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Full-spectrum Personnel Recovery as flown by US Air Force HH-60G helicopters ranges from Combat

Search and Rescue for shot-down aircrew to Casualty Evacuation in natural disasters. The 26th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron withdrew early this year from Afghanistan after 2,400 lives saved and more than 3,300 life-saving assists over the last five years – never with more than four “Pedro” helicopters on-hand. The hard-flown HH-60G Pave Hawk remains a low supply/high demand asset limited by a cockpit integrated piecemeal over 30 years. “It’s basically a mish-mash of analog gauges as well as other federated systems,” explains Major Joel Soukup, Air Combat Command Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH) branch chief at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. The replacement HH-60W CRH enhances the modern avionics architecture and air vehicle of the Army UH-60M with Air Force systems and sensors. According to Pave Hawk pilot Soukup, “We’re just trying to integrate all the new situational awareness datalinks, all those things, into one screen so we can reduce the workload for the pilot.”

Plans call for 112 new HH-60Ws to revitalize the Personnel Recovery fleet, starting with first flight around January 2019, Low Rate Initial Production in 2020, and Required Assets Available

for Initial Operational Capability in 2021. Per Air Force requirements, a proven helicopter integrated with non-developmental mission equipment needs no Technology Development phase. Sikorsky Aircraft received a CRH Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) contract in June and is working with the US Air Force to formalize the HH-60W mission suite. An Initial Milestone System Requirements Review is scheduled for April 2015 and a Training Systems Review for June 2015. “We’re starting up the EMD process,” says David Schairbaum, CRH System Program Manager for the Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. “Air Combat Command manages the requirement. We’re responsible for executing the program.”

Beyond the organic rescue capabilities in all US armed services, the Air Force is responsible for Personnel Recovery in the “deep battlespace.” A new Combat Search And Rescue helicopter (CSAR-X) based on the Boeing Chinook was cancelled in 2007 after industry protests. Budget constraints that threatened to kill the follow-on CRH

drew Congressional attention. Today’s cost-conscious program bases the Pave Hawk replacement on the UH-60M Black Hawk. “They start off with the basic components of the ’60-Mike and build those components on the same production line,” says Mr. Schairbaum. “Then they bring those together into a separate production line and make it into a CRH helicopter.”

Sikorsky has yet to identify the CRH completion site, but program director and former Pave Hawk pilot Tim Healy explains, “I like to refer to the CRH as a derivative of the UH-60M, but it’s not simply changing color and adding a radio. There’s significant commonality but also significant capability improvements. Right now, we think we can maintain high commonality with the UH-60M, which is tremendous for the Air Force in terms of cost, sustainability over the long-term, commonality with the other services, [and] all the efficiencies that come along with that.”

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson meanwhile sustains the HH-60G fleet through its Special Operations/Personnel Recovery office at Warner

Pedro’s Progress

The US Air Force works with industry to integrate

a data-intensive Combat Rescue Helicopter

By Frank Colucci

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Artist’s rendering shows the HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter meant to replace the HH-60G around 2021. The HH-60W integrates the Army UH-60M platform and cockpit architecture with Air Force systems. (Sikorsky Aircraft)

Robbins Air Force Base, Georgia. Under Air Force contracts, Corpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD) in Texas began an HH-60G Structural Integrity Pilot Program in 2008 and today continues Joint Depot Level Maintenance on Pave Hawks. CCAD disassembles the helicopters to fix corrosion and safety-of flight discrepancies. HH-60Gs are supposed to return to the depot every 72 months.

CCAD is also installing Improved Altitude Hold Hover Stabilization (IAHHS) equipment on a number of Pave Hawks. An Avionics Communications Suite Upgrade Program meanwhile aims to keep HH-60Gs in active Air Force, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve squadrons common and relevant. “We’re not really doing a SLEP [Service Life Extension Program] per se,” says Air Combat Command Personnel Recovery division chief William Young. “We’ve identified a number of deficiencies the HH-60G has. We’re looking to address those to keep those aircraft viable ‘til CRH comes on-line.”

Hauling Angels

Armed, air-refuelable and readily deployable, the HH-60G is part of a Personnel Recovery triad

including the fixed-wing HC-130J tanker/command aircraft and Guardian Angel Weapons System – highly trained Pararescuemen (PJs), Rescue Officers, and SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) Specialists. The helicopter penetrates hostile airspace, often at night and in adverse weather, to insert and extract Guardian Angels and recover Isolated Personnel (IPs),

sometimes under fire and often in Joint operations. As an example, Capt. Charles Napier of the 26th ERQS took his Pave Hawk into a “hot” LZ to evacuate wounded Afghan soldiers in December 2012. The Pave Hawk pilot flew a restricted visibility approach into a rough field to insert three PJs and took off to provide suppressive fire and mark enemy positions for Army Kiowa Warriors. The Air Force helicopter came within 60 ft (20 m) of enemy positions to extract the PJs and the wounded.

Personnel Recovery is both dangerous and information-intensive. Plans for an expensive HH-60D Night Hawk with Terrain Following/Terrain Avoidance radar and digital cockpit were abandoned in the mid-1980s after a single prototype. The need for Special Operations helicopters nevertheless drove the Air Force to order 11 analog UH-60A Black Hawks in 1982. (Two of those original airframes surpassed 10,000 flight hours in a training squadron in 2011.) The helicopters started receiving refueling probes in 1984, folding stabilators in 1985, and some Pave Hawk avionics in 1986.

In 1989, Systems Research Laboratories (now DRS, a Finmeccanica Company) near Dayton, Ohio received a contract to integrate a ‘glass cockpit’ with MIL-STD-1553 databus architecture into what was then the MH-60G. Pilot Display Units superimposed flight symbology on Forward Looking Infra Red (FLIR) imagery. A separate display showed weather radar pictures, and center console Control Display Units (CDUs) computed fuel and hover power. Early Pave Hawks integrated GPS,

inertial, and Doppler navigators, but pilots relied on tablet computers for moving map displays.

Subsequent MH-60Gs were based on the UH-60L with more powerful General Electric T700-GE-701C engines and ultimately gave the Air Force 112 Pave Hawks. MH-60Gs flew combat rescues in Operation Allied Force in 1999 and became HH-60Gs when Air Combat Command acquired the helicopters from the Special Operations Command. Combat losses and accidents have reduced the Pave Hawk fleet to 97 aircraft today. (An HH-60G of the 56th Rescue Squadron was lost to a birdstrike in the UK early this year.) An Operational Loss Replacement program calls for the Air Force to buy new UH-60Ms and trade them to the Army for UH-60L airframes.

Incremental improvements in Active, Guard, and Reserve Pave Hawks introduced Smart Multi-Function Color Displays (SMFCDs) to show an integrated moving map in addition to FLIR and flight displays. A Raytheon Situational Awareness Data Link (SADL) based on the Enhanced Position Location Reporting System (EPLRS) radio now ties the Pave Hawk to other ground and air units and provides precise position data. The Cubic Corp. AN/ARS-6(V)12 Lightweight Airborne Recovery System (LARS) fixes the location of AN/PRC-112G survival radios. The Rockwell Collins AN/ARC-210 Gen5 Programmable Digital Communications System integrated into the HH-60G last year further enhances air-to-ground connectivity.

Patchwork integration nevertheless leaves Pave Hawk cockpit crews with

Identified by their historic PEDRO call sign, HH-60Gs saved lives throughout Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. The 26th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron sat alert at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, for the last time Dec. 31, 2013. (US Air Force)

Two HH-60G Pave Hawks and an HC-130J Combat King II perform aerial refueling in early 2014 at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia. The HH-60W will integrate air-refueling capability with additional internal fuel. (US Air Force)

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high workload, PJs in the cabin without Situational Awareness, and fleet managers maintaining obsolescing systems. According to Maj. Soukup, “As we begin to integrate increased capabilities, it becomes difficult in our current cockpit to show those in an efficient manner. What we’ve had to do with our single screen is show FLIR symbology behind flight symbology or a digital map. I have to show one or the other. With more screens, we hope to show that situational awareness in an efficient manner.”

Mr. Healy explains, “Combat Search And Rescue is a highly data-intensive mission because you’re often planning as you’re flying. They do a lot of planning before takeoff, but . . . the condition [of Isolated Persons – IPs], the mission, the threat are developing as you’re flying. That means they need realtime information in a highly dynamic and task-loaded environment.”

Black Hawk Baseline

Sikorsky has teamed with Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training in Owego, New York to

integrate the HH-60W mission systems. The two companies share prime contractor status on the Navy MH-60R Seahawk but assume the role of prime contractor and major subsystem supplier for the CRH. “We have done this before on multi-role platforms,” observes Mr. Healy. Lockheed Martin will give the HH-60W its mission computers and adverse weather sensors. “They are providing what is known as the Tactical Mission Kit which includes

sensors, integration of datalinks, and some defensive systems.” Air Force plans call for CRH Systems Integration Laboratories and Avionics Support Facilities at Sikorsky in Stratford, Connecticut and Warner Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia.

The Army UH-60M Baseline helicopter with Rockwell Collins integrated cockpit provides the architecture for the Air Force CRH. “The HH-60G was based on the UH-60A and -L platforms, which had very similar cockpits,” notes Tim Healy. “The Air Force installed a federated systems of sensors, navigation, and communications capability that’s in the G. You’re fundamentally limited in how much you can integrate because you

haven’t changed the architecture you’re working with.” He adds, “The UH-60M cockpit with its four multi-function displays allows us to create a much more integrated cockpit for a mission that’s highly data-centric.”

Different from the Common Avionics Architecture System (CAAS) in Army Special Operations MH-60Ms, the UH-60M Multi-Function Display system has landscape-format color screens with embedded processors for flight and mission management. Air Force CRH displays will be like those on the Army UH/HH-60M but will incorporate the latest processors and digital video interfaces for high-resolution sensors. The -60M cockpit meanwhile shares hardware and software with CAAS – both Flight 2 systems employ a Modular Open System Architecture (MOSA). Rockwell Collins designed the Black Hawk MOSA using a high-integrity Real Time Operating System to partition software for easier integration and updating. The company expects pre-planned upgrades to future software standards such as the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) to help incorporate applications from other DoD programs.

UH-60M displays take ARINC 429, Ethernet, and analog and digital video inputs, and provide multiple ARINC 708 interfaces for weather radar, Helicopter Terrain Awareness Warning Systems (HTAWS), and other sensors. Center console CDUs from Sikorsky and CMC manage the MIL-STD-1553 data bus architecture. The ARC-210 radio recently

An HH-60G Pave Hawk assigned to the 26th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron (ERS) sits on the tarmac at dusk on alert at Camp Bastion, Helmand province, Afghanistan. The Pave Hawk fleet in the combat theater flew Combat Search And Rescue and MEDEVAC. (US Air Force)

An HH-60G of the 303 ERQS makes a brownout landing earlier this year at Camp Lemmonier in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa. CRH requirements include space, weight, and power provisions for a Degrade Visual Environment landing aid. (US Air Force)

integrated into the HH-60G, for example, uses 1553 interfaces.

Lockheed Martin aims to increase CRH crew situational awareness and reduce pilot workload by integrating adverse weather sensors, electronic flight publications, digital maps, threat warnings, and terrain awareness in a system oriented to mission phases. The CRH system will provide automated route re-planning and other on-board planning features based on real-time information from tactical data links. It will also host complex Air Force mission management functions not implemented in the Army UH-60M.

The Combat Rescue Helicopter will use a Lockheed Martin Advanced Mission Computer (AMC) derived from existing technology on other programs. The AMC will provide moving maps, automated route re-planning, data link management, sensor control and displays, and defensive system integration. It will provide video and control functions for both pilots through the cockpit MFDs and for Special Mission Aviators through three cabin displays.

Just what sensors will equip the HH-60W is to be determined by Sikorsky and the Air Force. “For a lot of the mission systems, we’re conducting competitions,” says Tim Healy. “We are highly motivated that we meet their requirements at the lowest cost possible.” The Honeywell weather radar on the Pave Hawk, for example, is growing difficult to support. Maj. Soukup says, “It’s one of those parts that’s going obsolete. That’s one of the things we’re looking to replace on the CRH.” The Hughes AAQ-16 FLIR originally on the HH-60G gave way to the Raytheon AAQ-29 now in the fleet, and the L-3 WESCAM MX10 is under consideration for the HH-60W. “There are requirements for laser range finding as well as laser marking,” notes Mr. Schairbaum.

The data-intensive CRH mission has to receive and display intelligence from multiple sources. Major Soukup explains, “Right now in the G-model we have SADL based on the EPLRS radio.

That will also be in CRH as well as LINK 16 and ADS-B.” Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast technology is central to NextGen civil airspace management and important for an Air Force helicopter meant to respond to domestic emergencies.

The formats and tools in CRH situational awareness displays are to be determined. “That’s very mission dependent,” observes Mr. Healy. “This force does a wide variety of missions. The challenges can vary greatly. I’d boil it down to TLC – Threat, Location of the survivor, and Condition of the survivor – and Blue forces: ‘Who’s out there to help me?’ Those are simple questions with

incredibly complicated answers, and you’re not in a one-G lit room.” He adds, “There are multiple working groups – human-systems interface, reliability . . . . We’re working with the Air Force across broad areas to make sure we integrate requirements and we’re fielding on-time with the training system.” Sikorsky has yet to put a CRH training system supplier under contract.

The HH-60W is above all meant to penetrate hostile airspace with an integrated self-protection suite. “Right now, we have a slightly different system from the Army,” says Maj. Soukup. While the Air Force HH-60G has been outfitted with the same BAE Systems AN/AAR-57 Common Missile Warning System (CMWS) and Symetrics ALE-47 Improved Countermeasures Dispenser used on Army helicopters, the two services use different versions of the Northrop Grumman APR-39 radar warning receiver. With Navy help, some Air Force Pave Hawks deployed to Afghanistan

acquired Hostile Fire Indicator (HFI) capability to warn of guns and Rocket Propelled Grenades. According to Maj. Soukup, “CRH will use the majority of Army systems. One difference between the Air Force and Army will be we’ll have more dispenser capacity.” Army Black Hawks now come standard with Sikorsky advanced infrared engine exhaust suppressors in place of the Hover Infrared Suppressor System on the HH-60G. The CRH has no requirement for Directed Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM).

The Improved Altitude Heading Hold System (IAHHS) on HH-60Gs can fly the aircraft to a hands-off hover over a

programmed GPS point in Degraded Visual Environments. However, the UH-60M “has a dual digital, fully coupled flight control system with a full autopilot. That starting point developed for the M is so superior to IAHHS you really can’t compare the two,” says Healy.

Major Soukup at Air Combat Command also notes that the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has tested the 3DLZ brownout aid. (See “Enlightened Landings,”

Vertiflite, Spring 2010.) “We’re looking at transitioning as much of that technology as possible into the G as well as CRH at a later date.” Mr. Healy explains, “We’re providing space, weight, and power for DVE. We still have to do the mission with that equipment installed, but we don’t have the solution, and it’s not part of the requirement for CRH.”

Muscular and Monolithic

The Air Force HH-60G fleet has standardized on the GE -701C turboshafts of the Army UH-

60L but remains lacking in high-hot performance and other rescue mission areas. “We’re still flying -701C power, but we use -701D parts on all of our engines,” acknowledges Maj. Soukup. Air Force requirements call for a mid-mission hover at 4,000 ft / 95 ˚F (1.2 km / 35 ˚C). The HH-60W inherits the 2,000 shp (1500 kW) -701D engines of the UH-60M with their hybrid Digital Engine

HH-60G of the Alaska Air National Guard comes aboard the USS Anchorage. The Air Force has 97 HH-60Gs in Active, Guard, and Reserve squadrons. (US Air Force)

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The UH-60M comes equipped with the Goodrich Integrated Vehicle Management System (IVHMS), and the HH-60W will have some form of Health and Usage Monitoring System. According to Mr. Healy at Sikorsky, “We have not picked a supplier yet, and there will have to be some minor changes to it to ensure we capture all the data for CRH.” The same theme runs throughout the new Combat Rescue Helicopter, says Mr. Healy: “We have the opportunity with this program to optimize the combination of a lot of requirements – deployability, affordability, [and] commonality with the -60M and other M users. The Air Force gains a lot of goodness.”

About the Author

Contributing editor Frank Colucci has written for Vertiflite for the past 20 years on a range of

subjects including rotorcraft design, civil and military operations, testing, advanced materials, and systems integration. He can be emailed at rotorfrank@aol.com.

going to take the opportunity here to optimize the fuel system to the Air Force requirement.” The changes may take the HH-60W slightly above the 22,000 lb (10 t) gross weight of the UH-60M.

Control Unit (DECU). It also benefits from the broad-chord, high-lift composite main rotor blades developed for the UH-60M. The monolithic machined structures of the current Black Hawk meanwhile address much of the cracking and corrosion that trouble the Pave Hawk at high operating weights.

The 195 nm (360 km) unrefueled combat radius required of the CRH is beyond the reach of the plain UH-60M. External fuel tanks are used on various H-60s, but Sikorsky engineers concluded a larger internal main fuel tank provided the best combination of weight, drag, field of fire, and other considerations in the Air Force mission. The big Robinson internal auxiliary fuel tanks used in Air Force HH-60Gs take up much of the cabin space needed to transport Guardian Angels and treat injured persons. Tim Healy acknowledges changes to the HH-60W fuel system to reduce lost space. “Exactly how much of it goes away depends on some design trades that we’re making. They’re going to gain back a significant portion of the cabin floor space that they lost to internal fuel in the back . . . . We are

The state-of-the-art Pave Hawk simulator at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico has a high-fidelity HH-60G cockpit and provides total crew training including the flight engineer and aerial gunner positions. Sikorsky has not yet put a CRH training system supplier under contract. (US Air Force)

The US Army UH-60M will provide the basis of the Air Force HH-60W cockpit architecture. (US Army)