MERRIMACK, N.H.—BAE Systems’ Common Infrared Countermeasures (CIRCM) system this week is undergoing a detailed and extensive government review, the Preliminary Design Review (PDR), to provide data for the government to refine its plans for the next stage of the aircraft-protection program, engineering and manufacturing development (EMD), a company official said.
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| CIRCM Photo: BAE Systems |
The program is about midway through the technology development phase with a Request For Proposals expected early next year for the EMD phase, Murray Collette, technical director, Survivability and Targeting Solutions at BAE Systems’ Worrell/Weeks Aircrew Protection Center, in Merrimack, N.H., told reporters during a media visit.
The CIRCM program is a next generation aircraft survivability and protection solution for the Army to protect the helicopter fleet, fixed, tilt-wing and unmanned platforms from existing and evolving infrared guided missile threats.
BAE Systems is competing with Northrop Grumman [NOC] on the program, with only one contractor expected to be selected for EMD.
Northrop Grumman completed its scheduled PDR July 25. Northrop Grumman is partnered with SELEX ES and Daylight Solutions.
“What we presented during the review was exactly what we promised in our proposal to the Army 26 months ago: detailed performance data from mature CIRCM systems demonstrating a system that protects aircrews at an affordable cost,” said Jeff Palombo, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman’s Land and Self Protection Systems Division. “Our PDR date was established 14 months ago, and with close collaboration with the Army, we executed on time with anticipated results.”
About 150 of the workforce of some 750 at Worrell/Weeks are working on CIRCM, Collette said. The center is busy enough that there are three shifts at work.
While the federal budget situation and sequestration looms large in Washington, on the front lines of the programs Collette said “it can take just a little bit longer” to get program paperwork completed. What he hasn’t seen as yet are program cuts or terminations.
BAE’s Aircrew Protection Center tests and evaluates survivability and protection systems in simulated environments, in the $20 million lab named for Maj. Matthew Wade Worrell and CWO 5 Jamie Dunbar Weeks with the 1st battalion of the 160th Special Operation Aviation Regiment, the Night Stalkers. In 2006, the two were shot down in their AH-6M Little Bird, which did not have protection against guided IR missiles.
The impetus for creating the lab was “to reduce cycle times of development programs and to improve the detection and counter-IR guided missiles,” Collette said.
The center has “cut cycle time in half,” he said, in large part because the equipment can be tested via simulation in indoor and outdoor test ranges, before the government takes it to a live-fire range, such as White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Costs also come down as most of the work is completed ahead of such live testing.
The indoor test range has missile and flight motion simulators that can replicate actual environmental conditions, the specific characteristics of missiles, and aircraft maneuvers.
Black two-axis gantry-mounted missile replicators are half way down the range and at the far end. They can replicate the vibration, angles, temperature and motion of a missile.
Moveable tripod-mounted devices can be placed around the test range, heaters that replicate what Collette calls “clutter sources.” Those are things in the background that mimic what goes on in the real world–such as a flock of birds passing by.
At the far end of the test range are two side-by-side flight-motion devices. They are fixed in position, but they spin in place to replicate the swift maneuvers of helicopters or other air platforms.
Saving time, money and movement, software, temperature and vibration. and test and integration labs are located just steps from the indoor range. And to access the outdoor range, doors behind the flight-motion devices are opened, allowing direct access to the range.
In one lab, a Navy prototype system is being tweaked. It is to look for mines in the surf zone using a powerful laser to create a 3-D image. This first demonstration model will head out to Hawaii for flight tests in the fall, project engineers said. When completed, the system is expected to weigh some 250 pounds and be one of several sensors carried by a Navy unmanned aerial vehicle.