Naval Air: <b>March 13, 2005</b>

March 13, 2005

The US Navys Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) program already identified as an element in the Navys Sea Shield 21 Plan -- is also being tied-into another new program, Human Systems Integration (HSI). The goal of the HIS Program is to get the most bang for the buck.

MMA will be a key component in Sea Shield by providing persistent ASW, ASuW, and ISR capabilities. MMA is being designed with data pull capabilities that will draw information from other assets not now available to the crew aboard the P-3C Orion. Through a new application of mission data fusion and the ability to link with offboard sensors aboard still undefined UAVs (the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Program), MMA is expected to enable the significantly smaller US Navy of the next several decades do more. While the BAMS UAV is envisioned as extending the range and persistence of MMA, the new manned aircraft is also to work interoperability with other platforms.

HSIP concentrates upon human performance constraints, manpower, personnel and training, and safety/health aspects as part of the design, development, fielding, and sustainment of weapons systems. Considered are human factors, manpower, personnel, training, safety, habitability, and survivability. As part of this approach, an additional new element is input from the Aircrew Systems Advisory Panel to ensure best manning and use of the flight crew. Concepts will then be tested by two Navy developmental squadrons -- VX-1 and VX-20 as well as at the Maritime Patrol Aircraft Replacement Air Group squadron, VP-30. This approach is expected to yield significant savings through early integration of training and new aircraft systems.

The bar to be met by the Human Capital Strategy is aggressive. A 90-percent Ground Based Training Strategy, plus use of full system Contractor Logistics Support, is expected to result in MMA manpower savings of 90 percent for maintainers; 50 percent for training billets; and 40 percent for support billets, all while lowering total program life cycle costs. Crew size is also being cut from twelve to nine, with the elimination of the P-3Cs two flight engineers and aviation ordnanceman. One of the sensor station operators will double as the ordnanceman for loading and dropping stores through a pressurized chute in the cabin.

While MMA will perform ISR, the NAVAIR source assured reporters that the new Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) aircraft represents a distinct non-overlapping mission with MMA and that the two programs will not affect one another. MMA will concentrate on ASW and ASuW core mission areas as well as upon focused maritime and littoral armed ISR interoperable with unmanned persistent maritime ISR. ACS will still provide a multi-intelligence ISR platform capable of providing strike targeting to a host of manned and unmanned platforms.

This approach has implications beyond the US Navy. Italian manufacturer Finmeccanica recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Boeing to cooperate on the creation of the MMA Boeing 737 variant. Not only is Italy searching for a replacement of its aged Dassault Atlantique maritime patrol aircraft, it is also interested in a new airborne early warning aircraft, which Boeing also builds using the 737 airframe. Italy is looking for at least ten new MMA aircraft, despite internal criticism that such a purchase would be too expensive. An MOU would help to alleviate some critics concerns.

This manufacturers MOU may soon be followed by one between the two governments by this summer. Such a partnership would insert Italy into the system design and development phase of the MMA program, one Italian defense official said, in return for approximately $300 million from Italy toward development costs. The Navy reports that MMA remains at this time on track and on schedule despite ongoing cuts in new systems as a result of both the cost of the war in Iraq and a basic restructuring of the US naval service. K.B. Sherman