Page 14 - ADT APRIL - MAY 2021 Online Magazine

Fire Support, logistics support, personnel transport, Medical MH-60 to the Aviation Maintenance Operation
Evacuation, and VHF/UHF/Link Communication Relay. Lockheed Center’s (MOC) readiness process, which
Martin states an availability rate of 98 per cent for the ready basic previously included F/A-18E/F Super Hornets,
aircraft and a cost per flight hour of less than USD 5000. EA-18G Growlers, E-2C Hawkeyes, E-2D
Advanced Hawkeyes, C-2A Greyhounds, and
India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) is nearing the first delivery of P-8 Poseidons. “We are expanding the scope [ ROTOCRAFT ]
Sikorsky’s MH-60R multi-mission helicopters ordered under a deal of the MOC with the end goal of improving
worth approximately USD2.6 billion. The new anti-submarine and and sustaining the number of mission capable
anti-surface warfare (ASW/ ASuW) helicopters are being delivered MH-60 aircraft,” said MOC Director, Capt. Rich
under a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) contract. In April, the US Naval Grove. “We will provide that same focus to all of
Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) announced that the first India pro- the platforms to continue improving the lethality
duction aircraft had made its maiden flight in Owego, NY. Deliveries of Naval Aviation as a whole with continuous
of all 24 helicopters on contract are to be completed by 2023. improvements to the entire (readiness) chain.”
Lockheed Martin will also be discharging offsets through Transfer
of Technology (ToT) to Indian offset partners for manufacture of The MOC initiative was launched in 2018 in an
products and services. Sikorsky bagged the Indian MH-60R win effort to improve mission-capable (MC) rates of
after an unsuccessful earlier bid for S -70B Seahawk helicopters, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps strike fighter
which were selected by the Navy in 2014, to meet its requirement aircraft. MOC is based at the Naval Air Force
for 16 multirole ASW/ ASuW helicopters (with options for eight Atlantic headquarters in Norfolk, enabling
more), which ran aground in 2017. long-term collaboration among Naval Aviation
stakeholders by bringing together mainte-
India is the fourth customer for the sophisticated ASW/ ASuW nance, supply, engineering and depot experts
helicopters, in addition to the Royal Danish Navy, Royal Australian from across the Naval Aviation Enterprise to
Navy (RAN)and Royal Saudi Naval Forces, who have ordered 9, improve aircraft operational readiness. “In
24 and 10 of the type respectively. Lockheed Martin Rotary and coordination with commercial industry best
Mission Systems (LM RMS) will develop, integrate and install practices and lessons learned from the Super
an India MH-60R System Configuration (SC) onto Lot 14 USN Hornet and Growler sustainment initiative,
Government Furnished aircraft, according to a notification posted the Naval Aviation Enterprise has developed
on the website beta.sam.gov. The notification states that the Indian a proven process that identifies barriers to
helicopters will include modification of an existing Royal Saudi Naval achieving mission capability, vigorously swarms
Forces (RSNF) MH-60R SC18-03 baseline to create an Initial India those barriers and delivers results,” said Vice
baseline. The maritime helicopters will be fitted with APS-153(V) Adm. Kenneth Whitesell, Commander, Naval Air
Multi-Mode radars, Airborne Low Frequency System (ALFS), AN/ Forces and Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet.
AAS-44C(V) Multi-Spectral Targeting System, Embedded Global “This culture change is being rolled out across
Positioning System/Inertial Navigation Systems (EGI) with Selective all naval type/model/series aircraft and will
Availability/Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM) amongst other equip- drive the velocity and scale required for cost
ment. India will also receive one MH-60B/R Excess Defense Article transformation. We must deliver warfighting
(EDA) USN legacy aircraft. readiness in a less costly fashion.”

In January, this year, the U.S. Navy announced that it had added the MH-60R helicopters carry a three man crew
comprising of a pilot, tactical coordinator and
a sensor operator. It can also carry 25 active,
passive or bathymetric buoys and can locate
submarines using its Airborne Low Frequency
Sonar (ALFS), while at the same time perform-
ing a radar sweep of the surface environment
using the multimode radar and Electronic
Surveillance Measures (ESM). The Romeo’s
onboard systems are able to fuse the data
received from its radar, acoustics and ESM
systems thanks to the sophisticated onboard
data fusion system, which takes data from the
subsystems and fuses them into one piece of
information for the crew. The Romeo’s also
feature an Integrated Self Defence system,
comprising of a Radar Warning Receiver (RWR),
missile, laser, hostile fire warning; Infrared
Countermeasure (IRCM) and Counter Measure
Dispensing System (CMDS).

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