Page 42 - Australian Defence Magazine Feb 2020

42 AIRPOWER CHINOOK
FEBRUARY 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
CHINOOK SUSTAINMENT – AN ARMY PERSPECTIVE
Following on from ADM’s look at Boeing CH-47F Chinook sustainment from an industry perspective in the November issue, we turn our focus this issue to the Army viewpoint.
2019, when these words were written, the fleet has already accumulated almost 8,000 flying hours.
From an Army perspective, CH-47F sustainment is overseen by the Cargo Helicopter and Unmanned Sur- veillance Project Office (CHUSPO), which works very closely with industry to deliver the capability to the ADF.
CHINOOK RECAP
The Commonwealth originally purchased seven Boe- ing CH-47F Chinooks via a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract under Project Air 9000 Phase 5C, which gained Second Pass approval in May 2010. De- liveries to Townsville began in 2014, IOC achieved in December 2015, with FOC following in July 2017.
In the meantime, three additional aircraft were ac- quired under Land 4502 Phase 1, a program which received government approval in March 2016 and, such was the rapid acquisition nature of the project, the aircraft were delivered just three months later.
The additional helicopters were originally intended for the US Army, but diverted off Boeing’s production line in Philadelphia for the Australian Army. As such they differ slightly from the original seven helicopters, primarily in the fact that they are not fitted with a rotor brake (desired for shipboard operations) and because of the modifications required to bring them up to the same standard as the seven aircraft earlier delivered, FOC for Land 4502/1 will not occur until 2021.
The Planned Withdrawal Date (PWD) is currently set at 2040 for the fleet and, as of October 17, 2019, the fleet and notched up 7,795 flying hours – 395 of which were embarked hours, accumulated since the First Of Class Flight Trials (FOCFT) in 2016.
“Our target rate of effort for the 2019-2020 fiscal year is 2,400 airframe hours and we will progress to our mature rate of effort of 2,600 hours in 2021,” explained CHUSPO director, Colonel James Allen to ADM. “We have progressively built up those hours to achieve to achieve that mature state.”
CHUSPO
The CHUSPO is, as its name suggests, also oversee- ing Army’s unmanned systems projects, but Chinook is managed under the Cargo Helicopter Manage- ment Unit, which provides engineering and logistics support and overall governance of the program.
Because the helicopters have been acquired through the FMS process, there are also some elements of Chinook sustainment which fall under this methodology.
“The beauty of that is, because we have a relatively small fleet of 10 aircraft, we are able to use the FMS arrangements through the US Army to enjoy significant economies of scale, by leveraging off their much larger fleet,” COL Allen added.
“We maintain very close configuration alignment with the US Army’s CH-47Fs and this is proving to be quite a success- ful strategy for us. Things like rolling out software releases and publications amendments work well for us, because we haven’t diverted significantly from the US configuration and so we don’t have to rework data that comes from the OEM.”
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
THE CH-47F plays a crucial battlefield mobility role in support of ADF operations, but it also has an important role to play in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) op- erations within Australia and our immediate region.
Although the Foxtrot model Chinook has only been in Australian Army service since 2015, 10 helicopters are in service with the 5th Aviation Regiment (5 AVN) at Towns- ville and the type has already made its first deployment overseas, when three aircraft participated in Operation PNG Assist, post-earthquake HADR operations. The Chi- nook fleet also participated in flood relief operations in north-west Queensland in 2019 and by early November
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