Photo By Mark Olsen | U.S. Army aviators with the 1st Assault Helicopter Battalion, 150th Aviation Regiment,...... read more read more
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By John Higgins PEO IEW&S
Since Igor Sikorsky’s first test in 1939, Rotary wing aircraft have been a symbol of American innovation and ingenuity. In the hands of a skilled pilot modern air frames move troops, equipment and firepower to and from the battlefield with ease, appearing to defy physics and definitely defying the odds.
Project Manager Aircraft Survivability Equipment’s (PM ASE) is threat based: their mission is to stack those odds more and more in favor of anyone on an aircraft, and their latest offering in the defense of the warfighter is the Limited Interim Missile Warning System, or LIMWS.
Due to ASE’s efforts and equipment, the Army has not lost an aircraft to a Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) attack since 2007. However, the threats evolve at a geometric rate, and the Army's protection of aircraft and Soldiers must be just as dynamic in its ability and development.
Members of PM ASE primarily work out of Huntsville, Ala., home to countless American Aerospace innovations since the 1950’s. This means that PM ASE personnel are surrounded by countless innovators, high level thinkers and experts across countless fields, but the LIMWS team was able to stand out even among that crowd.
The LIMWS Team earned the Project Management Institute – North Alabama Chapter’s Project of the Year award for their implementation of the first stages.
John Lenart, Senior Program Integrator for Product Manager Missile Warning (PdM MW), said this was by design.
“Army Contracting Command (ACC); their normal program acquisition lead time is 630 days we did it 270 days,” said Lenart. “We were able to cut that 72 percent by ACC Redstone doing parallel staffing within their own organization.”
“When I talk about agile programs,” said Lenart “One of the key things was a product roadmap so we have that from beginning to end of our program that we can hang on the wall and people can see a picture of the program”
The aggressive schedule is merely one reason this team received the PMI-NAC’s award.
“LMWS is really important because it represents fundamental change in technology for missile warning,” said Al Roberts, Missile Warning Lead Program Integrator for PdM MW. “It’s a change in the way of the sensor type and the spectrums that the sensors use. The current sensor systems we have can see in the ultraviolet spectrum and their kind of maxed out as far as capability. The LIMWS sensor is a two color infrared seeing sensor so it operates in a different spectrum which provides a lot more capability and potential for capability in the in the long run so that we get better detection, earlier detection and lower false alarm rates.”
Joe Befecadu, Technical Chief for Product Manager Missile Warning, was key in the program.
“I’ve never seen this close of an integration between the government and the industry team in development of this product,” said Befecadu, which was important for LIMWS, because “with all the technical hurdles that come with it, dealing with it fast and dealing with all the NRE (non recurring engineering) and the cost of developing hardware, and developing software and algorithms.”
“I think this just goes to show that when everybody has a common goal in mind you can overcome almost anything you have a problem with,” said Befecadu of standing out at Redstone. “Contractually, programmatically, technically as long as everyone understands what we’re trying to accomplish, as long as we have the same desire things can get done.”
Col. Kevin Chaney, the Project Manager for ASE, said “The LIMWS QRC (quick reaction capability) is a shining example of how Industry and the Army came come together and work efficiently to bring more protection to our Soldiers in a timely manner. It represents a significant leap in staying ahead the threat and helps overcome the counter to countermeasure cycle that we face.”
PM ASE is now prototyping LIMWS for the UH/HH60M Blackhawk, AH-64E Apache and CH-47F Chinook airframes it will be installed on in the future.
| Date Taken: | 06.20.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 06.20.2019 07:56 |
| Story ID: | 328449 |
| Location: | REDSTONE ARSENAL, ALABAMA, US |
| Web Views: | 162 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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