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2017-12-05

The KC-130J Harvest Hawk: A Big Stick Weapons Kit

Harvest Hawk has become a real partner to the Marine air and ground forces. The aircraft is the latest in a series of military aircraft modification efforts developed under the broad name “Harvest.” In fact, HAWK is an acronym that stands for Hercules Airborne Weapons Kit, but Harvest Hawk has become its more popular generic name.

Since its combat debut in Afghanistan in 2010, marine crews have been very busy flying this specially configured armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) variant of the KC-130J Super Hercules tanker. Harvest Hawk has quickly become a big stick, thanks to its long loiter time, multiple radios and sensor to find and track insurgents or vehicles. More importantly for the Marines on the ground, it has an ability to launch a laser-guided Hellfire or Griffin missile and have those weapons hit exactly where and when needed.

In serving as an accelerated Marine Corps program to meet urgent Marine ground combat needs, Harvest Hawk is MIR-tied (Multi-Sensor Imagery Reconnaissance) to close air support (CAS). Its permissive air environment is more persistent than any other platform, enabling a KC-130J fighter pilot up for ten or more hours on station before having to refuel.

In addition, the Super Hercules, or ‘Battlehawk’ to the Marines, has sufficient electrical power and room for the Harvest Hawk equipment, enabling innovations like video uplink and Blue Force Tracker. Thus, using only existing components, the Harvest Hawk kit was developed in eighteen months by a joint Marine Corps, Lockheed Martin and Naval Air Systems Command team.

Profiling the Harvest Hawk’s capabilities

What sets Harvest Hawk apart from other KC-130Js is to be found underneath on the left wing of the outboard station. Instead of a KC-130J hose refueling pod, it has an M299 quad-mount Hellfire missile launcher taken from an AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter. The AGM-114P Hellfire II and its twenty-pound high-explosive antitank warhead is the primary weapon. VMGR-352 and VMGR-252 crews having already launched more than 100 Hellfires, nearly all recording direct hits.

Meanwhile, the Hawk’s electro-optical, infrared and laser Target Sight Sensor (TSS) also comes from an AH-1Z Super Cobra and is mounted in an empty external fuel tank on the left inboard station. The sensor can see individual targets clearly from more than ten miles away.

Internally, both the fire control console (FCC) and the mission computer from the Navy’s SH-60 Seahawk multipurpose helicopter are mounted on to a reinforced 463L cargo system pallet installed in the KC-130J’s cargo compartment. Two additional display monitors are permanently installed on the flight deck allowing the pilot to see the FCO sensor images and look at the FalconView aeronautical charts, satellite images and elevation maps, while offering a consent-to-lase and fire button located near the throttles.

The Hawk’s AGM-176 Griffin missiles have a smaller warhead but less powerful rocket motor than Hellfire and were originally housed in a cargo ramp-mounted box launcher. To fire this missile, crews would therefore have to go on oxygen and depressurize the aircraft prior to lowering the ramp for launch meaning that Griffins were launched against targets only about ten percent of the time.

Harvest Hawk aircraft now have a dual missile launcher for Griffin located in the left paratroop door along a ‘wine rack’ that holds ten missile launch tubes. This Derringer Door launcher allows the crew to keep the aircraft pressurized during launch. A third type of weapon, the GBU-44 Viper Strike glide bomb, is now being tested on Harvest Hawk.

Thus, with four Hellfire and ten Griffin, the Harvest Hawk can carry more precision guided munitions than any other aircraft in the Marine Corps. Moreover, other aircraft can still be refueled if necessary from the aircraft’s right hose to help fighters during poor weather.

Superlative sandbox maneuvers

The VMGR-252 Harvest Hawk is a roll-on/roll-off kit, enabling crews to average approximately 110 flight hours per month, well above the overall in-theater norm. In exercises during poor weather, Harvest Hawk was sometimes the only aircraft airborne in the tasking able to transit to the area needed, receiving a ‘nine-line’ location while still twenty-five miles out. It could then correlate the sensors, confirm the attack plan and clear the airspace to take out the target within nine minutes, before returning to tracking its original target after about fifteen minutes elapsed time.

Harvest Hawk crews generally fly at medium altitudes to maximize time on station So far, squadron crews have launched approximately sixty Hellfires during their deployment with a near 100 percent success rate without a single civilian casualty.

On one mission, the crew observed a group of insurgents engaging a marine ground unit where the insurgents had a central gathering point and were using children as a buffer and forcing them to resupply the snipers with ammunition. Here, the crew watched the battle play out for a few hours before coming up with a plan.

They received clearance to make a high-speed pass - slightly below minimums - and popped self-defense flares normally used to defeat heat-seeking missiles. The startled insurgents then dispersed enabling the marine ground unit to accomplish its mission.

Sophisticated crew coordination

By necessity, the seven-member Harvest Hawk crews have now become an integrated team. The aircraft commander serves as the airborne supervisor, deconflicting the airspace and clearing out friendlies prior to a missile launch. He also helps develop the target attack plan with the FCO and gives consent once the aircraft is in position to fire the targeting laser and then launch the missile.

The copilot manages the basics: navigating and flying the aircraft, using the aircraft’s seven radios to communicate with the air assets, ground commanders and, as necessary, higher command headquarters. The crewmaster acts a flying crew chief, changing the radio frequencies and looking out the window as another set of eyes.

The primary FCO of the aircraft’s cargo compartment locates, tracks and designates the targets, coordinating surveillance and talking directly with ground troops. The second FCO is the backup, sitting next to the primary FCO at the FCC. In addition to their usual job, the two loadmasters act as scanners or as different sets of eyes to help the FCOs scan the sensor picture. They also load the Griffin launch tubes into the Derringer Door.

During an attack, the combined job of the flight deck crew and the FCOs is to position the aircraft in the optimal position to shoot. The aircrew adjusts each attack depending on the target. Once the target is designated and locked, the aircraft in position and the pilot with consent to fire, the FCO lifts the cover on the Hellfire launch button and pushes it. Coming off the launch rail, Hellfire missiles quickly reach supersonic speeds in a very short flight time entailing that the FCO has to take account of the Hellfire’s sonic boom.

Teaching battlefield innovation

Heavy tasking in combat theaters entails that as many as 140 flight hours per month (the maximum allowed) are required of Harvest Hawk crews on future deployments. A formal training program has therefore been established in the form of a Harvest Hawk ground school, consisting of 23 classes on close air support and multi-image reconnaissance, the FCC and TSS, ground force maneuverers, radio procedures and aircraft basics, such as where the crash axe is located.

Moreover, a recently installed desktop FCC simulator has prepared the crew members for the five qualification flights. The simulator schooling covers the same profiles as the actual training flights: day weapons employment, integrating with ground forces on CAS and MIR missions, and urban CAS where shot geometry and zero civilian casualties are important considerations. It also integrates a live fire mission in which each FCO launches a Hellfire and a Griffin.

The instructors sit on the flight deck or behind the student FCOs to simulate communications from the ground forces. In addition, there are growing numbers of training flights with the actual ground forces with whom the Harvest Hawk crew will be working in theater.

Students are debriefed in detail after a flight, reviewing their attack profiles with the instructors and assessing how each mission element could have been better performed. The urgency of the Harvest Hawk mission is emphasized during training, as the consequences are dramatic of a missile being on target thirty seconds rather than three minutes late because the aircraft had to go around to avoid a marine on the ground.

Reference Text/Photo:www.lockheedmartin.com

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