Military Superiority: Super Hornet support | ADM Jul 2010
The RAAF’s F/A-18F Super Hornets are not only bigger, heavier, and more powerful than the service’s capable but ageing F/A-18A/B ‘classic’ Hornet fighters, they’re also supported differently.
Julian Kerr | Sydney
This change basically centres on the Commonwealth’s decision to forego the degree of local autonomy practised in the support and upgrading of the F/A-18A/Bs and instead to replicate the F/A-18F regime followed by the US Navy (USN), currently the type’s only other operator.
An essential element of the RAAF Super Hornet support contract signed by the Boeing Company in December and stood up in April is Boeing’s involvement in the USN’s F/A-18 Integrated Readiness Support Teaming (FIRST) program.
Through FIRST, Boeing asset managers oversee inventories, forecast demand and procure spare parts for the USN’s 400-plus Super Hornet fleet.
Boeing also provides technical information, on-site engineering services and field service representatives.
With the first five of the 24 twin-seat F/A-18Fs on order by Australia now in-country, nine more due before the end of the year and the balance arriving in 2011, the same support model is now largely in place at RAAF Amberley.
Boeing Defence Australia (BDA) was accredited by the Commonwealth in March as an Authorised Engineering Organisation (AEO) to support the Super Hornets, acting as a sub-contractor to their US parent company.
The accreditation acknowledges BDA’s compliance with the RAAF Technical Airworthiness Regulatory framework.
While support resources will be provided through a combination of local engineering services and Boeing capabilities based in St. Louis, Missouri, the primary link for engineering change proposals and logistics is direct with the F/A-18E/F/G program office at the USN’s Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR).
“The Commonwealth is tied into the USN’s Super Hornet spiral development program because it realises the benefits of commonality” Glen Ferguson, BDA’s Super Hornet Transition Program Manager said.
“If you miss three or four upgrades, the next one along might require the others to be done and you end up in the same situation as the HUG (Hornet Upgrade Program).”
Reflecting changes in design and technology, BDA will undertake Super Hornet sustainment with between 60 to 70 personnel compared to the 350 involved in supporting the F-111s that the F/A-18Fs are replacing.
However, the comparison is not entirely valid.
Many of the F-111 support staff were engaged in the type of upgrades unlikely to be required by the new-build Super Hornets for several years, and then more likely to involve software dumps than mechanical or structural changes.
Explaining the engineering philosophy, Ferguson says any changes will not involve moving the Super Hornets to an Australian configuration - “all we’re doing is taking the data that comes from the USN which, by the way, came from Boeing to start off with, 90 per cent of the time”.
A modification or replacement of a faulty part mandated by the USN support system involves what’s known as a configuration, role and environment (CRE) assessment – in other words checking not that a piece of metal is of the correct thickness, but that it’s permitted in Australia and that it will not significantly change the aircraft’s role.
“We get a sense of all those things and then we manage the incorporation of those modifications or those changes or that data into our baseline and the Australian fleet”, Ferguson told ADM.
“The benefit we get here is if we have an issue, we can go back to St. Louis and get straight from the horse’s mouth exactly what’s needed to fix the problem we’ve come across.
“The flow is from Boeing to the USN to the Commonwealth to us but we can then close that loop by going straight back to St. Louis for what’s necessary,” he added.
Configuration management is 100 per cent electronic.
With Boeing contracted to provide aircraft drawings, any changes in the Australian configuration do not require local updating, but are plugged back into the St. Louis-based blueprints.
“A lot of our stuff day-to-day is managing the changes to the aircraft as they come in, any errors or problems, and supporting the squadrons on a daily basis.
“If someone has to change a box and they can’t do so because there’s not a procedure for it, we generate that for them and give them engineering support to authorise any non-conformances they might have,” Ferguson said.
The Super Hornet has a very no limited number of hard-copy maintenance menus – primarily wiring type diagrams that do not translate well to a digital medium.
Instead, squadron technicians are equipped with a tablet computer with a database of authorised procedures that directs them what to do.
“They’ll try and fault-find to an extent and then they get to a point where they can’t fault-find any more and they’ll swap a box,” Ferguson said.
“When that box comes out, it comes to us and we do the intermediate maintenance and we repair that box.
“If we can’t repair it we send it back to the USN, primarily through to the FIRST program (which supports approximately 70 per cent of the items on the aircraft) and it then goes back to other the original equipment manufacturers (which about 70 per cent of the time is Boeing) to repair at a higher level.
“So there are three levels of maintenance even for the boxes – operational, intermediate and depot – and our job in our supply function is to coordinate that control over those elements of that procedure and direct where they get repaired.”
As Ferguson explains, it’s here that the FIRST program comes into its own.
“On the classic Hornet, when something breaks it’s sent back, it gets repaired – maybe in two months – and you get it back.
“Because we’re joined into a performance-based logistics support arrangement with the FIRST program, we give them one, they give us one straight back off the shelf and we don’t need that extra stockholding.”
Illustrating changes in sustainment philosophy, Ferguson points out that the legacy Hornet has literally hundreds of suppliers while the Super Hornet has one – the USN via the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) channel, although this may change with time.
“If we’re buying three of something the USN will be buying 3,000 and we can just add our three to their list.
“But if we can find ways to Australianise things, we’ll look to take that opportunity.
“Where there’s a reasonable business case for company X which is good at fixing parts, not only can we send the 24 Australian ones there but perhaps the 400 plus USN ones as well.”
According to Ferguson, BDA is standing up its F/A-18F support capability in stages.
With five of 24 aircraft delivered, 80 per cent of the necessary staff are now in place at RAAF Amberley.
Although the full inventory of parts support capabilities is are not yet complete, this is intentional – some components are unlikely to be required immediately for brand-new aircraft.
With many of the skills required by the support personnel similar to those required on the F-111s, training is focused on adapting these skills to a new environment.
Nearly all support data is subject to US ITARS (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) but in practical terms this does not appear to be a problem.
“We have restrictions on how we manage that data but we have the ability to do almost everything we need to in order support the fleet, either locally or back through the US,” Ferguson comments.
“We don’t know what we don’t know.
“We haven’t been asked to do some things maybe because the USN may not have released that to the Commonwealth but from a Boeing perspective we don’t know whether that happened or not.”
The Integrated Avionics Software Support Facility (IASSF) procured to provide an in-country ability to develop and test the RAAF’s F/A-18A/B avionics systems and software provides an interesting example of changes in the support philosophy.
“For the Commonwealth to create that capability, it had to buy the rights to the software, get it released, then spend an inordinate amount of money on the ability to modify it,” Ferguson commented.
“With the Super Hornet they didn’t even ask if the software could be released – when the USN is upgrading the software they’ll simply ask for the RAAF’s to be done at the same time.
“You’re not taking on the burden of maintaining your own support environment, you just plug into the USN’s capability.
“You can’t understate the benefits of maintaining the commonality of the aircraft with those of the USN.
“You get all the benefits of their support and you don’t have to pay for half the stuff they’re upgrading because they’re doing it anyway.
“But you have to maintain the commonality of your support system.
“If you or anyone else deviates from the USN system then you’re on your own.”
While the squadrons launch and recover the aircraft and perform operational repairs, Boeing personnel are responsible for tyres and wheels, hydraulics, pneumatics, avionics, electrics, generators, oxygen systems and life support, and undertake non-destructive testing, together with structural and composite repair.
The F/A-18F’s GEF414 engines are maintained by GE and Tasman Aviation Enterprises (TAE) while training support services are contracted to Raytheon.
Washing the aircraft is one of the few times that members of the BDA support team actually touch the aircraft rather than parts from it.
In the majority of cases, a part can be pulled off and replaced without online availability being affected.
In the event of damage being incurred during a deployment away from RAAF Amberley – say a Super Hornet being hit by a service vehicle while on the tarmac at Butterworth air base in Malaysia - a Boeing field service engineer can authorise repairs beyond what the squadron is normally allowed to undertake.
Alternatively, the repair would be undertaken by Boeing staff, or the damaged panels and components would be returned to RAAF Amberley for rectification.
Handling Managing the process for structural system changes required by upgrades will be a Boeing responsibility, but who actually carries out the work will depend on its nature.
Fitting the F/A-18Fs with the ALE-55 fibre optic towed decoy, probably sometime in 2011, is one such example.
“The USN will put out a package saying the ALE-55 is now authorised for release on the following tail numbers – which will include ours – and the parts are X million dollars,” says Ferguson.
“In cooperation with the Commonwealth we access the relevant data, buy the parts through the FMS case, and if it’s a simple job that just requires bolting on it’ll be done at squadron level, otherwise we’ll do it ourselves we are able to perform this task for them.”
Given the new-build status of the Super Hornets, deeper maintenance of the aircraft itself rather than of parts that can not be repaired at intermediate level is one aspect of engineering support that has yet to be defined and is not expected in the short term.