Although the Merlin HM Mk 1 only recently entered service with the Royal Navy, plans are taking shape to sustain, enhance and expand the performance of the aircraft - under the umbrella of the Merlin Capability Sustain- ment Plus (CSP) project - through to its planned 2029 out-of-service date.
Lockheed Martin UK Integrated Systems, working with AgustaWestland Helicopters as its strategic sub- contractor, was awarded an £18 million ($31 million) Assessment Phase contract for the CSP programme by the UK Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) in June. The two-year assessment phase study effort will evaluate obsolescence issues and consider capability upgrades to improve the aircraft's performance and reduce through-life costs.
"CSP is attempting to build on our initial operating experience with Merlin," says Lt Cdr Richard Creech, who has been seconded from the DPA to become "embedded" with Lockheed Martin as CSP officer. "We are using the aircraft in roles that were quite simply never thought of when the staff requirement for Merlin was first raised. That means Merlin must adapt to change."
Drivers for the CSP programme are wide-ranging, and every aspect of the aircraft - the air vehicle itself, the mission system suite, ground support and test equipment, maintenance profiles and training - is being reviewed. Sustainment issues include obsolescence of hardware and software (specified back in the early 1990s), design saturation (with processors, mass memory and data transfer reaching their capacity limits) and the inability of the current "closed" architecture to accept change without significant and costly re-engineering.
The assessment phase is exploring possible enhancements and capability insertions to exploit performance benefits from new technology, and reflect the changing role of the aircraft (notably the shift to the littorals, requirements for wider interoperability and the need to offer greater versatility across roles). A major focus is to examine how the mission system can migrate to a lower-cost open system architecture based on commercial off-the-shelf equipment, thereby simplifying future upgrades and technology insertion. Studies are exploring human-machine interface issues, reflecting the need to improve both operator workload and operational management of increasingly diverse and complex missions.
Improvements to the Merlin HM1 sensor suite are being examined. Candidate subsystems include an electro-optical sensor system, a defensive aids suite, expanded datalink functionality and improved electronic support measures..
Another facet of the Merlin CSP is to identify potential decreases in aircraft weight, so as to increase time on station or allow for the carriage of an increased payload. In addition to the weight savings achieved by introducing a lighter and more modern mission system architecture, the case for introducing active flight control technology is also being examined.
A submission to take the Merlin CSP programme forward into the demonstration and manufacture phase is planned for December 2004.
Source: Flight International