The UK Military Aviation Authority (MAA) expects to within weeks reach a decision on the airworthiness of the Royal Air Force’s RC-135W Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft, which should be introduced operationally from later this year.
US company L-3 Communications is modifying three 1964-vintage KC-135R tankers to the Rivet Joint signals intelligence-gathering configuration for the RAF, with the first having been delivered to its Waddington air base in Lincolnshire last November. The aircraft has not been flown again since its arrival, as certification activities continue.
“We’ve been given some big boxes of paperwork, and our team will take 20 working days to assess Airseeker and the release to service recommendation,” says Air Marshal Dick Garwood, director general of the MAA. “Then we will tell ACAS [the assistant chief of the air staff] what we think about this aeroplane: is it safe, or is it not.”
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More than two years ago, the RAF’s chief of materiel (air), Air Marshal Simon Bollom, cautioned that the age of the airframes being adapted via the UK’s Airseeker programme would require additional methods to be adopted to complete certification via the MAA, as the required evidence “may be limited, or not exist at all”.
Such a process could include drawing on the US Air Force’s decades-long experience in operating the RC-135, and culminate with the MAA and service “duty holders” responsible for the airworthiness of the fleet accepting increased operating risk due to the importance of the platform’s role.
Speaking at an Air Power Association meeting in London on 25 March, Garwood said the MAA has had a major cultural impact on the UK armed forces since it began operations in April 2010. Airworthiness oversight for the services is now held by five operating duty holders – each with a personal and legal responsibility – and then up through the air force, army and navy chiefs and to defence secretary Philip Hammond.
“The risk and accountability is now being held in the right place. The frontline like it – it’s for a reason,” Garwood says.
“I think the rules are appropriate, and they are better than they were. The difference now is we do enforce the rules. Perhaps in the past the rules have been seen as a bit of guidance, and perhaps something we will comply with if we can. I think the culture is changing, and improving.”
Whether as a result of the MAA’s formation or coincidence, the time between fatal accidents is increasing, and by late March had reached around 22 months since the last such incident. “I don’t think it’s getting less safe,” he notes.
The MAA, which has 260 staff, receives around 12,000 reports per year from the duty holder area, and shares relevant findings via an online air safety “dashboard”.
Only once since 2010 has an operating duty holder pushed guidance through the chief of the air staff and up to the political level for remedy. Linked to the urgent need to equip the Panavia Tornado GR4 with a collision avoidance system, this was approved by then-defence secretary Liam Fox. But with the aircraft modification still yet to be made, three crew members were killed when two of the type were involved in a July 2012 crash.
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The risk of mid-air collisions remains the MAA’s greatest concern, according to Garwood.
Categorically rejecting criticism from some that the organisation has imposed an “insidious safety culture”, Garwood says: “We have people out there now who understand risk, and how to manage risk. It’s a focus on risk to life – I’m not interested in risk to reputation, money or anything else.” The Military Air Accidents Investigation Branch is fully independent, and the director general is personally responsible for writing and publishing Service Inquiry reports, he notes.
Meanwhile, the MAA is working with comparable airworthiness authorities in France and the USA to recognise each others’ practices. This will save time and money while collaborating on projects like the Airbus A400M and Lockheed Martin F-35B, and assist with any British Army move to acquire Boeing’s AH-64E Apache, Garwood says.
Under current plans, the MAA will be transformed and expanded into a tri-service Defence Safety Authority organisation, which should be fully operational in April 2016. The broader body will be responsible for the safety of air, land, maritime and nuclear systems, plus ordnance.
Source: Flight International
