Royal Australian Air Force benefits from Airbus SmartForce digital services
Amberley
(Australia), 28 January 2021– Airbus has recently signed a contract to
provide a digital services focus for the maintenance of the Air Refueling Boom
System (ARBS) on the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) KC-30A Multi-Role Tanker
Transport (A330 MRTT) fleet.
Based on the Airbus suite of digital services SmartForce, this service is
intended to support the operator in reducing maintenance costs and improving
fleet availability by optimizing the fault diagnosis and troubleshooting tasks
for the ARBS of the tanker aircraft, based on data analytics applications.
The Central Data System plays a key role, allowing operators to draw on the
flight data recorded by the Mission Recording System and provides information
outputs about issues registered during the flight and recommended maintenance
actions to fix them.
Within the KC-30A Enterprise, the Central Data System is a joint development
built upon a successful long-standing collaboration among Airbus, the
Commonwealth of Australia (CoA) and the Australian KC-30A Through Life Support
(TLS) provider Northrop Grumman Australia, in sharing data and defining the
architecture of the system.
Future proposed development of the capability will allow customers which apply
this technology to their fleet to be able to extend the ARBS analytics to
entire aircraft level diagnostics.
Stephan Miegel, Head of Military Aircraft Services at Airbus Defence and Space,
said: “Since the launch of SmartForce in 2018, Airbus is fully committed to
support the digital initiatives of our customers. Working collaboratively with
them, we have signed five agreements for the co-development of new services and
technologies. We are proud to see that military operators are increasingly
joining us on our digital journey.”
Jake Adams, Northrop Grumman Australia KC-30A Program Manager, said: “The
introduction of the Central Data System has provided significant benefits in
terms of increased availability of the ARBS. The recent agreement between
Airbus and Northrop Grumman Australia ensures that the RAAF continues to
benefit from this capability as well as providing the opportunity for ongoing
collaboration and sharing of data and analytics to enhance the ARBS
capability.”
Group Captain Scott Parry, Officer Commanding Heavy Air Lift Systems Program
Office, commented: “The Central Data System delivers a significant capability
benefit for the KC-30A aircraft and demonstrates the strong commitment within
the KC-30A enterprise to innovation and improvement.”
SmartForce is a suite of services enabling military operators to exploit
aircraft data to improve troubleshooting, optimize maintenance effort, predict
maintenance actions and plan smartly for material demand and improving the
fleet availability. SmartForce capitalizes on the new power of big data
analytics coupled to secured connectivity to maximize mission readiness.
Photo courtesy Airbus
