Contract Award: Cassidian to provide its Operations Support System for sustaining German Army's MedEvac missions

News Report

As reported in a recent press release, EADS's Cassidian will support the Forward Air Medical Evacuation (FwdAirMedEvac) mission carried out with NH90 helicopters of the German Army in the evacuation of ill and injured persons. For this purpose, the German Federal Office of Defence Technology and Procurement (BWB) ordered a total of eight units of Cassidian’s mobile EUA operations support system for mission control, preparation and planning.

From the end of 2012, German Army Aviation will be in charge of providing forward air medical evacuation in Afghanistan using their NH90 helicopters. The FwdAirMedEvac helicopters will provide a solid base for emergency medical care for German soldiers in crisis areas.

The Technology

Cassidian's EUA operations support system combines operational command and control with technical logistic support. The system offers reliable support of on-board systems and avionics equipment with adaptable configurations for planning, updating and analysing the airborne operations. EUA covers all aspects from communication, tactical situation management, mission preparation, briefing up to mission restitution / debriefing and it offers support for maintenance planning for aircraft operation.

Its current adaptation complements its extension ordered in May last year for the support helicopter Tiger ASGARD (Afghanistan Stabilisation German Army Rapid Deployment) which, from October 2012, will also be used to support the German mission in Afghanistan. The EUA operations support system, developed by Cassidian, integrates the capabilities of the German helicopters into the integrated military command, which is ensured via the German Army C3I System (FüInfoSys H), for both MedEvac and armed support missions.

The new generation of the EUA with an updated software configuration allows the system to be used for all helicopter types of the German Army and Air Force: the support helicopter (UH) Tiger, the tactical transport helicopter (TTH), the light transport helicopter (LTH) NH90 and the transport helicopter CH-53GA. In future, the German Armed Forces will operate their helicopter fleet using a standardised operations support system which not only enables operational readiness to be increased, but also permits operating costs to be reduced.

From the end of 2012, the EUA will also be used to support the missions of the HAD and HAP variants of the Spanish Tiger helicopters.

References: EADS (1), ILA (2)

Contract Award: AgustaWestland to provide its Mission Planning & Analysis System to Italian Navy's helicopters

News Report

As reported in a recent press release, AgustaWestland, a Finmeccanica company, announced that the Italian Navy will receive a Mission Planning & Analysis System (MPAS) for its fleet of NH90 NFH medium twin naval helicopters. The MPAS contract, signed between AgustaWestland and NAHEMA (NATO Helicopter Management Agency), fulfills the requirement for a multi-mission and multi-platform mission planning system that will be available in time for the early operations of the first batch of Italian Navy NH90 helicopters. The MPAS will also be compatible with similar planning systems in use by other European Armed Forces and capable of being expanded to support additional helicopter platforms and provide a secure interface.

The NH90 MPAS will support the Italian Navy in conducting mission tasks with the NH90 NFH and it will also include the capability to support multi-platform missions, therefore interfacing with the service’s AW101 helicopters. Moreover, it will provide the growth capability for supporting the future MTTH variant (Maritime Tactical Transport Helicopter) of the NH90 helicopter. The system will support the Italian Navy’s operations as well as training activities by providing the users with enhanced situational awareness, flight and mission planning functionality and a complete aircraft data upload/download capability. The system will achieve full operational readiness by the end of 2013 and it will be deployed across the main Italian Navy operating bases and vessels. AgustaWestland will assist the Italian Navy to deploy the system as part of a three year Initial In Service Support package that will guarantee the maximum availability of the MPAS stations during operations.

The Technology

The MPAS is based on the state of the art AgustaWestland-designed Planning System Skyflight, a multi-helicopter flight and mission planning solution that all AgustaWestland mission planning stations currently utilise.

AgustaWestland’s Skyflight mission planning system is designed to help helicopter crews and Operations Officers plan, execute and analyse their operational missions. Operators can acquire, manage, process and analyze the data needed to conduct a mission in a range of operational scenarios. Skyflight uses a comprehensive operational database to provide advanced situational awareness. This helps users identify mission tasks and objectives and evaluate mission risks and to develop action plans.

The Context

Skyflight is currently operated by the Royal Netherlands Navy for the mission planning of their NH90 NFH fleet and Skyflight technology is in use for the development of the UK Ministry of Defence’s AW159 Lynx Wildcat and Apache AH Mk1 Mission Planning Systems. It is also a core element in the Flight Planning System for AW101 VVIP helicopters. Skyflight has also been delivered to the Royal New Zealand Air Force, supporting the mission planning of their AW109 LUH helicopters.

The Italian Navy’s NH90s will replace previous generation helicopters for a variety of roles including anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and utility. The NH90 will give the Italian services a major increase in operational capability and mission effectiveness due to its outstanding technology and performance.

References: AgustaWestland (1,2)

Contract Award: General Dynamics to provide additional Mission Planning Systems for U.S. Navy aircrafts

News Report

As announced by U.S. DoD, General Dynamics was recently awarded a $20,585,146 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract to exercise an option for the full-rate production of 80 Type 3 Advanced Mission Computers (AMC) for the U.S. Navy F/A-18E/F and E/A-18G aircraft.

The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.

The Technology

General Dynamics' Advanced Mission Computer is the nerve center of the Super Hornet, providing situational awareness and combat systems control to the flight crew. A ruggedized, high-performance/high-reliability integrated information processing and mission & display-processing system, the AMC relies on a Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS), open systems architecture. It performs general purpose, input/output, video, voice and graphics processing and is designed to operate reliably in the extreme environmental conditions of today’s high-performance fighter aircraft.  The AMC is also able to process the high-speed data flows from the latest in sensor technology, and it communicates with aircraft systems over several databuses, including MIL-STD-1553, fibre optic Fibre Channel, and Local PCI.

The Context

General Dynamics has been delivering AMCs for the F/A-18 since 2002.  Since then, the nature of the work on this program has expanded from production for newly produced aircraft to include supplying Navy efforts to retrofit operational aircraft.

A $30.6 million contract was awarded to General Dynamics on March 2010 for the production of 118 Type-3 AMS for the F/A-18 Super Hornet aircrafts.

In the meantime, on November 2011 the U.S. Navy selected Boeing to jointly develop a new Type 4 Advanced Mission Computer (AMC) system for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler. The Type 4 AMC system will offer improved aircraft performance and image and mission-processing functions, and is scheduled to replace the existing Type 3 AMC. The new system will better position the war-fighters for future U.S. Navy Flightplan capability upgrades, i.e. technology insertion plan to ensure the modernisation of the aircraft ahead of future threats.

References: U.S. DoD (1), General Dynamics (2), Naval Technology (3), Avionics Intelligence (4)