Air Power: KBR, Elbit Systems and QDS: another HATS contender | ADM February 2012

Katherine Ziesing | Canberra

While many of the HATS contenders broke cover at the Avalon Air show last year in the expectation of an imminent RFT, KBR, Elbit Systems and Qantas Defence Services (QDS) spoke to ADM in late December 2011 about the details of their partnership. The structure sees KBR as the prime and Elbit Systems and QDS lending their expertise in training system delivery and airframe certification, maintenance and sustainment respectively. Whilst the partnership has yet to announce a preferred airframe for the project, it has  examined the market for platforms that meet the needs of the program.  The analysis has been focussed on proven capability and least risk.

“KBR has been interested in this project for quite a while,” explains explained Peter Robinson, director of defence defence and government government services at KBR. “We have a strong pedigree in the training space and we view this as a training helicopter program and that’s the an important distinction. This is more about training than it is about helicopters.”

KBR also points to their work on training elements for the Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter, MRH90 helicopter and Landing Helicopter Dock ships as well as development work for the Joint Strike Fighter training program.

“We sourced what we thought would be the most powerful partnership to reflect the needs of the Commonwealth ,” said Robinson. “Part of that involved making sure we brought innovation, value for money and efficiency to the program, and leveraging off Elbit’s experience with delivering helicopter training - they’re very lean, efficient and innovative with the Israeli forces.”

Elbit Systems has been involved in helicopter air crew training for over a decade in Israel and now in Macedonia, where it provides an entire training school, from A to Z. In Australia, the company has also been providing simulation and training support for the King Airs instructors and air crew alongside their well known work on Land 200.

“The training has to be delivered by Australians, by KBR, here in country, no doubt about it,” said Yitzchak Rabinovitz, Elbit Systems head of business development for Australia and NZ. “But they can leverage off our experience and our technologies; whatever we bring as far as the training system is included on the table, and that’s part of the team.”

When it comes to the eventual airframe choice, QDS will be on hand to handle the certification and associated support issues.

“QDS is really comfortable with the military and civil regulatory environment that we operate under in Australia,” said Scott Harris, head of QDS. “The relevance here is that it’s a military regulator with the ADF’s DGTA (Directorate General Technical Airworthiness) providing airworthiness regulatory oversight over the HATS bid. So the strength that we bring to this is taking a civil/military platform and then applying what the regulators are going to expect whilst delivering helicopter maintenance, planning, configuration management, engineering management, deep maintenance, performance based contracting, all those things that the HATS airworthiness system requires, applying appropriate QDS experience to ensure that we get SRP savings.

“One of the things that the customer will expect is that we are delivering this as lean as we can, so that the price is right appropriately delivering SRP savings. Part of that will be running the regulatory environment as leaders. Now of course the example of this for QDS is the RAAF’s MRTT capability, taking a purely civil platform and turning it into a civil/military derivative and then applying that to the military environment.”

Since the program schedule has slipped more than perhaps both the Commonwealth and industry would like, risk management on all fronts will be a key concern.

“It’s got to be about low risk to the Commonwealth; this is a training system, it’s not a helicopter system,” stressed Robinson. “This is about making sure that we have all of those steps in place to give assurance and comfort to the end client that we’ve got a team that knows how to work inside that regulatory framework.”

“We’re very cognisant that it’s two contracts that are fundamentally linked, you have got an acquisition front end for a limited, defined period and you’ve got an ongoing sustainment phase,” explained Dave Shiner, KBR’s general manager of business development, defence and government services. “From a Commonwealth perspective, they want to see the risks – which are very different for each contract – addressed from the outset. The balance and approach of the partners in this team will allow us to manage those differing aspects very effectively.”