Growing demands on the helicopter community require a turnaround in the Concept of Operations to acquire the right number and right size of rotary-wing aircraft.
The U.S. Navy has embraced what it terms the "warfare enterprise," with an intense focus on business efficiencies to enhance warfighting effectiveness. In early 2007, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Mullen stated the objective, "to implement an enterprise framework that is about change management and forging a path to an affordable future."1 The CNO's principal goal for the Navy enterprise is to "enable execution of the Navy's strategy by delivering required readiness and capabilities at best value." While this business approach will provide important benefits, the priority must be to ensure that the Navy's strategic, operational, and tactical capabilities meet evolving needs.
One element of this approach is the Naval Aviation Enterprise, which has "necked-down" naval aircraft as one means to reduce aircraft life-cycle total ownership costs. A 25 May 2007 memo from Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Pat Walsh to the commanders of the acquisition commands underscored the importance the Navy places on this process and the need to "develop ideas for what we might do to improve Navy buying power by reducing the type/model/series."2
Nowhere has this been more pronounced than in the Navy helicopter community, which has moved from eight models of light and medium aircraft to just one type (the MH-60 Seahawk) and two models (the MH-60S and the MH-60R) of medium-light helos, and one type of heavy-lift helicopter, the MH-53E, which will be retired in the near future.3 While the business case for this dramatic turn was and remains sound, the operational warfighting case for this narrow a Navy helicopter community portfolio is fraught with danger. When an earlier version of the current Navy Helicopter Master Plan (HMP)—which, in mid-2007, included in the CNO's Naval Helicopter Concept of Operations (CONOPS)—first emerged in the mid-to-late 1990s, the perceived future operational environment made this plan acceptable, with limited operational risk.4
 COURTESY OF THE AUTHORS MORE WITH LESS The Helicopter Master Plan and the Concept of Operations show clearly how fewer types of rotary-wing aircraft are assigned to perform more functions. |
Things have changed significantly since then, however, which demands an immediate and thorough review of the Naval Helicopter CONOPS. Nothing less can ensure the Navy helicopter community—which comprises almost half of naval aviation—has the tools to succeed.
Current and Emerging Needs
The changes in U.S. security and defense have been manifested by significantly increased and expanded need for helicopter support in worldwide U.S. military operations. For example:
- Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan show a dramatically increased use of helicopters to insert and extract special operations forces overtly and clandestinely—a mission that is certain to grow in importance.5
- U.S. distributed operations have also underscored the need to medically evacuate wounded Americans to field hospitals. U.S. Navy helicopters are likely to remain in demand for such missions in the future.6 This mission has morphed from medical evacuation of wounded personnel away from battles to insertion of medical trauma teams closer to the fighting to treat wounded more quickly.
- Once a "lesser included subset" of operational war-fighting missions, the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) mission is placing increasing demands on the Navy helicopter community, as rotary-wing assets are often the only aircraft capable of either rescuing stranded survivors or delivering sufficient supplies to provide needed relief in remote areas.7
- Forward-deployed Navy and Marine Corps helicopters are often called on to supplement Air Force helos in combat search and rescue (CSAR), and the Navy has already recognized that this will be a primary mission of the MH-60S.8
- The Navy's Sea Basing "pillar" and the air and sea "connectors" that move personnel and material throughout the Sea Base and ashore are gaining increased traction across all branches of the U.S. military. Air connectors supporting the Sea Base must have sufficient cubic feet of usable space to carry the volume of material to sustain high-tempo operations ashore.
- The threat of naval mines to a Sea Base, as well as to other U.S. and friendly ships operating in the littorals, is well documented.9 The limited endurance of the MH-60S does not provide an effective solution to large-area minehunting or minesweeping.
Thus, not only are rotary-wing aircraft increasingly in demand for current missions, but in-service and new Navy helicopters are expected to perform more complex and demanding missions that no one ever envisioned when they were designed. Many of these missions demand additional agility and flexibility that are inadequately supported by a diminished helicopter force structure.
If current requirements are extrapolated to cover just the Navy's two-year Program Objective Memorandum (POM) and six-year Future Years Defense Program (FYDP)—let alone the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding and aviation plan—it is not clear that the current Navy Helicopter Master Plan and Naval Helicopter CONOPS can meet expected needs. Helicopters provide critical capabilities in support of Navy Carrier Strike Groups (CSGs) and Expeditionary Strike Groups (ESGs), but no CSG or ESG deploying today leaves with its full complement of Navy helos—nor will they in the future—because demand for these multimission assets already exceeds the supply.
For example, when the Navy made the decision in the mid-1990s to retire the S-3 Viking aircraft, it also decided to have helicopters assume the Viking antisurface warfare (SUW) mission. At approximately the same time, the service decided to have Navy helicopters provide an organic airborne mine countermeasures (AMCM) capability to carrier and expeditionary strike groups. These decisions and dynamics shaped the Naval Helicopter CONOPS, a concept that was ultimately approved by the CNO on 24 January 2002; however, the concept did not address future heavy lift or dedicated AMCM requirements. In addition to the type-model-series "neck-down" extrapolated from the helicopter master plan, the helicopter CONOPS also examined the concept of operations to provide MH-60Rs and MH-60Ss to carrier and expeditionary strike groups and detailed the numbers of each aircraft to be assigned to each battle formation.
While Navy helicopter requirements documents speak of delivering "capabilities" to carrier and expeditionary strike groups and not of "filling rails"—i.e., providing the maximum number of MH-60R or MH-60S airframes that can be carried on CSG and ESG ships—current H-60 helicopter usage rates demonstrate that the actual demand for these aircraft by carrier and expeditionary warfare commanders far exceeds what operational requirements documents predicted.10
A Growing Helo Gap
The current helicopter concept of operations outlines an acquisition program for large numbers of medium-light helicopters—254 MH-60R and 263 MH-60S helicopters—to meet mission needs. This procurement plan is already under way, with 11 MH-60R and 103 MH-60S helicopters in the Fleet and test community in mid-2007. The CH-53K is the planned replacement aircraft for the current Marine Corps CH-53E, which was designed in the 1960s and introduced in 1980 as an engineering change proposal to the CH-53D. While the Navy's heavy-lift replacement plans have not been fully articulated, the service is considering procurement of a CH/MH-53K variant to replace its current MH-53E fleet.
As the new aircraft are fielded, the in-service, legacy Navy helicopters are being retired in increasing numbers and rates. Various Sea Hawk models (SH-60B, SH-60F, and HH-60H), Sea Kings (UH-3H), Sea Knights (CH-46D), and Hueys (HH-1N) that provided the antisubmarine and antisurface warfare, search and rescue, combat search and rescue, special warfare support, VIP/vertical onboard delivery, and vertical replenishment are already retired from the Navy inventory, or close to it. Conversely, on the heavy-lift side, the Navy had planned to retire the MH-53E by 2005 but is retaining it—at increasing costs—to meet urgent Fleet needs that only aircraft with such a large cabin and long endurance can meet.
To avoid a looming capabilities-to-requirements gap, the Navy's acquisition programs must provide capable replacement aircraft. Naval aviation, like many other warfare communities, is confronting budgetary pressure to do more with less, and part of that less could well mean that new aircraft do not arrive in time to replace those aircraft taken out of service. Vice Admiral Thomas Kilcline, the leader of the Naval Aviation Enterprise, admitted as much: "What keeps me up at night is wondering whether we can sustain the current inventory of naval aviation aircraft until the budget gets us to new aircraft."11
Earlier this year, the Navy's Air Warfare Division (N88), under Rear Admiral Bruce Clingan, put in motion a force structure gap analysis to address these issues.12 Admiral Clingan explained: "The biggest wild card for Navy helicopters is the fact that the demand signal has grown and has huge, Navy-wide support; and this support includes new demands from Naval Special Warfare, the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command, and the Littoral Combat Ship."13 The then-"CEO" of the Naval Aviation Enterprise, Vice Admiral James Zortman, Commander Naval Air Forces, underscored the gap between the burgeoning demand for Navy helicopters and the ability to meet that demand: "No helicopters for emerging needs like the LCS have been identified in the current Navy Program of Record."14
At issue is how the ongoing Navy helicopter force structure analysis is conducted and what the terms of reference of this study lead its participants to conclude. With the DoD procurement budget continually under pressure to support ongoing warfighting operations, the challenge of starting new procurement programs is especially daunting. Concern is growing that regardless of the results of this analysis, doing no more than requesting that additional airframes be added to an existing program would appear to some to be the easiest way to close the gap. But this may not necessarily be the most operationally effective solution.
While the current Naval Helicopter CONOPS does not need to be jettisoned, what is needed is a thorough, disciplined, and comprehensive analysis of alternatives that carefully reviews the rotary-wing capabilities required by the total naval force to satisfy current and future operational requirements. Indeed, the review should include a no-holds-barred analysis to determine the correct mix of rotary wing aircraft, which should include those not in the current program of record, to meet the operational needs at the lowest cost. This perspective would demand thinking that goes well beyond and outside the existing plan.
Options for Consideration
In mid-2007, the Naval Helicopter CONOPS envisions the Navy procuring rotary-wing aircraft ranging from small, unmanned vehicles (e.g., Fire Scout and other VTUAVs), to crewed medium-light helicopters (MH-60R and MH-60S) and perhaps heavy aircraft (the possibility of an AMCM MH-53K Super Stallion based on the Marines' CH-53K). Given the difficulties in starting brand-new procurement programs, the default or "status quo" plan for Navy rotary-wing procurement appears to be: Buy more MH-60R and MH-60S Seahawks and wait for the MH-53K Super Stallion. Such a business-as-usual plan looks unlikely to succeed in light of emerging operational requirements and the uncertainty about a Navy variant of the Marines' 53K. Indeed, a comprehensive, unconstrained analysis of alternatives would likely show that this option does not deliver a sufficiently wide range of warfighting capability for either existing or emerging missions.
The MH-60R and MH-60S Seahawk have a maximum gross weight (MGW) of slightly more than 24,000 pounds, and an MH-53K would likely have an MGW equaling if not exceeding the 73,500 pounds for the in-service MH-53E. While size itself is not the defining characteristic that should drive procurement decisions, size does matter. With the next step up in aircraft size weighing more than three times the next smaller aircraft (the Seahawk/Super Stallion ratio), the Navy is in danger of foreclosing options for the mid- and long-term future. The available data will likely show the status quo approach fails from operational, fiscal, and risk-management points of view.
The operational case for adding a medium-lift helicopter to the Navy's inventory is the strongest, but procurement officers should consider other critical factors. Adopted in the early 1980s from the Army UH-60 Black Hawk (first fielded in 1979), the Seahawk helicopters have served the Navy well for over a quarter-century. However, the more these platforms did, the more they were asked to do.
Those who flew and followed these aircraft during the past several decades have watched mission creep ratchet up the weight of the aircraft and cause a concomitant increase in the number of sensors, systems, and weapons hung on these platforms. Given the cost of the emerging crop of new Seahawk helicopters, the Navy should fly them to near-mid-century; but it would be naive to think that these platforms will not suffer the same mission creep as their predecessors.
Anecdotal evidence indicates the Navy is already pushing the edge of the operational envelope in its demands on the planned medium-light helicopter fleet. Consider the following missions:
- Special forces support has the most demand for expanding requirements because of the success of special forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the changing nature of warfare, as large unit formations give way to small-unit maneuver forces operating independently and often remotely. The special operations mission often depends on inserting significant numbers of forces deep into hostile territory, operational situations where size does indeed matter a great deal.15 If the Navy buys only the status quo helicopter mix, this could well foreclose several critical special operations alternatives.
- Battlefield medical support has generated the most operational demand and excitement in the Navy helicopter community. While an MH-60S will be adequate to carry a small number of troops from the point of attack to a field hospital, in many cases the number of injured will exceed the capacity of the aircraft, and in no cases will an MH-60S or similarly sized aircraft be sufficient to bring a forward resuscitative surgical suite to wounded troops.
- America's forward-deployed naval forces inevitably are the first forces on scene in a disaster area, and helicopters are increasingly the platform of choice, especially when natural disasters destroy critical infrastructure, such as airfields. One of the enduring images of the Asian tsunami relief effort led by the Navy was the picture of Navy helicopters delivering relief supplies in remote areas of Indonesia.
- Often lost in the excitement of operational warfighting and lifesaving missions is the need to haul large quantities of material between ships and from ship-to-shore. The service's Sea Basing strategy is critically dependent on sea and air connectors, and is an area where size matters a great deal. For example, while a MH-60S can carry a payload of approximately 5,500 pounds about 200 nautical miles, a medium-heavy helicopter can carry as much as 12,000 pounds as far as 700 nautical miles, depending on the aircraft.
- Airborne mine countermeasures is an important mission, but the Navy is moving from a 36-ton MGW helicopter to one weighing slightly more than 12 tons MGW that might not be up to all tasks. While lighter-weight AMCM systems are in the offing, the current MH-53E mine countermeasures helo is capable of flying far longer mine-sweeping missions than the new MH-60S, an important factor for AMCM missions from organic platforms and when operational timelines are tight.
As the Navy examines the options regarding its mix of helicopters, it may be betting on the planets being perfectly aligned if it goes with buying more of the same type of helicopters already programmed. Instead, a helicopter community expansion plan that includes the critical need for a medium-heavy helicopter may indeed be the most affordable option both from an acquisition and total life-cycle cost perspective.
Which Way Forward?
Clearly, the Navy rotary-wing procurement plan developed in the waning years of the last century must be reassessed. The current mix of helicopters represented in the Naval Helicopter CONOPS inadequately covers the range of missions these aircraft are being called on to perform.
In addition to expanding its helicopter force structure, the Navy can easily optimize it by delivering a mix of rotary-wing platforms more capable of responding to critical operational needs at lower total ownership costs. The default solution of acquiring aircraft already in production and betting that these platforms can be adapted to perform every mission the Navy foresees in the future cannot achieve this goal.
In mid-2007 the Navy has the opportunity to address fleet operational needs with an aircraft based on a thorough, objective analysis, and not a default, business-as-usual approach. The Navy needs the increased operational flexibility and warfighting capability in the immediate future, not on some distant horizon.
Captain Galdorisi is a veteran Navy helicopter pilot, with extensive experience in the SH-60 aircraft.
Dr. Truver is a Washington-based national security and naval analyst.
1. Rhumb Lines, 19 January 2007 (Washington, D.C.: Navy Office of Information, 2007), www.chinfo.navy.mil. back to article
2. Rhumb Lines, 10 July 2007, www.chinfo.navy.mil. back to article
3. Naval Aviation Vision 2020 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Navy, 2006, http://www.cnaf.navy.mil/nae/), pp. 52-55. See also, Sea Power, June 2007. back to article
4. Naval Air Systems Command, PMA-299, briefing, Multi-Mission Helicopters Program Office, 21 May 2007. back to article
5. U.S. Special Operations Command, Right Place, Right Time, Right Adversary: Posture Statement 2006 (Tampa, FL: USSOCOM, 2006), generally, but at pp. 21-22. back to article
6. Michael Vengrow, "Saving Limbs and Lives," pp. 20-21, and Joseph Rappold, "FRSS Teams," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, February 2007, pp. 22-23 ; and Skip Trahan, and "M*A*S*H – The Navy Way: Patient 296," Rotor Review, Fall 2006. back to article
7. ADM Mike Mullen, "What I Believe: Eight Tenets That Guide My Vision for the 21st Century Navy," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 2006, pp. 12-16. back to article
8. Comptroller General of the United States, Decision in the Matter of Sikorsky Aircraft Company; Lockheed Martin Systems Integration-Owego, 26 February 2007. back to article
9. RADM John Christenson, Vice Commander, Naval Mine and ASW Command, briefing to the Surface Navy Association, 9 January 2007, accessed at www.navysna.org. back to article
10. Interview with CAPT Thomas Criger, Commander, H-60/VTUAV Fleet Introduction Team, 1 May 2007. back to article
11. Remarks at the National Museum of Naval Aviation Symposium Flag Panel, 11 May 2006. back to article
12. The OPNAV Air Warfare Division (N88) in mid-2007 was conducting two studies, one focused on the number of H-60 aircraft in the Navy's procurement profile and one to determine the Navy's heavy lift requirement, including a recommendation for a replacement aircraft for the aging MH-53E. back to article
13. Remarks at the Naval Helicopter Association Symposium, San Diego, California, 13 April 2007. back to article
14. VADM James Zortman, Commander Naval Air Forces, remarks at the Naval Helicopter Association Symposium, San Diego, California, 13 April 2007. back to article
15. Interview with CAPT Dick Couch, USN (Ret.), 15 May 2007. back to article