Staged in July, Pitch Black 2024 was the largest-ever air combat exercise to be conducted in Australia. Centred around Darwin and the vast Delamere and Bradshaw ranges in the country’s Northern Territory, the three-week exercise involved more than 140 air combat, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and transport aircraft – and some 4,500 personnel – from 20 nations.
Participants included France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the UK, and the USA.
With so many aircraft using unfamiliar airspace and procedures and flying over remote terrain, the need for a rapid rescue and response service on hand at Darwin and the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF’s) Tindal base 200 miles to the southeast was essential.
On 24 July that service was called on, following the crash of an Italian air force Eurofighter after its pilot ejected about 70 miles south of Darwin.
Helicopter crews from both Darwin and Tindal were scrambled and dispatched to the crash site and, within an hour of the call-out, a Darwin-based Leonardo Helicopters AW139 operated by CHC had winched the downed pilot aboard and was transporting him for medical assessment.
CHC has been providing search and rescue (SAR) services to the Australian Defence Force (ADF) since 1989, primarily at locations where aircraft equipped with ejection seats are regularly based.
The first helicopters the company operated were two Bell 412s, but in 1993 it introduced the first of seven Sikorsky S-76As, which were purchased from the Royal Jordanian Air Force after being kept in storage. The rotorcraft were extensively modified by CHC at its base in Adelaide in South Australia before entering service.
Upgrades included night vision imaging system lighting, a four-axis autopilot – which enabled full SAR auto-hover operations – and a complete gut of the rear cabin, including cutting holes in the bulkhead to allow seats to drop down and provide access to the boot in flight. A bespoke stretcher dolly system was also designed and fitted to enable the aircraft to conduct two ‘wet’ stretcher winches without having to land.
In 1997 a further upgrade saw the then fleet of six S-76s brought up to the A++ configuration, with new engines and upgraded transmissions. And in 1999 they also were equipped with electro-optical/infrared sensors.
AW139 INTRODUCTION
CHC received a contract extension with the ADF in 2018, at which time AW139s were introduced to replace the S-76s. Further extensions have since been made, as the planned tender for a new SAR service has been continually delayed.
The S-76s were nearing the end of their efficient service lives, and as CHC was already one of the largest AW139 operators in the world, it made sense that aircraft would form the basis of its fleet in Australia. The roll-out of AW139s for the ADF contract was completed in March 2019.
The company currently has 14 bases in Australia and Timor Leste, including those dedicated to supporting the commercial resources sector. For such work it operates Sikorsky S-92s, Airbus Helicopters H175s, and AW139s and AW189s: primarily in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions of remote Western Australia.
For its support of the ADF, CHC operates two AW139s each at RAAF Base Pearce near Perth and Williamtown near Newcastle, and single examples at Amberley near Brisbane and East Sale in eastern Victoria. It also has one Bell 412 at Tindal.
RAAF Pearce is where the ADF’s and Republic of Singapore Air Force’s fixed-wing flying training is conducted using Pilatus PC-21s, while Tindal is home base to an RAAF Lockheed Martin F-35A squadron, as well as hosting regular visiting US bomber and fighter detachments.
Amberley is where the RAAF’s 24 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets and 12 EA-18G Growlers are based, as well as a number of transport aircraft. Williamtown supports three squadrons of F-35As and the Boeing E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control fleet, and East Sale is where further PC-21s are based.
A CHC AW139 is also based at HMAS Albatross near Nowra south of Sydney, where it supports the ADF’s Joint Helicopter School, which operates Airbus Helicopters H135 trainers, and also two squadrons of Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawks.
CHC’s commercial and business development manager for the Asia-Pacific region Luke Vanson says the company’s staff are embedded with the ADF’s planning cells and with rescue services at each of the bases.
“Our staff and management hold the right security clearances to be privy to planning information, so we’re set up to enable the ability to respond,” Vanson says.
“A lot of exercises are pre-planned, and we’re intimately involved in their planning to make sure we’ve got an aircraft that can deploy to another location for an exercise. Our workforce is appropriately positioned and adequately flexible through enterprise bargaining agreements, and that enables us to respond when Defence actually requires it.
“Each defence base has a crash alarm system. We form part of them comprising the medical section, the fire section, the search and rescue section – we’re on that same call when there’s an aircraft emergency,” he notes.
“I started as a rescue swimmer on our defence search and rescue contract,” says Vanson, who has been with CHC for 24 years. “Since then, I’ve worked across all of our defence search and rescue bases in Australia. I’ve filled roles in local contract management, base management, senior crewman roles, and flight operations management.
“I don’t miss the night shift, but I do miss some of the other bits and pieces,” he says. “But I’m still close enough to the action to make sure our team in the field have got what they need to do their job well. That’s the sort of the reward I get now.”
Dean Benson is one of CHC’s AW139 fleet captains, and says the type is a tried-and-true platform across several roles.
“I’ve personally flown it in single-pilot emergency medical service [EMS], multi-crew search and rescue and offshore missions,” he says. “It’s a very capable, powerful aircraft that is a pleasure to fly.
“My current role sees me training and checking in simulators and aircraft, in addition to flying the line to ensure my skillset remains at the required levels of competency. I’m also responsible for the technical operational standards and how they relate specifically to our ‘139’ operations in our region.”
Benson says it is most rewarding training new pilots to the SAR role.
“It’s a unique challenge as an instructor to foster a young, motivated pilot from, for example, a [Robinson Helicopter] R44 scenic experience pilot to an all-weather search and rescue first officer in a 139,” he says. “Bringing someone onboard and watching them develop their skills, grow as a pilot and be promoted through the ranks is very rewarding.”
Technical crew trainer Jake Turner has been with CHC for 18 years, after starting as a rescue crewman.
“I have been fortunate to have worked in all aspects of CHC Australia’s operations, from defence search and rescue, offshore oil and gas, EMS, local management, and flight standards,” he says.
Turner says his work as a trainer gives him the opportunity to help mould the company’s next generation of technical crew officers.
“Helping them achieve their goals and operate safely in the aviation environment has been one of the most fulfilling parts of my career to-date,” he says. “Over the years there have been some great missions that have had a positive outcome on patients’ lives, but there is of course always room for improvement and learning.
“What is notable is that, as a team, we have always sat down post-flight and had a constructive debrief about what was done and how we could have improved on it.”
Turner also rates the AW139 and its slightly larger sibling, the AW189.
“The AW139 and AW189 are the new workhorses of the aviation industry,” he says. “They are very robust aircraft with the ability to be transformed for any role.
“The [Pratt & Whitney Canada] PT6 engine is a solid performer with a low failure rate, meeting the client’s single-engine capability requirements. And as a search and rescue platform, it has the ability to perform tasks over water and over land with minimal rotor wash compared to larger machines.”
Aaron Shute is a third-generation aircraft engineer based in Western Australia. He is qualified on the S-92A, AW139 and AW189, and previously worked on S-76As at Tindal and on Airbus Helicopters AS332 heavy maintenance in Adelaide.
“My love for the job is getting involved and getting my hands dirty and fixing the aircraft,” he says. “The AW139 is a very good all-rounder aircraft, whether it be for VIP, SAR, EMS, to offshore – you can see why it is such a workhorse and the most useable aircraft of that weight class.”
Vanson says CHC has a large enough global presence that it is able to source equipment and crews relatively quickly for short-notice requirements.
“The logistics associated with doing that can be fairly prohibitive,” he says. “But when the demand is there and there’s the impetus to do something different, we can respond to it.
“When we stood up a service at HMAS Albatross in 2017 – initially for a 15-month contract – that aircraft was sitting in a hangar in the UK, and we had it mobilised and operational in Australia in less than four weeks.
“So that horsepower, that capability, is something we hold near and dear, because it is important to be able to respond when the customer is looking for something,” he says.
FLEXIBLE RESPONSE
Vanson says the company is generally platform-agnostic, and prefers to respond to requirements.
“We don’t really care which way the blades spin,” he says. “We’re much more interested in the best horse for the race. So as a customer service provider, we’re going to deliver our customer with the best service and that requires the fittest aircraft for their mission.
“We’re blessed with that experience and being able to deliver and understand and interpret the data for a customer’s specific parameters, and then we can provide them with what it will take, what it will cost, and what the hooks and challenges are over the full length and term of their contracts.”
Because of its size, CHC also has buying power with helicopter OEMs, although it does need to balance that because most customers want specific and often bespoke aircraft configurations.
“Like any industry, economies of scale bring efficiencies,” Vanson says. “So when there is an opportunity to buy ‘in bulk’, we’ll do that, and we’ll share the cost saving with the customer. But we do find that there’s often plenty of individualisation required.
“We’ve got preferred suppliers because of the fleet that we operate, but that doesn’t preclude us from buying elsewhere,” he adds. “If a customer has their heart set on a particular piece of kit, there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t procure it at better than market rates because of that footprint, and because people want to do business with CHC.”
The ADF is, meanwhile, poised to release a new market tender for a much-delayed Defence Search and Rescue Service (DSARS) contract, under the Project DEF 5412 designation.
Formerly known as the Joint Air Rescue Service and after being delayed several times back to 2021, it is expected that a tender for the contract will come to market imminently, with a decision on the successful bidder due in 2025.
Previously unrelated to DEF 5412 are two ADF contracts with rival operator Toll Helicopters to provide an aeromedical and crash response capability at the Army Aviation Training Centre at Oakey near Brisbane using Bell 412s; a single AW139 based at Robertson Barracks in Darwin; and two AW139s under the ‘Plan Corella’ Army Commercial Helicopter training and utility contract at Townsville in northern Queensland.
Australia’s 2023 Defence Strategic Review had called for submissions for a proposed Whole-of-Government Rotary-Wing Programme, which may result in DSARS possibly being rolled into these other commercial/defence helicopter programmes to provide a more holistic and streamlined service.
While Vanson will not know what the requirements of DSARS will be until the tender lands, he says incumbency can be a double-edged sword.
“With a customer like Defence, in the current geopolitical climate there may be people who are risk-averse,” he says.
“We’re in a space where we’ve got Defence Strategic Reviews and White Papers etcetera that are generating a unique narrative. While a trusted partner that has delivered a service over a long period of time that provides zero transitional risk may be attractive for all the right reasons, we would never be arrogant enough to think that it’s a ‘one horse race’.”
“Most helicopter operators will do well when it’s clear blue skies and smooth sailing. But when things don’t go to plan, and despite the extensive planning to ensure those experiences are limited, that’s when someone’s strengths really come to the fore.
“The technical challenges of rotary-wing aviation are such that things don’t always go to plan despite your best endeavours,” he says. “Being able to respond to those events in very austere environments is what sets us apart from the crowd.
“We are committed to continuing safe operations day-in, day-out to make sure Defence gets what Defence requires.”
