With the advent of the Australian Defence Force’s combined Helicopter Aircrew Training System (HATS), procured under Air 9000 Phase 7, military primary helicopter training in Australia could almost be said to be going “back to the future”.

Philip Smart | Oakey

Back, because the single combined Nowra based school will in some ways replicate the combined military helicopter training school raised at RAAF Base Fairbairn in the 1990s, when Army and RAN trainees were all instructed on the Squirrel helicopter.

And to the future, because the training system and equipment new recruits encounter with HATS will reflect the digital age in which today’s defence forces operate, including a much greater role for synthetic teaching systems in both the training program and a trainee’s personal journey.

Provided and managed by prime contractor Boeing Defence Australia, the training assets will include 15 Airbus Helicopters EC135 T2 helicopters and three Thales EC135 Reality H Full Flight Simulators (FFS). All will be equipped with the common Thales Meghas cockpit avionics suite, also in service with the US Army’s UH-72 Lakota (Airbus Helicopters EC145) utility and training helicopter.

The EC135 is larger, at least 50 per cent heavier and faster than either training helicopter it will replace. Its integrated avionics suite includes electronic flight and navigation systems and an autopilot, ensuring pilots will be comfortable with managing a high level of automation before moving on to their more complex operational types.

And twin engines add a statistical safety margin, create a reserve of power that will give students a better feel for the high-powered helicopters they will fly in service, and, as a side benefit, will eliminate parts of the training previously required just to ensure safe flying in the current single-engine training helicopters, now the only single-engine helicopters in ADF service.

"The EC135 is larger, at least 50 per cent heavier and faster than either training helicopter it will replace."

Lieutenant Colonel Karl Hamlyn commands the Army Helicopter School, which provides current basic helicopter training for Army pilots at Oakey, in Queensland. The school will retire its 19 Bell B206 Kiowa trainers once the new HATS system is operational, just as the Navy will retire its 14 Airbus Helicopters AS350 Squirrels.

Although LTCOL Hamlyn feels a natural affection for the 1960s era Kiowa, he believes the highly automated architecture of modern helicopters such as the MH60R Seahawk Romeo, MRH-90 Taipan and ARH Tiger have simply outpaced the ability of the Kiowa and its ilk to provide an effective stepping stone.

Credit: Defence

“The Kiowa is a great platform for what it was, a simple single-engine helicopter, very few systems in it, no autopilot, so it’s all very hands on,” he said to ADM. “So a pilot comes out of here with pretty good hands and feet skills but no exposure to the sort of systems that they’re going to encounter in MRH and ARH.

“With HATS we’ll have a twin-engine helicopter with a lot more of the systems that they’d expect to encounter on these platforms, fully capable of operating in IF (instrument flight) conditions. Plus we’ll have the full suite of simulators and computer based training.

“The main thing with HATS will be that it really will give us a trainer that much better prepares people for getting in to the MRH and ARH. And that translates in to less time spent on learning to fly and operate those aircraft and more time actually out doing their jobs for real in the units.”

Part of the time saving will stem from the modern helicopter’s twin engines, modern stability augmentation systems, digital engine control and automation, negating some of the manual skills pilots needed to learn in the past.

“There had to be a great focus on practise engine failure,” LTCOL Hamlyn said. “In the old days of helicopter training you’d go out there and just get flogged on autorotation emergencies by your instructor.

“There’s a different focus now. With the HATS environment they’ll start off initially doing a pretty heavy computer based training phase. So they’ll do a number of sorties in the simulator before they get in the aircraft. And when you do fly the helicopter, it’s actually a lot more stable than something like the Kiowa, so you’re going to spend less time getting basic handling skills squared away. So there will be more time to focus on, okay, now you know how to fly the helicopter, let’s focus a little bit more on how to operate it and do something useful with it.”

Simulation

Boeing Defence Australia’s Senior Manager Training Systems and Services, Mark Brownsey, believes comprehensive synthetic training systems will help the ADF train helicopter pilots in an environment that lets them make initial mistakes with no safety repercussions.

“Both the army and navy’s current ab initio training is all a live training solution,” he said to ADM. “It’s class room, mass briefings and then live training. And I think to meet the needs of a modern force, with effectively all brand new platforms, you can introduce a level of synthetic training that allows you to transfer training between live and synthetic devices and do a lot of work in a much safer environment.

“It’s more about meeting the training needs than the attributes of an aircraft, because it’s just one of the training devices that you end up using.”

Technology will make a difference, not only in practical exercises, but also in how trainees receive information, maintain communication and progress through the system.

“How would you build a modern training system? Well you don’t do it on paper anymore, do you? We’ll be introducing a training management information system that introduces the ability for a new pilot to be issued a tablet. That tablet will be fed the learning that they require as they develop through the course. It’s interactive.”

The first HATS EC135 was officially accepted in 2015, and is due in Australia this year. IOC for HATS is late 2018 but the systems will begin to receive students before then, with a mature training capacity of up to 130 students a year covering pilots, aviation warfare officers, aircrewmen, sensor operators and qualified aircrew returning for instructor training.