of areas such as aircraft and aircrew scheduling.

As noted earlier, Boeing Australia Limited (BAL) and Helitech have been providing services under contract to the Army Aviation Training Centre at Oakey for some considerable time. BAL maintains Oakey's Kiowa helicopters and conducts some training for technicians, while Helitech, a major provider of manpower and services to Army Aviation, supplies pilots, instructors and technicians for a variety of training courses and aircraft maintenance. These contracts will be superseded when the RWFTR Project is implemented.

Some years ago BAL and Cairns-based Reef Helicopters (now Australian Helicopters) signed an MOU to jointly pursue the RWFTR project. At the time BAL said its partnership with Reef Helicopters would ease the risk for the ADF in the key areas of recruitment, management and retention of the rotary wing instructor pilot work force. Australian Helicopters operates a wide range of single and twin engine helicopters in the training, surveillance, SAR, medevac and general charter fields.

It is anticipated that there will be a fairly wide field of contending teams, with project managers linking with training and maintenance specialists. In addition to the usual suspects prominent in service provision such as ADI, BAE Systems, CAE, CSC, Hunter, SERCO, SMA, Thales, and others, including Airflite, Bristow/FBH, Hawker Pacific and Raytheon.

EADS Australian Aerospace, which will be providing through life support for the Army's Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter, is another likely prime contender as will be many others in the training and simulation fields. Scientific Management Associates (SMA) is currently responsible for training RAN helicopter aircrew, including pilots for the Navy's new SH-2G(A) SeaSprites and was the first contractor to develop and conduct training for ADF aircrew.

There is understood to be some overseas interest from major service providers such as Dyncorp (acquired by CSC) which may be linking with AeroTeam of Ipswich. Dyncorp has been involved in helicopter support and training activities at the US Army's Fort Rucker and Fort Hood. There is also interest from KBR (Haliburton) and URS Corporation.

By Tom Muir, Canberra