Skilling & Training: From off the street and into the air | ADM Sep 2010
Cobham Australia’s billion-dollar Sentinel program sees the company manage a turnkey solution for the Customs/Defence agency, Border Protection Command (BPC).
From the provision of the Dash-8 fleet, decked out with a complete electronic sensor suite, to providing trained pilots and observers for missions, the company does it all.
Katherine Ziesing | Darwin
But how do they manage to train all the people needed?
The company is the third largest civil aviation operation in Australia after Qantas and Virgin Blue.
The company operates freight routes and domestic flight routes for many of the major mining companies.
They provide all the necessary maintenance and support for the fleet of almost 50 aircraft, including their Special Mission fleet that supplies the border protection effort.
The Border Protection operation requires a combination of skills in place on the ground and in the air.
The fleet of 10 Dash-8s and two F406s fly 17,000 hours a year across 3,000 missions to patrol Australia’s security zone, which encompasses the exclusive economic zone, offshore islands and international waters out to 600 miles offshore.
All 10 Dash-8 aircraft now have a specially designed Selex Galileo Surveillance Information Management System (SIM) installed as part of the second stage of the upgrade program.
The SIM is able to control and collate the data from a number of sensors and communications systems (an L3 Wescam MX15 EO turret, Raytheon SeaVue 2022 radar alongside Inmarsat, Iridium and radio feeds) into a coherent high integrity mission record that can be used later for prosecutions.
The upgrade of the last aircraft was celebrated at a handover ceremony in late July in Darwin where four of the aircraft are based.
A further three are based in Cairns and another three in Broome.
On any given tasking from Customs, two observers accompany two pilots for a mission.
But the task starts well before take-off.
“We come into work about two hours before the flight, download the flight plan from Customs, plot our course and give the information to the pilots,” Cobham observer Mark Skrzeczynski explains to ADM.
“We prep the system and sensors, including data associated with the flight route, while the pilots prep the aircraft and complete flight planning.
“We’re on station for anywhere between six and eight hours depending on the task from BPC or what comes up during the conduct of the mission.”
In-house solution
Finding pilots is a tough competition between Cobham and other aircraft operators (mainly the major airlines, both domestic and international) but the training of observers is a completely different issue for the company – there is no civilian equivalent role.
Consequently, Cobham have developed their own in-house training program for their observers, turning recruits who may have no background in operation of sensor/comms systems, or at best a generic IT or military background, into fully trained observers for the Sentinel program in quite a short time.
“We do have a few former military P-3 guys on board but it really is a mixed bag,” Cobham chief observer Travis Aitken told ADM.
“There isn’t a specific qualification that we look for but we do keep an eye out for people with IT or military backgrounds.
“Pilots are much easier as they have their licence and relevant experience and we just endorse them on our aircraft.
“With observers we don’t have that choice in the marketplace.
“We have a fairly high-intensity training regime to be able to cope with people that may come in off the street.
“We used to have some visual aircraft and they didn’t require a huge skill set but now the system is almost purely electronic with some pretty sophisticated equipment so the recruitment challenge is significant,” Aitken said.
“The first week of the six-week course covers the usual corporate induction plus a big emphasis on the safety aspects of the role.
“The next five weeks on the ground are all about the surveillance role, learning the communications systems, operating the SIM and introduction to the operation of the variety of sensor equipment.”
Old and new tech
The two observers split the operation of the sensors between them but they are still required to take high-resolution imagery of targets with a digital camera for later interpretation at the Australian Maritime Security Operations Centre (AMSOC) in Canberra.
Data from a mission is packaged digitally and transmitted down to AMSOC in near real time, as a cost effectiveness measure, but the system is able to operate in real time as needed.
“The recruit then moves to on the job training where they are supervised on the aircraft by a trainer and a normal crew complement,” Aitken said.
“They work their way through a four-week series of flights, up to about 100 hours of flight training.
“They then come back to our training centre in Cairns where they have another couple of weeks ground training specifically on the mission sensors used on the aircraft (radar, EO turret etc).
“They then have another four weeks of on the job flight training focusing on the employment of the sensors and the operation of the mission system as a whole.
“This includes formal assessment of their competency over the period.
“Once they achieve their check to line status they are able to operate as part of the standard crew but it really takes about another 12 months and about 500 flying hours to achieve full proficiency in the role.”
Disclaimer: The author travelled to Darwin to attend the SIM handover ceremony as a guest of Cobham Australia.
SIM makes life easier
Katherine Ziesing | Darwin
Cobham Australia celebrated the handover of the final upgraded Dash-8 into their fleet in Darwin at the end July.
All 10 aircraft were modified with the new Selex Galileo Surveillance Information Management System (SIM).
The project was delivered on budget and on schedule, believed to be a first in Australia for a project of this complexity, much to the delight of Customs and Border Protection Command (BPC), a joint Customs/Defence agency.
Cobham opened the competition for the SIM in 2006 not long after the original Sentinel contract with BPC was signed, examining the technology available from around the globe.
“There was no system on the market at the time that came anywhere near meeting the very demanding SIM specification required by Customs,” Cobham Australia’s Special Mission business development director Anthony Patterson told ADM.
Italy’s Selex Galileo developed the system from the ground up around the Cobham/BPC requirements.
Cobham Australia also developed and made use of a systems integration lab at its Adelaide facilities to make sure the integration of the mission sensors and communications system to the SIM, and the entire mission system to the aircraft met the contracted performance requirements.
This was demonstrated to BPC through a formal test and acceptance process.
“This is truly a significant achievement when you consider the complexity and size of the software development and integration task within the time allowed,” Cobham Australia CEO Peter Nottage said at the event.
“In the past, the correlation of contact data was all done manually,” Cobham observer Mark Skrzeczynski explained to ADM.
“The SIM, together with the additional processing modes available with the new sensors, makes compiling and correlating all the information much easier, the reporting to Canberra is now also quicker.
“The accuracy and quality of the data has been enhanced.
“The entire surveillance system is more effective and its made a huge difference to streamlining our processes.”
The SIM forms the core of the surveillance data collection effort and is made up of a number of components including:
• The airborne element installed on the Dash-8 aircraft and two BPC helicopters in the Torres Strait operated by Australian Helicopter Pty Ltd
• A ground command, control and communications element located in the Australian Maritime Security Operations Centre (AMSOC) in Canberra
• Portable remote nodes that can be deployed with ground parties and to provide a real-time interface with the aircraft and ground C3 systems
• An Inmarsat Broadband Satellite Datalink
Between them, the 10 Dash-8s and 2 F406s cover the 15 million square kilometre area under a turnkey solution known as the billion-dollar Project Sentinel, which will run till 2020.
The project provides over 80 per cent of BPC’s surveillance operation with Cobham providing the aircrew, observers and platforms.
The company is also keen to point out the cost effectiveness of the program in comparison to Defence P-3 Orions where costs can be measured in dollars per square nautical mile compared to the Dash-8s cents per square nautical mile searched.
BPC has also been very happy with the program, praising the parallel rollout of the SIM system at AMSOC.
“This has been a roaring success of a program,” BPC’s acting national director maritime operations support division Nigel Perry said at the Darwin handover.
“The spirit of cooperation and willingness from all parties to bring this together has been a great example of government and industry working together.”
While there are no firm plans in place at this time, Patterson pointed out that the work currently being done under the Sentinel project could not be directly replicated by satellites or other technologies at their current stage of development.
However some technologies such as UAVs had a role to play in a future system.
The US Customs Service now has seven Predator B UAVs in civil service on the Mexican and Canadian borders and in the Caribbean.
“There may be scope for a combination of these platform capabilities to produce a better operational effect,” Patterson said.
“Something like the US Customs Service Guardian UAV (a Predator B whose sensor fit has been optimised to conduct maritime surveillance) would be one of the next most logical technology choices in Australia’s border protection system.
“The sheer size of the area to be covered and the tasks demanded by Government may see different approaches and priorities adopted in the future.”