By Robbin Laird
When looking at the coming of the CH-53K to the fleet, it is shaped considerably by the air systems approach. The aircraft has been guided throughout its life by a digital thread approach which is focused on concurrently shaping development, with testing, with build, with sustainment efforts in an ongoing cycle of evolution of the air system.
But what can get ignored is the strategic context within which such an approach is being shaped and such a combat air system could contribute to combat forces which have to be prepared for intense periods of conflict and not the slo-mo wars of the past twenty years.
If one is focused on intense periods of conflict, then the availability of combat assets is a key requirement. This requires maintenance needs to be as efficient as possible and just-in-time sustainment approaches of the slo-mo wars replaced by availability of parts where they are needed at the time they are needed. The maintenance and sustainment approach being built to support the Kilo is precisely focused on such a capability, one can be missed if you still live in the world of slo-mo war and the sustainment approaches which were used to support such an approach.
But what does a maintenance and sustainment approach appropriate to the new strategic situation look like and how does the air systems approach built for the CH-53K fit into such an approach?
My guru in understanding the approach to maintenance and sustainment has been Pierre Garant, who has worked at Sikorsky for some time, but whom I have first met many years ago when Murielle Delaporte and I interviewed him for the London-based journal Military Logistics International when he was working on logistics and sustainment in the HQMC Department of Aviation.
I have interviewed him while he has been working at Sikorsky twice before in 2018 and 2020. During a visit to the Sikorsky’s Stratford, Connecticut facility in May 2023, I was able to do so once again. But this time, we could talk about the maintenance and sustainment enterprise and progress in shaping a new approach to combat support, given the time which has passed since our last discussion.
We started by discussing the role of the design of the aircraft for the kind of combat situation for the era we have clearly entered. Garant underscored: “The aircraft was designed out of the gate to address three interconnected issues—aircraft availability rates, mission reliability rates and maintainability.”
We have focused in previous interviews on the design features in the aircraft and the fact that using a digital thread process, the redesign of aircraft parts is an ongoing effort, as reliable data is generated from the sensors built into the aircraft and that data is then vetted through the experience from operating and maintaining the aircraft. But I wanted to focus on the shaping of an enterprise focused on enhanced combat availability in more intense combat situations, the kind anticipated in peer-to-peer confrontations.The way Garant discuss this issue was highlighting that in his view there are three nodes to success in such an effort.
The first node is associated with the inherent design of the aircraft itself. This is rooted in having maintainers involved from the outset in the design of aircraft for ease of maintenance as well as the ability of sensors built into the aircraft to generate accurate data to shape a path to effective predictive maintenance. As this path improves over time, it can be used to inform sustainment efforts of the forces at the tactical edge. With a more accurate picture of what items need to be available and when, accurate layers of material can be deployed to the ship or positioned at operating bases from which the aircraft will go forward.
The second node is plane-side maintenance and support. Marines working on the aircraft now have available to them advanced tool sets or an automated logistics environment in which to work. The data from the operation of the fleet aircraft is fed into an automated system and is available to the local maintainer. The data is presentable in packages which are used for training and for advance planning and executing repairs as well. And because it is based on data, help for non-standard problem sets can be aided by specialists who are not present plane side or, in other words, by using a remote surgeon concept.
The third node is overseeing the global fleet and shaping a global view of the fleet. Here the effort is focused upon knowledge of the behavior of all the components across the fleet of aircraft. This then allows for an ability to formulate predictive, rule-based behavior for the evolution both of the maintenance regime and for shaping a more effective sustainment delivery system to the tactical edge.
When I last spoke to Pierre, we talked about his work on a Performance-Based Logistics (PBL) system for the CH-53E. He argued that this system provided in effect the training wheels for shaping such a system for the Kilo global enterprise.
To do a PBL for the CH-53E meant working disparate Navy and government maintenance data systems into a common data stream. Or put another way, how to build an eco-system within which data can be tapped into a system to understand the global behavior of the operating fleet? And based on that, how to enhance the ability to do predictive maintenance? And how to translate those findings into realistic sustainment delivery systems to the tactical edge?
But a PBL to deliver better aircraft systems availability with lower cost is nice, but what are the metrics for an ability to surge in high-intensity conflict situations?
I certainly believe there needs to be more attention to this requirement, and having the IDF in the program will undoubtedly reinforce the need for such a metric.
Featured Photo: U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Jose Martinez, center, and Cpl. Omar Aguila, avionics technicians with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 461 (HMH-461), 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, troubleshoot the blade fold system on a CH-53K King Stallion on Marine Corps Air Station New River in Jacksonville, North Carolina June 22, 2022. HMH-461 aviation maintenance Marines go through vigorous training and testing to ensure that aircraft aboard MCAS New River are ready to fly and support all missions safely. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Makayla Elizalde)