Air Power: Air 5428 gains momentum | ADM February 2012
Nigel Pittaway | Canberra
According to the Air 5428 Project Office, the formal RFT will then follow towards the end of the year and the system is due to start producing graduates in early 2017, some six months behind its rotary-wing counterpart, Air 9000 Phase 7, the Helicopter Air Training System (HATS) – see P22 for more.
That being said, there will undoubtedly be budgetary pressures placed on Defence as the government attempts to bring the budget back into surplus and more than one industry insider has expressed concern that either or both training projects may slip to the right to preserve funding for other projects.
It is worth noting that other pilot training schemes around the world have gone from the concept to stage to being fully operational in the time it has taken Air 5428 to produce a draft RFT. Singapore, for example, has had its Basic Wings course in operation for several years despite beginning after Air 5428 and India is expected to shortly announce a large order for the PC-9M.
Even New Zealand may have a new pilot training system in operation before Australia, despite only launching their project with a Request for Information last October. Industry estimates suggest the New Zealand Defence Force timetable is for government consideration in the first half of 2012, with a tender release in the second half of the year.
To be Air 5428 is a large undertaking and can arguably be viewed as the first ‘ground-up’ overhaul of any Australian military flying training scheme. Like Air 9000 Ph 7 it is more than a new platform; it is a complete training system, whereby simulation and courseware will play a part as important, and arguably more important, than the platform. Moreover it has to satisfy the requirements of all three services and ensure competent delivery to either the RAAF operational conversion system or, in the case of Army and Navy, the HATS.
Delays
Air 5428 has also recently reportedly undergone a period of re-analysis following Army’s re-appraisal of their training requirements, which has included questioning if any fixed wing training is desirable at all. Naturally this rethink has had an impact on Air 9000 Ph 7 as well, but apart from a decision on just how many fixed-wing hours Army will require before a candidate progresses to the HATS, it has at least decided to re-engage with the original concept.
Other delays are understood to have been caused by the move away from a two-platform requirement to a single-type ‘all through’ system which was felt to have moved too far from the details agreed to in the First Pass Approval back in July 2009. Just before Christmas 2011, an amendment to the original FPA was thought to be with the Minister for his blessing, therefore removing a potential roadblock.
The timetable from now on is becoming a little clearer.
“The project will introduce a new training system which will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the existing PTS,” says Heather Eylward Project Director, Aircrew Training Projects, “It will need to be capable of transitioning new pilots on to the JSF and other new-generation Aircraft to be introduced into the ADF in coming years.
“Work continues on finalising our capability requirements and preparation of a draft RFT, which we intend to circulate for industry comment in the first part of 2012.”
Eylward says Defence is expecting considerable interest from industry, which awaits the draft RFT with interest.
“The specifications we will include in the draft RFT will be geared towards high end systems for training pilots over the 25 year life of the system” she explains. “The requirements for both Airborne and ground training systems will be included in the draft. We will set minimum performance standards for major systems and that will include Aircraft and high-end simulation systems.
“There’s still some fine tuning occurring on the specifications, but importantly we will be seeking industry feedback on the platform requirements, amongst other things. The draft RFT will be clear where we have those minimum performance requirements.”
Location location location
A further change from the original concept is that of where to base the Basic Flying Training element; The RAAF has said that the Central Flying School will remain at East Sale in Victoria and No.2 FTS will continue to provide advanced flying training from Pearce in Western Australia.
Currently the ADF’s fixed-wing basic training is carried out at Tamworth in NSW, contracted to BAE Systems Australia and there has been debate as to whether it should stay there under Air 5428.
The tender will require each bidder to nominate two locations for the BFT element, but East Sale must be one of these. The other location will be up to the bidder.
“All proposals for the BFTS will be considered on a value for money basis, with the final basing decision being made by government when we seek Second Pass Approval,” said Eylward.
The timeline moving forward is for a single-stage RFT later in 2012, following industry feedback on the draft and the first graduates to complete their course sometime in 2017. This, says Eylward, is on-track to fall within the Defence Capability Plan window.
Like Air 9000 Ph 7 there are only a small number of candidates for the platform side of the project and most observers agree that it will come down to either the Hawker Beechcraft T-6C Texan II or Pilatus PC-21. Other possibilities include the Embraer EMB-314 Super Tucano, Grob G120TP or Pilatus PC-9M.
It is unclear whether Embraer intends to bid for Air 5428, but it has recently appointed a Vice President, Business Development for its Defense & Security division in the Asia-Pacific region. The Super Tucano is a counter-insurgency Aircraft and, although it has its roots in an earlier trainer design, will need some development work to satisfy the likely requirements of Air 5428.
Likwise, the Grob G120TP turboprop version of the 120A trainer will need some development and certification work for the project, but it has gained the attention of industry in recent months. It is understood that Grob GmbH is considering entering the race, buoyed by its recent success in selling the G120TP to Indonesia.
Raytheon Australia first declared its interest in the Air 5428 requirement at the 2005 Avalon Airshow and has established an industry team to bid a system based upon the T-6C. Teamed with Raytheon are BAE Systems Australia, Hawker Beechcraft and Flight Safety.
“The customer articulated their requirement early on and we have been working with Hawker Beechcraft for five years on the solution,” said Raytheon Australia CEO Michael Ward. “We feel we have a very mature solution based on an excellent platform and we’ve also done a considerable amount of work on the virtual environment and of course the training support system which underpins that.”
Mat Sibree, BAE Systems Australia’s Air 5428 Project Manager, is also happy with the progress the team has made: “The benefit of having a team together for 12 months is that we’ve been able to drill down into the weeds. We have our solution worked out to the point where we can write about the various phases in a tender document and be satisfied that the customer will know exactly what they are getting,” he says.
HawkerBeechcraft issues
Industry observers have noted the financial difficulties being experienced by Hawker Beechcraft at the present time, with the company undergoing further restructuring to cope with a lacklustre civilian market. The company’s military side also received a recent blow when it was eliminated from the US Air Force Light Attack/Armed Reconnaissance program – a matter currently before the Government Accountability Office (GAO) at the time of writing.
Both Raytheon and BAE Systems say they are not concerned by these developments however: “Across the board the general aviation industry is under some pressure and Hawker Beechcraft is a significant player a in the field in the US and a lot of comments I’ve seen are related to the General Aviation component of the business” says Ward. “From a T-6 perspective we’re talking about a product that has a very large fielded fleet already and Hawker Beechcraft maintain a significant production backlog of Aircraft. From a Raytheon perspective, we believe the T-6 is a robust and sustainable product.”
“I think the drop-dead date for the PC-9 is around 2018 and HawkerBeechcraft will still have a production line in 2018, they have a number of foreign customers who are about to place orders,” adds Mat Sibree, “The production line is not going anywhere, but what we want to avoid is a ramp down and ramp up” – a reference to the rate of production possibly being slower if Air 5428 slides to the right.”
Pilatus has not formally announced its intentions for Air 5428, other than it will certainly be a player and will offer its PC-21, PC-9M or a mix of both, depending upon the draft RFT.
“We’ll decide on partners when we’ve seen the draft RFT,” says Pilatus Australia’s Director of Defence Rob Oliver. “But we believe the PC-21 is unmistakably the best pilot training system for Australia. Superior performance has its own inherent flexibility and that flexibility is absolutely essential in the changing environment of 5th generation fighters and upgrading the Lead In Fighter. The cost effectiveness of this Swiss system is borne out by its success in the recent advanced pilot training tenders in Switzerland, Singapore and UAE.”
International experience
Although no teaming arrangement has been made, Lockheed Martin, Pilatus and Hawker Pacific are successfully teamed on the Singaporean Basic Wings Course program, which is also based around the PC-21. Lockheed Martin, a major training systems provider across the world, declined to discuss its plans for Air 5428.
Other companies with an interest include the European giant EADS which, through its Cassidian subsidiary has the competencies and capabilities to respond to the training system component of Air 5428. Another is Boeing Defence Australia, who has experience with training in Australia, courtesy of the AATTS program and is teamed with Thales Australia for Air 9000 Ph 7.
“We have had positive experiences teaming with Thales on Air 9000 Ph 7 and the collaborative approach on that project, really taking the best of Thales in terms of their simulation training experience and combining it with our significant aviation training experience both in Australia and in the US,” said Mark McDonald, Business Manager Air 9000/Air 5428. “In terms of Air 5428 we would try to bring the same approach in the sense that we’re looking for areas of expertise within each organisation, but no means have we selected any partnership.”
Given the permutations of partners between Air 5428 and Air 9000 Ph 7, robust ‘Chinese walls’ need to be erected as some companies teamed on one project and competitors on the other.
One problem looming on the horizon though concerns the exit point of RAAF fast jet candidates from Air 5428 and the entry point into the Lead In Fighter course. There are concerns that the current LIFT will not deliver the required output for entry on to the JSF in the future and the Hawk upgrade project, Air 5438, needs to be managed in conjunction with the PTS for this to occur. This then raises other issues: For instance, if the Hawk (or its replacement) is moved ‘up’ the scale, closer to JSF, then the span of capability required for Air 5428 is widened – both in terms of platform performance and curriculum.
The most pressing issue however will be that of time, if Air 5428 is to begin producing graduates in 2017 as planned, then no further delays can be tolerated. Particularly with regard to PC-9 retirement, which has experienced a range of ageing Airframe issues of late and caused at least two fleet groundings.
Any delay to the training pipeline is not immediately felt, but becomes apparent in the future when the throughput is not at the required level.
As one industry executive puts it: “The PC-9 was to be replaced in the period 2008-2009 and we’ve added 10 years to that.
“If you draw a timeline from early 2012 and put in some ‘guesstimates’ to have tenders open, evaluation, Second Pass Approval, contract negotiations and a relatively short time to build and deliver, it’s not hard to stack up to 2016 – and that’s assuming no further delays of any sort.”