Example: Project Management and Systems Engineering for F-111 Interim Electronic Warfare

We provided project management, systems engineering and integrated logistics support services for the F-111 Interim Electronic Warfare Project for the Royal Australian Air Force. The project is a high priority acquisition of an interim electronic warfare (EW) self protection capability for the F-111 with the following elements:

• Acquisition of an upgraded Radar Warning Receiver (RWR);
• Commercial acquisition of an upgraded Counter Measures Dispensing System (CMDS) controller and new dispensers;
• Commercial acquisition of a podded electronic countermeasures (ECM) jamming capability;
• Suite integration of the RWR, CMDS and ECM systems;
• Installation of the RWR, CMDS and ECM into the aircraft;
• Update of EW Operational Support infrastructure; and
• Modifications to the F-111 Flight Simulator.

Our Approach/Solution – We began the project by providing a balanced team of project managers, engineers and logisticians to begin development of the acquisition documents including separate system specifications, statements of work and contracts for each element of the program. In a period of less than 10 months, the team was able to release requests for tenders (RFTs), evaluate tenders, and reach contract signature with various contractors around the world for all elements of the project except for the simulator.

The project management approach was to break the overall program into a set of sub-projects for the acquisition of the hardware items, with phasing of each sub-project determined by the difficulty of integrating with the aircraft and the level of development required for the hardware. Evaluation of these issues, along with consideration of the most important operational requirements, resulted in the RWR being the first element, followed by CMDS and then the ECM pod. Security was a particularly difficult aspect of the program because of the involvement of contractors from five nations (Australia, USA, Denmark, Israel, UK), each with its own specific requirements for protection of classified data. This was also exacerbated by commercial sensitivity about the transfer of design data between companies, so the project office had to implement very tight controls on all data received and transferred by the project.

The engineering approach was largely driven by the programmatic issues. Security and commercial issues forced the engineering team to serve as suite integrator to deliver the required operational integration of the suite for installation into the aircraft. This led the engineers to develop overlapping system specifications and statements of work that defined interfaces between the components in sufficient detail to allow interoperability without disclosing sensitive information. A complete systems engineering approach was then applied to each system and to the aircraft installation design (most importantly SRR, PDR, CDR for each), supported by an effective Interface Control Working Group involving all participants. Most importantly, when acceptance testing and integration testing were being performed, only the project engineers had a full understanding of the total system requirement, and so were responsible for ensuring that testing addressed the full scope of that requirement. This meant that large amounts of testing had to be performed without OEM participation and that problem resolution was often an in-house responsibility.

The logistics team was organized along parallel lines to the engineering team to ensure that support issues were not overlooked in the pressure to deliver initial capability. We used the OPUS 10 package to evaluate the impact of system reliability and usage rates on spares and maintenance requirements to achieve the desired operational availability. We were able to significantly improve availability within the project budget by changing the mix of spares and support equipment from those originally proposed by the OEM suppliers. The logistics team was also responsible for arranging construction of a new EW maintenance facility and for coordination of publication and training course development by the OEMs. Again commercial and security issues were a major concern, along with the need to ensure that language differences did not affect the quality and timeliness of logistics deliverables, publications in particular.

Results and Benefits – As a result of our efforts, the Commonwealth of Australia has achieved introduction of needed self-protection capability for the F-111 fleet in a timescale much shorter than originally anticipated. OT&E of the RWR and CMDS elements of the suite have provided aircrew with much improved confidence in their survivability, and have made the F-111C weapon system a viable platform for the planned life of the system.