Rotorhub
Australian Seahawk replacement project clears white paper review
Key guidance on Australia’s project Air 9000 phase 8 plan for the replacement of its Sikorsky S-70B-2 Seahawk helicopters will be unveiled next week as part of a new national defence white paper, with senior military officials confirming the document will provide guidance on the requirement.
The head of the Australian Department of Defence’s capability group, VADM Matt Tripovich, says that the Seahawk replacement project has cleared the white paper review process but is still to receive initial government approvals – what the Australian acquisition system refers to as ‘first pass”.
“A project will replace the Seahawk helicopter called AIR 9000, Phase 8 which exists in the current defence capability plan. The white paper will have examined the type of aircraft we need and the numbers...”
“Following the white paper a new defence capability plan will lay out the projects for the next five years or so, and the details of timing, ease of decision, level of investment and number of aircraft will flow from it. We are working fast at a plan to be able to react to that.”
Tripovich confirms that the life of type for the Seahawks has been set by the Royal Australian Navy at 2019.
The head of helicopter programmes in the Australian Defence Materiel organisation, MAJGEN Tony Fraser, says this is six years less than originally planned by the navy but expected to be achievable with the assistance of an ongoing capability assurance programme launched last year.
“Currently the Seahawk has a life of type through to 2019. In fact it was originally through to
2025. We are looking at things such as the flight control computer and we are trying to upgrade the flight control computer to ensure that it continues in reliability as much as anything else. We are keeping the parts for it and the radar for it up to specification.”
However he also cautions that “the issue for us is to ensure that we can carry obsolescent management through to that point in time. We have some parts that are more difficult to obtain, which is all the more reason for us to go off the shelf wherever we go if there are some unique parts. Right now we are trying to work through those.”
Australia scrapped upgrade plans for the Seahawk in March 2008 in parallel to its decision to abandon the acquisition of eleven Kaman SH-2G(A) Super Seasprite helicopters. Tripovich says the Seahawk capability assurance programme includes offsetting the cancellation of the SH-2G(A) in terms of ensuring fleet support.
“We have taken action to improve part of the Seasprite cancellation to try to improve the rate of effort. We have been successful in increasing the aircraft availability of Seahawk until a replacement is provided.”
Tripovich says that the speed of the replacement programme will be significantly influenced by whether Australia chooses to adopt a purely military off the shelf aircraft or adapt an existing type to meet its specific requirements.
“The left-hand of arc obviously is the Seasprite experience and the right-hand of arc would mean that you bought a helicopter or any aircraft or platform off a production line that is already there. I guess the right hand of arc would be something like the [Boeing] C17 [airlifter] program where we bought an aircraft off a production line—in fact, off a slot that was already in a production line. So we were able to bring it into service very quickly...It depends on the maturity of the solution and whether or not any more work has to be done.”
By Peter La Franchi – Asia-Pacific Editor
Email this to a friend.