HP Enterprise Services systems Cut Planning Time, Improve Safety For Royal Air Force
While flying at 10,000 feet at two times the speed of sound, a fighter pilot has to make split-second decisions for mission success. Distractions can be deadly.
HP Enterprise Services' Advanced Mission Planning Application Improves Processes For Royal Air Force
On site at Royal Air Force (RAF) Marham in the United Kingdom, Tornado Wing Commander (navigator) Dean Andrew shows how HP Enterprise Services' Advanced Mission Planning Application has improved the process of planning Tornado missions in both peacetime training and combat operation to reduce the time and effort in the planning process and to allow greater accuracy.
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Royal Air Force Case Study Video ASX, 4min:38sec
To keep pilots focused, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence (MoD) relies on technology to enhance tactical communication, collaboration and precision - saving lives as a result.
So when the MoD was looking for a way to improve mission planning activity for its Royal Air Force (RAF), it turned to its longtime information technology (IT) partner, HP Enterprise Services, for a total solution. The result is the Advanced Mission Planning Aid (AMPA).
“The AMPA is a family of mission planning systems,” said Phil Millward, HP account manager for MoD Air Systems. “HP developed this system, and it supports more and more aircraft types, the vast majority of aircraft in the Royal Air Force inventory.”
That inventory includes the supersonic Tornado GR4, a cutting-edge fighter aircraft capable of automatically following terrain as low as 300 feet. The GR4 is equipped with an integrated global positioning system that ensures long-range, high-speed precision strike capability. Besides the Tornado GR4, the fixed wing versions of AMPA also supports the Harrier GR9 fighter, C-130J, Hercules tactical transport aircraft and the Hawk fighter trainer, among others. In addition, AMPA supports rotary wing aircraft including Lynx, Chinook, Merlin and Sea King.
About 80 percent of the AMPA solution depends on core functionality, meaning much of the software programming is the same for all the aircraft it supports. HP then adapts the AMPA to meet the specific needs of different aircraft types. For example, with the Tornado aircraft, weapons planning and delivery are functions built into the system. For the Hercules transport aircraft, HP customized the AMPA to provide detailed payload and dispatch calculations for cargo delivery.
“It's cost-effective,” Millward said. “So, for example, if the Harrier fleet wanted a change made to the system that could benefit the Tornado fleet, that change would be brought into core, and the MoD only pays for that change once.”
Aircrews Give the System a Thumbs-Up
The system has met with rave reviews from those who matter - the aircrews.
“The AMPA has provided us with a quantum leap in mission planning,” said Wing Commander Dean Andrew, commanding officer of the RAF's 31 Squadron. “It gives us extra capacity to ensure that we are fully prepared for each and every mission. And the relationship with HP Enterprise Services is not just a relationship with a business. It's actually a partnership where each side learns from the other, ensuring the product is as good as it can be at any stage.”
Millward said the AMPA supports the majority of the RAF's aircraft fleet, and it can be easily adapted to new aircraft types as the RAF's fleet grows.
The innovative solution exemplifies HP's commitment to operational excellence and serves as another example of the company's ongoing role as the MoD's business ally. The MoD has been an HP Enterprise Services client for more than a decade.
The AMPA also allows communications and information-sharing across all the RAF bases and deployed units. At the core of the AMPA is a common mission-planning software solution that provides a foundation for tailoring to the needs of each aircraft type. Today, more than 450 AMPA systems are in service across the RAF and globally.
“Once the mission has been created within the AMPA, it can then be downloaded to a transfer device known as a brick. This is then taken out to the aircraft and loaded into the aircraft's systems,” Millward said. “The system is totally deployable, so wherever the squadron goes on detachment, they take their AMPA with them.”
System Allows Aircrews To Visualize Missions
The AMPA has revolutionized the way in which squadrons plan and execute missions. For instance, an interactive, three-dimensional viewer allows aircrews to visualize critical elements of the mission, including the terrain and landscape.
“To be able to visually generate the target area and what the situation might look like is a fantastic aid to mission planning and preparation before one enters a particularly tricky sortie mission,“ Andrew said.
HP Enterprise Services successfully delivered the solution by working to understand the aircrew's complex planning processes and then implementing them within an interactive system. The development team integrated user feedback from site visits and progress meetings to refine the process.
“We have a relationship with HP where we make changes on paper when we introduce new systems or types of weapons,” Andrew said. “We draw it out with a pen, and then HP digitizes it. It's a living, breathing tool, which is developing alongside the airplane and weapons we put on it.”
About 120 HP Enterprise Services specialists continually work to enhance the solution, implementing new releases for all of the RAF's platforms every nine months.
The AMPA has dramatically improved planning across the RAF, ensuring that if an air crew needs to be airborne at a moment's notice, they can do so with adequate preparation in mere minutes.
“The AMPA speeds the process I learned when I first started flying the Tornado by seven to 10 times,” Andrew said. “That is time I can reinvest in improving my situational awareness during a deployment and ensuring the mission is planned as precisely as possible.”
The AMPA also provides fighter pilots with up-to-the-minute information and planning tools to execute these complicated missions. Pilots now have greater situational awareness when planning a mission and can visualize everything from hostile surface-to-air threats to obstructions in their path.
“It can calculate safety altitudes and altitudes that it's safe to fly out when you're in a cloud,” said RAF Squadron Leader Tim Owen. “It is incredible. You can see the route takes us through that surface‑to‑air missile system, and if we flew through that for real, we'd be shot down. There's no doubt about it; we would die. But what [the] AMPA enables us to do is very quickly just move the route that we're taking around the planned threat and that's it. In two or three mouse clicks ... you save the loss of four aircraft, potentially.”
