THE SAGA OF THE NEW COCKPIT
With a competition under way to decide
who would conduct full-rate production (FRP),
in February 2012 the Department of Defense
proposed cancelling AMP altogether. The
back-up plan was to retain 184 C-130Hs with a
new, cheaper upgrade solution. The National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year
2013 prevented the Secretary of the Air Force
from killing o AMP until Congressional defense
committees were provided with a cost-bene t
analysis conducted by the Institute for Defense
Analyses (IDA). This essentially called for an
independent study of the costs and bene ts of
upgrading the C-130Hs with AMP compared to
those of a reduced project.
The study was completed and published
in September 2013. It detailed AMP as well
as low-cost options A and B, both of which
would require the navigator to be retained.
The IDA estimated that AMP’s costs for
research, development, test and evaluation
(RDT&E), procurement, plus operation and
support (O&S), over a 25-year period would
total $2.137 billion, signi cantly higher than
the estimated $1.531 billion for Option A, and$530m for Option B. Option A would supplant
older-technology gauges with multi-function
displays, whereas Option B would not replace
the existing self-contained navigation system
(SCNS).
The IDA report found that although AMP
o ered the most sophisticated option, the
lower-cost o ers o ered nearly as much
capability, and the study concluded that the
Air Force should not pursue the AMP program
as it was then de ned. Indeed, the President’s
budget for FY2013 did not propose any funding
for the C-130 AMP, which e ectively cancelled
it in favor of a minimum communication,
navigation, surveillance/air tra c management
(CNS/ATM) updated.
This gave rise to the ‘Optimize’ Legacy C-130
CNS/ATM program, which started in FY2013
in lieu of C-130 AMP. It provided a CNS/ATM
upgrade for 176 C-130Hs, addressed selected
obsolescence issues, and retained the navigator
position. The subsequent ‘Minimize’ C-130 CNS/
ATM program then replaced this in FY2014.
This is now an airspace compliance-focused
program to modify 178 C-130Hs with 8.33kHzradios, cockpit voice and digital ight data
recorders, Enhanced Mode S, and Automatic
Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B)
‘Out’ equipment.
Senate Armed Service Committee hearings
in March suggested that the USAF was ready to
start working on the AMP project again. A C-130
eet size that is planned to reduce from 328
aircraft down to 300, and a cheaper upgrade
strategy, appear to have made the project more
a ordable.
Commenting on the need for an upgrade
for the ‘classic’ Hercules, Col Hover said: ‘We
have eight C-130H1s with the old ‘steam-
driven’ gauges. They are reliable and they
are good aircraft, plus we don’t have many
avionics problems; in fact they are a joy to y.
We’ll carry on with our old cockpit, but they
are looking hard at AMP versus other avionics
modernization programs. So they are still
working on an upgrade plan for the H-models;
they just haven’t got a clear road ahead yet. We
will get de nitely receive some sort of avionics
upgrade, but that’s still to be eshed out at the
Congressional level.’The Boeing Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) cockpit was selected
and abandoned. A lower-cost update is now likely. BoeingThe upgrade may lead to the retention of the navigator. The Boeing AMP
would have replaced the navigator with new avionics.http://www.combataircraft.net May 2015 6962-69 AMC part 1- Montana C rev.indd 69 20/03/2015 14:00