By Robbin Laird

Next generation air platforms encompass several changes as compared to the predecessors which are at least thirty years old or older, notably in terms of design.

Next generation air platforms are designed from the ground up with the digital age as a key reality.

This means that such systems are focused on being able:

• To provide connectivity with other platforms,
• To have upgradeability built in through software enablement and anticipated code rewriting as operational experience is gained,
• Operating with cockpits built to work with new digital ISR and C2 systems onboard or integrateable within the cockpit of the platform,
• Are built with materials technology, which leverages the composite revolution,
• And have management systems designed to work with big data to provide for more rapid and cost effective upgradeability and maintainability.

Such is the case with the CH-53K compared to its legacy ancestor, the CH-53E or with the venerable but legacy Chinook medium lift helicopter.

Comparing the legacy with the next generation is really about comparing historically designed aircraft to 21st century designed and manufactured aircraft.

As elegant as the automobiles of the 1950s clearly are, from a systems point of view, they pale in comparison to 2020s automobiles in terms of sustainability and effective performance parameters.

I have followed the progress of the CH-53K much like I have with the F-35 and the Osprey, three innovative new combat systems.

As I have argued earlier,

With peer adversaries emphasizing technological change and force modernization, focusing on strategic advantage for US and allied forces is a key element for combat success. At the heart of such an approach, clearly will be the ability to operate more effective distributed forces and to leverage the capability of US and allied forces to operate flexibly and not relying on a rigid centralized system with a core emphasis on combat mass.

 Working ways to distributed force but concentrate fires is at the heart of the transformation necessary to prevail in the strategic shift. For the MAGTF, this means taking the core approach around which a MAGTF has been created and extending its reach with integrated fires, as is conceived of with regard to F-35-HIMARS integration or the use of the new G/ATOR system, and building effective force packages that can operate in an integrated but flexibly deployed distributed force.

The CH-53K comes at a time when this transition is being worked.

As the heavy lift member of the MAGTF team, the CH-53K will provide a key element of being able to carry equipment and/or personnel to the objective area. And with its ability to carry three times the external load of the CH-53E and to be able to deliver the external load to different operating bases, the aircraft will contribute significantly to distributed operations.

But the digital nature of the aircraft, and the configuration of the cockpit is a key part of its ability to contribute as well.  The aircraft is a fly-by-wire system with digital interoperability built in.

And with multiple screens in the cockpit able to manage data in a variety of ways, the aircraft can operate as a lead element, a supporting element or a distributed integrated support node to the insertion force.

A key change associated with the new digital aircraft, whether they are P-8s or Cyclone ASW helicopters, is a different kind of workflow. The screens in the aircraft can be configured to the task and data moved throughout the aircraft to facilitate a mission task-oriented work flow.

In the case of the CH-53K, the aircraft could operate as a Local Area Network for an insertion task force, or simply as a node pushing data back into the back where the Marines are operating MAGTBs.

Marines carrying MAGTB tablets onboard the CH-53K will be able to engage with the task force to understand their role at the point of insertion. The K as a digital aircraft combined with the digital transformation of the Marines create a very different ground force insertion capability.

 From an operational standpoint, the K versus the E or the legacy Chinook for that matter, offers new capabilities for the combat force.

What is more difficult to grasp is how the new generation of aircraft also change how sustainability is managed and how the new aircraft provide a ramp launching a new way to manage the aircraft, and to provide for enhanced reliability for those digitally managed aircraft.

Recently, I had a chance to talk with Pierre Garant, now a program director with Sikorsky, but whom I met many years ago when he was the aviation sustainment director at Headquarters Marine Corps.

In an article which Murielle Delaporte and I wrote for Military Logistics International in 2007, we interviewed Garant with regard to how the Marines were working expeditionary logistics to support what was the disruptive impact of the Osprey.

Garant himself provided his perspective on the transformation of Marine Aviation logistics in a 2004 Marine Gazette piece.¹

The simple point is that Garant has been at this for a long time.

What he brings to the CH-53E and CH-53K is years of credible experience in working 21^st century transformation regarding combat logistics.

In a later article, I will focus on our discussion about the evolution of the Performance Based Logistics (PBL) framework as the approach within which digital capabilities can be wrapped to provide for significant advancements in effective maintainability and weapons system reliability.

Here I want to simply highlight some key parameters to understand what a 21^st century digital next generation aircraft provides for a new sustainment approach.

What Garant argued was that by establishing an effective PBL process in place, which Sikorsky has with both the Seahawk and now with the CH-53E, they can now with the new digital aircraft embed those tools into a PBL framework.

With the PBL framework there is solid working relationship between the government and Sikorsky to better manage the supply chain and to shape more accurate data with regard to parts performance while already setting the foundation for a CH-53K PBL.

They can then take that data and rework how the supply chain can deliver a more effective outcome to reliability and effectiveness in operations.

With the data generated by the CH-53K, the “smart” aircraft becomes a participant in providing inputs to a more effective situational awareness to the real performance of the aircraft in operational conditions.

Then that data then seamlessly flows into the sustainment management system to provide a much more realistic understanding of parts performance.

This then allows the maintenance technicians and managers to provide higher levels of performance and readiness than without the data flowing from the aircraft itself.

Put in other terms, the data which the aircraft generates makes the aircraft itself an “intellectual” participant in the sustainment eco system.

The question then is how best to operate such an ecosystem?

This is a different question than the legacy aircraft and its sustainment system poses.

There the question is determining laws of averages for parts performance from collecting data, and then shaping ways to make sure parts are available at the right time and the right place.

With the aircraft as a participant in the fully-integrated eco system, much more performance is being provided in a much more timely fashion and the question then is how to work the suppliers into the eco system so that they can be informed significantly earlier about what they need to do to contribute more effectively to the fleet.

Another dimension of how the aircraft contributes to its own enhanced reliability is its ability to provide information with regard to fault isolation.

With the digital systems onboard the CH-53K, the aircraft not only generates fault detection, but can precisely isolate where that fault is to be found with accuracy.

This can eliminate false replacements, a problem which the Osprey had for many years in its initial operations.

High reliability of fault detection and fault isolation is a significant game changer for maintenance, and it is the aircraft that will generate the information for this more effective process.

Furthermore, the digital aircraft delivers a tenfold increase of actionable information that fully enables condition-based maintenance as a future reality.

Garant noted the nature of the shift as follows: “The shift is from reactive maintenance to predictive maintenance.”

And the data flows will enable a continuous learning process which can be shaped for the global fleet of the aircraft, rather than being simply being done well at one base and only word of mouth spreading the message on a new way to maintain the aircraft.

As Garant put it: “It’s almost like virtual surgeon, where his knowledge comes to the point of need.”

With all the noise about autonomous systems and AI, what one can overlook is how digital aircraft are now participants in their own maintainability.

Try that with a legacy Chinook or CH‑53E.

In short, the CH-53K is a smart aircraft birthed in a digital age that is doing support and manufacturing differently.

In other words, it’s symmetrical with a significant strategic change, rather than being a legacy system struggling to adapt to the new age.

The featured photos are from the Log Demo team at New River.

With regard to that team, see the following:

Preparing for Effective Fleet Support: The CH-53K Log Demo at New River

The Coming of the CH-53K: Preparing for Its Long-Term Supportability

Murielle Delaporte and Robbin Laird, “Re-crafting Expeditionary Logistics: USMC Aviation Prepares for the Future.” Military Logistics International 2, issue 6 (2007) 4-7, which can be read below:

By Robbin Laird

Recently, the Marines tested their new forward base refueling system with the CH-53K.

The two together provide new capabilities for forward refueling points or for expeditionary basing.

According to the Marines:

Marines with Marine Wing Support Squadron 371, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, employ a tactical aviation ground refueling system (TAGRS) while conducting expeditionary advanced base operations in support of a CH-53K King Stallion training evolution at a forward arming refueling point at Yuma Proving Grounds Range, Ariz., July 15, 2020.

The King Stallion is the most powerful aircraft in the Department of Defense, providing unmatched heavy-lift capability to the Marine Corps.

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Jaime Reyes)

In an interview earlier this summer with a senior MAWTS-1 officer, we discussed the coming of TAGRS and of the CH-53K to the Marine Corps and how these new capabilities would allow for enhanced FARP capabilities and expeditionary basing support.

In that interview with Maj Steve Bancroft, Aviation Ground Support (AGS) Department Head, MAWTS-1, MCAS Yuma, we discussed the way ahead on FARPs enabled by TAGR and CH-53Ks.

Excerpts from that interview follow:

There were a number of takeaways from that conversation which provide an understanding of the Marines are working their way ahead currently with regard to the FARP contribution to distributed operations.

The first takeaway is that when one is referring to a FARP, it is about an ability to provide a node which can refuel and rearm aircraft.

But it is more than that. It is about providing capability for crew rest, resupply and repair to some extent.

The second takeway is that the concept remains the same but the tools to do the concept are changing.

Clearly, one example is the nature of the fuel containers being used. In the land wars, the basic fuel supply was being carried by a fuel truck to the FARP location. Obviously, that is not a solution for Pacific operations.

What is being worked now at MAWTS-1 is a much mobile solution set.

Currently, they are working with a system whose provenance goes back to the 1950s and is a helicopter expeditionary refueling system or HERS system.

This legacy kit limits mobility as it is very heavy and requires the use of several hoses and fuel separators.

Obviously, this solution is too limiting so they are working a new solution set.

They are testing a mobile refueling asset called TAGRS or a Tactical Aviation Ground Refueling system.

As noted in the discussion of TAGRS at the end of this article: “The TAGRS and its operators are capable of being air-inserted making the asset expeditionary.

“It effectively eliminates the complications of embarkation and transportation of gear to the landing zone.”

The third takeaway was that even with a more mobile and agile pumping solution, there remains the basic challenge of the weight of fuel as a commodity.

A gallon of gas is about 6.7 pounds and when aggregating enough fuel at a FARP, the challenge is how to get adequate supplies to a FARP for its mission to be successful.

To speed up the process, the Marines are experimenting with more disposable supply containers to provide for enhanced speed of movement among FARPs within an extended battlespace.

They have used helos and KC-130Js to drop pallets of fuel as one solution to this problem.

The effort to speed up the creation and withdrawal from FARPs is a task being worked by the Marines at MAWTS-1 as well.

In effect, they are working a more disciplined cycle of arrival and departure from FARPs.

And the Marines are exercising ways to bring in a FARP support team in a single aircraft to further the logistical footprint and to provide for more rapid engagement and disengagement as well.

The fourth takeaway is that innovative delivery solutions can be worked going forward.

When I met with Col. Perrin at Pax River, we discussed how the CH-53K as a smart aircraft could manage airborne MULES to support resupply to a mobile base.

As Col. Perrin noted in our conversation: “The USMC has done many studies of distributed operations and throughout the analyses it is clear that heavy lift is an essential piece of the ability to do such operations.”

And not just any heavy lift – but heavy lift built around a digital architecture.

Clearly, the CH-53E being more than 30 years old is not built in such a manner; but the CH-53K is.

What this means is that the CH-53K “can operate and fight on the digital battlefield.”

And because the flight crew are enabled by the digital systems onboard, they can focus on the mission rather than focusing primarily on the mechanics of flying the aircraft. This will be crucial as the Marines shift to using unmanned systems more broadly than they do now.

For example, it is clearly a conceivable future that CH-53Ks would be flying a heavy lift operation with unmanned “mules” accompanying them. Such manned-unmanned teaming requires a lot of digital capability and bandwidth, a capability built into the CH-53K.

If one envisages the operational environment in distributed terms, this means that various types of sea bases, ranging from large deck carriers to various types of Maritime Sealift Command ships, along with expeditionary bases, or FARPs or FOBS, will need to be connected into a combined combat force.

To establish expeditionary bases, it is crucial to be able to set them up, operate and to leave such a base rapidly or in an expeditionary manner (sorry for the pun).

This will be virtually impossible to do without heavy lift, and vertical heavy lift, specifically.

Put in other terms, the new strategic environment requires new operating concepts; and in those operating concepts, the CH-53K provides significant requisite capabilities.

So why not the possibility of the CH-53K flying in with a couple of MULES which carried fuel containers; or perhaps building a vehicle which could come off of the cargo area of the CH-53K and move on the operational area and be linked up with TAGRS?

I am not holding Maj. Bancroft responsible for this idea, but the broader point is that if distributed FARPs are an important contribution to the joint and coalition forces, then it will certainly be the case that “autonomous” systems will play a role in the evolution of the concept and provide some of those new tools which Maj. Bancroft highlighted.