By Geoff Fein
The Navy is getting closer to working out the kinks in the MH-60S’ Airborne Mine Countermeasures (AMCM) system and is preparing to take the system back into testing this spring, a Navy official said.
At issue were problems with the carriage stream tow recovery system (CSTRS).
“We are still putting the finishing touches on CSTRS,” Capt. Dean Peters, H-60 program manager, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
CSTRS is the winch and carriage system used to carry the variety of sensors that are going to be deployed from Sikorsky‘s [UTX] MH-60S. The system will place the sensors into the water and bring them back up into the aircraft, Peters said.
CSTRS is also used to carry the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS).
CSTRS is a common interface that brought together Sikorsky, Lockheed Martin [LMT], and CTC, an independent, nonprofit, applied research and development professional services organization. CTC is developing CSTRS and Lockheed Martin the common console (Defense Daily, June 23, 2005).
Last year, an Independent Technical Assist Team (ITAT) made up of Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) engineers was brought in to examine the program and make recommendations for a path forward (Defense Daily, Aug. 26).
“The one thing we found out with the system, in moving from developmental test to operational test, is that we didn’t quite understand how the fleet was going to use this,” Peters said. “And, it may not have been ruggedized to the extent that it was going to last for a long time in the fleet.”
When the Navy started to get indications that they were having some reliability problems, officials acted “very proactively,” Peters said, and pulled CSTRS out of the test mode.
“It’s not that we are afraid of failing OPEVAL or anything like that. We are not ready to field this,” he added. “It’s obvious we need to go back and do some reliability improvements to the winch because we were seeing some things initially that we didn’t expect, and that’s always a concern.”
Working with the program’s resource sponsors, the operational test community, and with the fleet, the Navy put a plan in place to make CSTRS a robust, reliable system, Peters said.
“We are going to take it back into test in the spring time,” he added.
Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City, Fla., has already “burned down 90 percent of the 90 initiatives that we had to improve the reliability on, of this mechanically intensive system,” Peters said.
“I think it is going to be tremendous capability when we get it out there,” he added.
Towing a mine hunting sonar is a difficult proposition no matter what platform it is on, Peters noted.
“We are trying to take the artisanship out of it, if you will. We want to make it so that it is easier to do, that the workload is manageable,” he said. “We don’t [want to] have to ask the fleet to train for two years before they fly it.
“That’s what we are pushing for, and we are making some great strides in doing that. It all requires us to bring the operational testers in early to get their comments and opinions on the system and see how they are going to operate it,” Peters added.
The multi-mission helicopter program (PMA-299) is providing that capability in conjunction with the Program Executive Office Littoral Mine Warfare (PMS-495), he said. “They developed the sensors and the tow cable, we provided the equipment that integrates it into the helo.”
“We are really well lashed up with them, making sure that our budgets, our acquisition plans, and everything that is associated with the program, [is] in alignment,” Peters added. “That’s come together over the last year in a big way.”