Future Maritime Patrol – Part 6 (C130J and A400M Options)

February 9, 2014November 30, 2016 / thinkdefence

Eyes down look in for the final instalment in the Future Maritime Patrol series, apart from a quick summary.

We have looked at all the conventional options; large aircraft like the Boeing P-8A Poseidon, smaller aircraft like the Airbus C295, business jet and even unmanned aircraft. One option remains, using a large aircraft already, or soon to be, in service.

How about a Sea Hercules or Sea Atlas?

Neither are in service anywhere, despite many PowerPoint shows and models (mainly for the former) although a long range Search and Rescue variant of the Hercules is in service with the US Coast Guard. A long range SAR aircraft would of course be useful, but as we have discussed, long range SAR languishes at the very bottom of the reasons for reinstating a maritime patrol capability, so, any similar conversion would have to provide the high end anti submarine capability as found in the P-8A for example.

Is any of this possible, is it a good idea, or simply a triumph of PowerPoint over reality?

The final question to ask is, just because we can, should we?

The Sea Hercules

Lockheed Martin have proposed the SC-130J for a number of national requirements including Canada and for the Indian Medium Range Reconnaissance Aircraft. A variant of the C130J it is designed to encompass the full mission spread of maritime patrol, surveillance and SAR to ASW and ASuW.

A representative from Boeing commented;

And the beauty of this type of airplane – it’s a four-engine turbo-prop – it means time on station, it means the ability to prosecute targets and potential threats as well as shipping across a broad spectrum of any type of ocean mass. We’re spending a lot of time talking with new potential customers now in an effort to be responsive to that market as they look at the continued emphasis on maritime patrol surveillance as well as Anti Submarine Warfare.

Clearly, Lockheed Martin are looking at the P3 replacement market and have decided it would offer a good enough alternative to the Boeing P8.

Boeing are not going to let Lockheed Martin have access to the P-8A mission systems and neither are they going to have access to the Airbus FIT system, the equipment is therefore likely to be derived from the P3, maybe some derivative of the Merlin HM’2 systems. Despite this, there is no reason to think it would be some kind of runt of the litter in capability terms. Unlike the Boeing 737, the Hercules is designed for low altitude manoeuvring, a point Lockheed Martin never cease emphasising. It has a 360 degree search radar fitted under the fuselage, wingtip ESM, a nose mounted EO turret, wing tip mounted ESM and an interesting fuselage side blister bomb bay for torpedoes.

Looking at the brochure range and endurance figures they actually look better than a P8, by some margin.

On face value, this looks like an interesting option, the C130J Hercules is in service with the UK, an established support and training infrastructure in place and the costs would potentially be reasonably low.

A number of factors would need to be considered;

If this would be an interim, what would ultimately be the objective and do we actually need an interim anyway?

Would sufficient airframes be available in serviceable condition for the conversion?

How much would a conversion be including work to refurbish the existing fleet, or elements of it?

Would it offer a capability that is better and/or cheaper than the many alternatives?

If a conversion is not feasible, new builds would be another option.

The problem with the Sea Hercules is a simple one, the Hercules does not have a rosy future in UK service with the vast majority out of service as the A400 deliveries scale up. There has been persistent speculation about SF wanting to retain a few and it might therefore still be an outside possibility that small numbers of C130J’s would remain in UK service but the odds of this do not seem favourable, real cost savings are had by deleting aircraft types, not reducing numbers and keeping boutique fleets in service.

So as much as I think there are plus points for an SC-130J, there are many obstacles to overcome.

A Multi Role Atlas (inc MPA)

If a Sea Hercules remains a distant possibility because the likely future of UK Hercules in general then what about an MPA version of the A400M Atlas?

No one has seriously proposed this but worth at least looking at, if only to complete the broad spectrum of options.

I am not actually a big fan of a Sea Atlas, it’s focus being far too narrow, but I do like the idea of using the airframe as the base for a number of different missions, just like the USA and other nations do.

The basics are there, large payload, robust airframe and significant range/endurance.

The endurance potential opens up a range of options, multiple crews for example, the space for rest facilities is certainly there.

The A400M is the ultimate ‘pickup truck’ and I am going to go out on a controversial limb here and say the C130 is yesterday’s aircraft but you cannot ignore the sheer flexibility and diversity of variants it has spawned.

Airborne tanker
Maritime patrol, gunship
Electronic warfare, AEW and SIGINT
UAV Launch and Control
Special operations support
A number of non military government types such as fire-fighting.

The concept is well proven.

What might have prevented more widespread adoption of the C130 as the base for an even wider number of uses is its speed and in some cases, altitude of the C130.

Two areas where the A400M excels.

The A400 has pretty impressive payload, range and altitude characteristics so could it form a common base platform, much like the CVR(T) or FRES common base platform that is used as the basis for a number of specialist variants?

The A400M might not be a cheap common base platform but if there is one thing we all know it is that commonality relentlessly drives down overall cost, back to my first point above.

If the C130 can be utilised in the maritime patrol, gunship, tanker, AEW, ELINT and ISR role; why not the A400M?

Some missions might be easier than others to cover with an A400M variant and it would all come down to a spreadsheet analysis on cost but when you think about for a while, it might not be as barking mad as it sounds.

Funnily enough, the Hercules is a good model to look at for inspiration and examples. Some might think this is a good means of retaining the C130J in service but where would the fun be in that!

I am going to look at three examples, airborne refuelling, maritime patrol and the multi role USMC tanker/transport/attack variant of the Hercules Tanker, the KC-130 Harvest Hawk.

Although this series is primarily about maritime patrol I have also tried to look at the wider implications of selecting one airframe or another.

The rest of this post is about posing a ‘what if’ challenge, I know dates and programmes as currently envisaged might not align but think about making greater use of what we have, or will be having.

Airborne Refuelling

The good thing about the A400M Atlas is that the Airborne Refuelling Variant is not actually a variant at all, the base aircraft will come ready wired, ready plumbed and mission ready. All an operator need to do is buy the Cobham refuelling equipment and complete any training or local certification activity.

Actually, it is not quite as simple as that.

All A400M Atlas users start with the Common Standard Aircraft and then pick from the ‘optional extras list’

Germany, for example, will only have 24 aircraft equipped with the Forward looking Infra-Red Enhanced Vision System (EVS) and the UK has a specially strengthened floor able to take the weight distribution of the Terrier armoured engineer vehicle.

Although the common standard aircraft has the necessary structural and cabling/pipework for the airborne refuelling equipment the actual equipment for AAR is variable and includes items such as video cameras, centreline fuel dispenser hose drums, a ramp variant to allow the aircraft to be used for centreline refuelling without lowering the ramp and depressurising, cargo hold fuel cells and the pylon mounted refuelling pods from Cobham.

The simplest installation is two wing pylon mounted 908WDE pods from Cobham. These can be quickly installed, offload fuel at a rate of 1.26 tonnes per minute and are a version of the 905E’s that will be fitted to the A330 based Voyager.

More capability can be provided by a centreline hose drum unit and cargo fuel tanks (holding 5.7 tonnes of fuel) that are both pallet mounted.

To use the centreline fuel refuelling unit a specially designed rear ramp is used that enables the hose and drogue to be deployed whilst the aircraft is still pressurised. The centreline unit when combined with the cargo hold fuel tanks can be used to dispense a different fuel type if needed, normally, its own fuel tanks are used to store fuel used for dispensing.

The diagram below shows the A400M’s flight envelope and the same for helicopters and fast jets.

Potentiall. this would make the A400M extremely versatile in the role and for the UK

If Airbus can prove the helicopter flight envelope with A400M it could be a new capability that would greatly enhance the special-forces and amphibious capability as the Chinook, Puma and Merlin are all capable of being modified to accept refuelling probes, even though they are not in service with the UK.

Providing support to allies such as the US Marine Corps with their airborne refuelling capable CH53K’s and MV-22 Osprey’s would also be hugely valuable.

Just because the A400M is not CVF capable does not of course mean it cannot support carrier and/or amphibious operations, far from it. In fact, the more I think about it, this would provide a dramatic uplift in our amphibious assault capability and greatly enhance the utility of CVF/JCA for not a lot of cost.

A typical operation like Ellamy would make use of both land and sea based tactical aircraft both supported by a mix of A400M and Voyager tankers, a flexible and powerful combination.

The combination of AAR capable Merlins/Chinooks and an AAR equipped A400M Atlas would also potentially allow the UK to provide combat search and rescue (JPR), another capability we have had to rely on the US for as evidenced by US helicopters operating from HMS Ocean off Libya.

As the US shifts its focus to the Pacific it is this type of mission that the UK, Europe and wider NATO countries are going to have to resource themselves.

The diagram below shows fuel offload, time on station and radius of action.

From the diagram, a typical mission at 500nm (926km) could offload 35 tonnes of fuel during two hours on station.

One thing that an A400M tanker has over a Voyager is its ability to take on fuel itself and that can be used to both extend range and increase offload capacity.

In sustained operations refuelling aircraft might not actually offload all their fuel and in the Voyagers case, this would have to be taken back to base which is costly and inefficient.

Too much fuel equals too much weigh equals to much fuel consumption equals too much cost!

When using A400M’s as the refuelling aircraft that unused fuel could be simply transferred to the next aircraft in line and the first landed as light as possible.

If the future involves refuelling unmanned aircraft then the medium speed types might be unable to take on fuel from a Voyager but the lower speed and medium altitude flight profiles offered by the A400M could be a good match.

The A400M Atlas is no Voyager and we should not think of it as a replacement but more of a complimentary capability for missions where the Voyager is less suited.

These are in theatre support for close air support aircraft and refuelling helicopters, there is also the UK specific requirement for the Falkland Islands.

Two A400M’s based on the Falkland Islands, both equipped for airborne refuelling, would offer an improvement in capability for the air transport role and also provide a more robust and lower risk airborne refuelling capability.

All this eminently sensible talk all comes crashing down to earth when we consider the commercial arrangements involved with the FSTA PFI. Much of the actual contract conditions are commercially confidential but whilst the MoD is free to pursue airborne refuelling from other countries, other aircraft or even other commercial providers the simple fact is there will have to be penalties paid to Air Tanker who more or less have first dibs on any airborne refuelling.

If the UK is to take advantage of the significant capability and flexibility afforded by the A400M Atlas’s airborne refuelling facilities the commercial arrangements between Air Tanker and the MoD will need to be addressed.

Pie in the sky, perhaps, the point here is that significant additional capability is available at relatively low cost if a better commercial arrangement can be made with Air Tanker.

Maritime Patrol, Overland ISTAR and EW

To turn the A400M into an AAR aircraft is there for the taking, it no requires no aircraft redesign and will be in service with other nations, pretty much, a no risk capability.

If we want to look at the multi-mission flexibility evidenced by Lockheed Martin with the C130 then more effort will be required.

There are three broad challenges;

Punching holes in the fuselage
Dropping weapons
Fitting mission systems and crew facilities

As we know, as soon as you start drilling holes in the fuselage of any aircraft, costs rise. Our goal should be to minimise this airframe work.

The A400M does not have a bomb bay and is not blessed with many hard-points for external carriage. Dropping weapons (and sonobuoys) therefore, becomes a physical challenge.

Operating in the back of a large transport aircraft is not conducive to the levels of concentration and efficiency required for these complex tasks, some means of housing additional crew in an environment that befits their role will be required.

In addition to those challenges, we would have to address the high cost of the base airframe and running costs.

In order to minimise airframe modification (and resultant cost) the maximum use of podded systems would seem the best approach.

Podded Systems

Using a pod mounted multi mission fit on large transport aircraft is not a new idea, the SAMPSON pod, amusingly called the Special Avionics Mission Strap On Now, was developed in the mid-eighties and flown on the High Technology Test Bed (HTTB) aircraft.

SAMPSON was based on a 1,360 gallon external fuel tank modified to take a range of avionics and sensor equipment with a ram air turbine providing the power. Instead of copper cabling the data link used an infra-red transmitter on the side of the pod and a receiver inside the aircraft looking through a passenger window.

It was much like a TV remote control although as the picture below shows, rather larger

The SAMPSON pod was used for many years by to support the Open Skies initiative, click here for a good read on this fascinating subject.

What does this trip down memory lane show, nothing really, apart from the simple fact that mid eighties engineering and systems integration found a way.

The hard-points on the A400M have full electrical and electronic integration with aircraft systems, no need for remote control transmitters.

The Cobham 908E pod weighs 630kg wet so one must assume the wing hardpoint is able to handle that not insignificant weight and this provides some scope for systems integration and payload

Designing and manufacturing sensor pods is not a trivial task but it is not rocket science either and there are organisations out there with the experience and skills to do it.

Enter stage left, Airdyne Systems and a big crack in the ice.

The LC-130 ‘Skidbirds’ from the 109^th Airlift Wing of the USAF National Guard have been providing transport facilities to Antarctic stations for decades.

There have been a number of aircraft losses due to undetected crevasse formations in the landing and take off areas so in 2006 the New York Air National Guard funded a programme by Sandia Labs to study an X-Band ice penetrating radar that could be mounted on its aircraft, principally the LC-130’s and Twin Otters then used for airborne ice field landing site reconnaissance, prior to landing.

Click here to read about the science.

With the basic science done, there was a need for a systems engineering approach that would allow the LC-130’s to carry the ice penetrating radar with the minimum of airframe modification.

A podded solution was the obvious answer.

Instead of a wing hard-point, a paratrooper door system was used instead.

Airdyne created a system that replaced the door with a pylon and integrated operator console.

What this project did (that is related to this post) is prove that a payload pod could be carried on a door mounted arm or stub wing. The benefit of using the paratrooper door is that if the aircraft is unlikely to be recreating the Arnhem landings then the door is somewhat surplus to requirements and represents a decent attachment point because it negates the need for complex airframe integration and can be easily swapped in and out as needs dictate.

It was, and is, is an ingenious solution.

Airdyne Aerospace of Canada and their USA marketing partner (HISS) have continued to evolve the basic concept.

Their main product is called SABIR (Special Airborne Mission Installation and Response) and it has a number of components, mounting solutions, integral operator seats, workstations, tube ejectors and the pods themselves.

These choices allows the user to mix and match depending on requirements and because there is no airframe modification they can be tested/integrated off board at a low cost.

Various workstations, observer/operator seats and equipment racks can be fitted to the pallet.

The pods themselves are attached to the swing arm with it being raised for take-off and landing and lowered when airborne.

Airdyne have a good description for the pods

In essence, SABIR pods are similar to smart phones – all you have to do is select a pod and add your sensor application. Because the pod form factor is already flight rated, customers save cost and schedule by only having to focus on what goes into the pod.

Multiple SABIR systems can be deployed on the same aircraft to maximise sensor variety or ability to observe multiple locations.

The A400M paratrooper door was subject of a great deal of test and modification during the aircraft design phase so this approach would probably not work as well and looking at the A400M door below it is immediately apparent integration would be more complex.

The basic point remains, podded solutions are viable.

To reinforce this more, the Harvest Hawk programme has also demonstrated podded weapons and sensors on a large transport aircraft.

Harvest Hawk is an eminently sensible programme driven by the USMC, started in 2008/9, that seeks to squeeze maximum benefit from a common platform, using roll on roll off kits including podded sensors and weapons that extends the capability of the C130 tanker to include gunship and surveillance.

Defence Industry Daily has maintained a very comprehensive page on the US Marines Harvest Hawk, click here, well worth a read, plenty of great information and images.

Lockheed Martin are proposing a step forward from Harvest Hawk with Vigilant Watch and Vigilant Stare, all variations on the SABIR/SAMPSON podded sensor theme.

In the image above, one of the concepts is a strike pod that combines munitions with a SAR and EO sensors, the same for the maritime version, combining sonobouys, EO turret and search radar.

A large pod allows these combinations and might negate the need for a door solution altogether.

This presentation from Lockheed Martin provides additional information.

Lockheed Martin and Airdyne are joined by a number of other manufacturers with sensor pods, everything from the complex Gorgon Stare to the relatively simple Moog ProtectIR pod are available somewhere one someone’s shelf.

In fact, when you think about the size and weight of modern sensor systems it is hard to imagine anything that you couldn’t put in one, the very large radar systems perhaps, but beyond that, not sure.

Something like the L3 Wescam MX20HD or Selex Titan 385ES’s that are currently being fitted to RAF Chinooks under the £408m Project Julius.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsMU1jXjONk

A Wescam MX-20 turret weighs in at less than 100kg.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT3EXiVhghQ

The radar planned to be fitted on the A400M is the Northrop Grumman AN/APN-241 Tactical Transport Radar, the same as fitted to the C130J and C295. This might not be best suited to the maritime patrol role where something like the Selex Seaspray 7500 or Elta EL/M 220 would be more appropriate. This radar was selected by the US Coast Guard for their Hercules HC-130H upgrade programme, it would not be an insurmountable challenge to swap out the APN 241 should it be required and we already have in service members of the Seaspray family of radars.

An Elta EL/M 220 radar as fitted to numerous maritime patrol aircraft, again less than 100kg

Click here to read an Airbus presentation on SAR radar

An airborne AIS transponder and display would allow the crew to take advantage of ships identification transponder information. Even pod mounted searchlights are available off the shelf (we could always reuse those off the Nimrods) and an observer window in the paratroop door might also be possible at very little cost.

Into a standard pod architecture you could snap in combinations to suit, an overland pod might major of multiple electro optical turrets and extensive communications. Instead of the usual single EO turret, a podded solution could easily have 3 or 4, each under the control of ground forces .

A maritime patrol pod could have radar, sonobuoys and a single electro optical turret, plus maybe a searchlight.

In 2011 I had a look at the Lockheed martin Vigilance Pod system that is being proposed as a replacement for the ASaC Mk7 Sea King’s in the CROWSNEST programme, perhaps this might also find a use in an A400M podded solution. It is from the same family as the F35 radar and therefore at the cutting edge, with some very interesting capabilities.

I like the idea of evolving the capabilities of the aircraft through off-board pods because it allows them to be developed, tested and delivered at its own pace, minimising aircraft downtime and maximising efficiency.

Think of the possibilities.

What was that about payloads not platforms!

Releasable Payloads

The US Coastguard have for decades used a 4 engine turboprop platform in the role, the HC-130

The simplest form of releasable payload are things like liferafts or medical supplies, two examples below from the Irish Army Air Corps and US Coastguard

Manufacturers include Life Support International and Airborne Systems.

Pretty simple integration, they are thrown off the ramp 🙂

Weapons and sonobuoys present a more complex challenge though.

One of the key features of the recent Harvest Hawk upgrade is the Derringer Door which is in simple terms a pressurised launch tube for the Raytheon Griffin and MBDA Viper Strike missiles mounted on a modified paratrooper door, the racks in the image are for storage.

In its initial guise, the Harvest hawk used a ramp mounted launch rack but this required time consuming de-pressurisation.

The Derringer Door allows the weapons to be launched from a higher altitude, both keeping the aircraft out of the automatic weapon threat zone and allowing a larger area to be covered.

There have been plans to mount an automatic weapon into the door mechanism as well, the ATK 30mm Bushmaster which has recently been type certified.

The SABIR arm uses a standard Marvin Engineering BRU-12 ejector rack.

They even have a sonobouy ejector tube version for door mounting.

Sonobouys are launched at low and high altitude but the same basic system from Airdyne would be suitable for both. Nimrod had two rotary dispensers and two single compartment pressurised launchers with storage racks for extra. A door mounted sonobouy dispenser with additional storage elsewhere in the aircraft would at least on face value offer a solution. Telemetry and receiving systems, from Ultra Flightline, would need to be fitted as well.

If a door mounted launcher was not possible then the same system as used for the centreline hose unit could possibly be used instead, or, as described above, the large underwing pods could be used.

The thing with serious ASW is that it needs a serious expenditure of sonobuoys, popping a few out of a door chute, I think, would not really do the job. They are automatically released in a controlled pattern using a specialist magazine type ejector.

A problem.

Weapons fitted would depend on the mission, missiles overland or if we were looking at this for the anti-submarine role then torpedoes.

Stingray torpedo carriage and release is a much more difficult problem to solve, they can’t just be slung off the ramp.

Pylon space would be at a premium so a although couple of 260kg Stingray Mod 1 Lightweight Torpedo should not be a problem it would not be a good use of space.

Because we want to avoid airframe modifications (like the Sea Hercules side mounted bomb bays) torpedo carriage is somewhat of a problem.

A derringer door, centreline refuelling hose aperture or wing mounted pod would all be suitable for sonobuoy and bathymetric buoys a even a lightweight torpedo could use none of these methods, they are simply too large.

Despite wanting to avoid airframe modifications an additional wing pylon might not be avoidable.

Alternatively, we could look at ramp launched options.

The video below shows tests using the C130 paratrooper door launching mechanism for the MBDA GBU-44 Viper Strike

Again, the Viper Strike is in no way comparable in size and weight to a Stingray torpedo but the basic method could possibly be adapted to carry multiple torpedoes.

I really don’t know if this would be possible and am reaching somewhat but ramp launching large payloads is a well understood engineering challenge and I don’t think it would absolutely be a deal breaker in this context. The A400M is rated for several tonnes, enough for pallets and even light vehicles so 8 or 10 lightweight torpedoes sounds possible from that perspective, which actually puts it on par or even better than some of the other dedicated MPA solutions.

The Airbus Military has a tantalising paragraph on the special missions section of its website

In future the A400M has the potential to be an exceptionally powerful gunship able to carry a wide range of weapons including the largest guns with their heavy ammunition loads. It could be equipped with a sophisticated mission system for the modern network-centric battlefield and has an extensive defensive aids suite for self-protection. The A400M’s exceptional speed range and agile night low-flying capability will let it deploy rapidly to assist ground troops and then manoeuvre smoothly to ensure accurate targeting

Combine the A400’s impressive speed and endurance, add in a palletised weapon fit, pylon mounted Brimstone/Hellfire/Viper Strike, a few extra sensors, a collection of radio rebroadcast equipment and even a centreline refuelling unit and you have an exceptionally versatile aircraft that can deliver against a variety of requirements.

We could even go into the realms of fantasy fleet with the non-penetrating transport bomber which seems a perennial discussion favourite but is always the bridesmaid never the bride.

One could think of any number of reasons why this would be a bad idea but I do sometimes get the impression that the RAF and USAF aren’t interested in any solution that threatens their bomber of fighter fleets and have a little difficulty with non-conventional solutions. Look how fast the RAF’s FOAS concept that originally aired the prospect of transport aircraft air launched cruise missiles was dropped.

I have defended the RAF’s long range strikes against Libya because they demonstrated perfectly a prompt strike response capability against difficult targets and when Tornado retires that capability might well pass to Typhoon or maybe (an outside chance) the F35B.

But imagine a repeat scenario in the mid 2020’s with an A400M Atlas based delivery option, no airborne refuelling, multiple launches, loitering for hours in response to changing target conditions or post-strike assessments and a fraction of delivery cost in comparison.

What makes this interesting, in comparison with C130 options, is the A400M’s speed, space and range, it makes the arguments against a little more tenuous.

I don’t want to get too carried away with notions of hoofing Storm Shadow off the ramp of an A400M but food for thought nevertheless!

Just for fun, have a look at these videos, here, here, here, here, here, and best of all, the one below

Once again, imagine the possibilities.

Crew and Mission Electronics

Sitting like piggy in the middle between releasable payloads and sensors is a range of mission electronics and mission crew.

Having all those sensors is one thing but doing something with that data and turning data into intelligence is another, practical bandwidth constraints might prevent full utilisation but the size of the A400 means that initial processing and analysis could take place onboard.

A crew pod fitted into the cargo hold could house any number of mission specialists, command and control personnel and processing equipment, a data centre in the sky.

We have seen in the previous post that pallet mounted mission equipment and crew consoles are available from Airbus.

An alternative might be to house the mission crew and electronics in a single demountable container.

Knight Aerospace, for example, make a range of modular interiors for VIP transport and special missions.

The basic concept of roll on roll off systems has been developed by Lockheed Martin with their Vigilant Hawk proposal which expands on the Harvest Hawk and secret squirrel hyper spectral imaging Shadow Harvest programmes.

There is also the Senior Scout product.

From the Senior Scout product page

Senior Scout is an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) system built into a trailer-like container that can be rolled on and off C-130 aircraft. This ISR suite of equipment rapidly configures standard C-130 aircraft for tactical signals intelligence, providing capabilities that exploit, geo-locate and report communications intelligence and signals of interest to air and ground component commanders

Senior Scout has COMINT, SIGINT and ELINT operators and as the description above, the cabin simply plugs in with the antennas already having been fitted, yet again, to custom doors, pods and even undercarriage doors.

Wonder how a Senior Scout like system designed for the A400M would compare to to the AirSeeker Rivet Joint aircraft, of which we will have three.

Thales even make an ELINT pod for the C130, click here to read.

The USMC has also been exploring how they can use the Harvest Hawk in different ways and their MAPS/SABIR concept is creating a Direct Airborne Air Support centre by using palletised work stations.

Closer to home, VRR Aviation manufacture a variety of ‘in aircraft’ shelter systems

http://vrr-aviation.com/product/c-130-vip-comfort-cabins#prettyPhoto

What strikes me most about this is that the sub systems are entirely off the shelf, weapons, sensors, fire control systems and ejector racks are all from the parts bin.

Combining them with a bit of clever engineering and ingenuity could create a seriously cost effective ‘whole’

Summary

It will not have escaped your attention that pretty much all of the systems described are C130 based so they would actually strengthen the argument for either retention of the Hercules fleet or the buying of more to compliment the A400M’s. It’s not a bad idea really, but as I have repeatedly said, the UK intends to withdraw the C130 fleet by 2022 and we don’t save money by keeping multiple legacy fleets in service.

To maximise savings we must have commonality and as few aircraft types in service as possible. I am going to explore options for a smaller compliment to the A400M Atlas in the final part of this series but it will be for something smaller than the C130.

I should be crystal clear here; this is not a proposal to use the already too small A400M Atlas fleet for every mission under the sun but to make use of them in two ways.

The first is to use the additional features like airborne refuelling to provide sensible complimentary capabilities in certain areas, the Falkland Islands being an obvious example.

Second, use the aircraft as a base platform for specific missions.

It is foolish to think that the aircraft can be a tanker one day and an anti-submarine aircraft, that is not the point.

The numerous realities of aircraft availability, safety and aircrew training will prevent that but let’s not forget that Germany is trying to offload 13 aircraft from its production order that it does not want.

The various suggestions, from Marshalls and Lockheed Martin, for Hercules based stop gaps seem like desperately clutching at straws and fail to recognise the shagged out state of the existing fleet or the simple fact that no programmes or funding exists.

If we are to take advantage of the A400M Atlas platform for use across multiple roles then it has to be at the centre of a coherent and funded programme, not some last minute lash up.

None of these ideas might be ultimately worth pursuing but there are imaginative solutions out there that are worthy of consideration and employing the aircraft types you already have in service is one them.