Originally Posted by
trim it out
Quite right. We'll probably end up with something American, not even built in the UK under license
Should the requirement become focused on political and economic rationale (which isn't in any way unreasonable), rather than the best value from a capability/supportability standpoint, then it becomes impossible to eliminate any OEM, as each demonstrates their ability to partner or team with another if it benefits their mutual interests.
There seems to be limited consideration of the presence of Boeing in the UK, already supporting the fleet of Chinook and Apache helicopters in service. All OEM's have beneficial partnerships all over the world, principally to allow access to markets that might otherwise be politically difficult to penetrate, including some contemporary examples:
- Sikorsky/Eurocopter LUH-72A (H145)
- Boeing/Sikorsky Commanche and S97 Raider
- Bell/Boeing V-22
- Lockheed Martin/AW VH-71 (EH101)
- Boeing/Leonardo MH-139A
- AW/Boeing AH-64D
And historical licence manufacture of platforms and associated powerplants including;
- License built aircraft manufacturing relationships between Bell, Sikorsky, Boeing and Westland, Agusta, Sud Aviation, Aerospatiale, Dornier, and others.
- Licence built engine manufacturing including General Electric, Pratt and Whitney, Rolls-Royce, MTU, Alfa Romeo (Avio), ITP, Piaggio, and others.
Many OEMs already outsource basic airframe manufacture, so the likelihood of a new-build airframe manufacturing capability for the UK may be more tenuous in order to expedite the manufacturing process. So utilizing an imported airframe to complete in the UK, at least to start, is the most likely scenario to get the programme moving as expediently as possible. Just within the existing partnerships, you can see the range of options that are currently available - which doesn't limit any additional ones that might be created. Airbus is working on resolving how to manufacture the H175M airframe without Chinese content, but the 139 Airframe is already manufactured in Europe. The S70i is manufactured in Poland, so the only real outsider currently would be the Bell 525, but they have the opportunity and time to consider options for this as well.
The opportunity for the UK to determine and select the best platform, coupled with the ability to generate a significant amount of manufacturing and MRO capability in the long term is an extremely attractive political proposition for the UK helicopter industry, and the OEMs all know this. In the good old days, there were all kinds of offsets and weird industrial "benefits", many of which had no relevance to the procurement, however, this is a tremendous opportunity for UK business to drive the support capability to a UK solution - and although the UK is a member of NATO, it is no longer a member of the EU, and needs to take this opportunity to benefit the UK in the long term as a primary goal. It is worth considering the recent German CH-47F/CH53K competition which had no offset requirements at all, but both OEM's platforms involved full direct engagement with German industry because this was a mutually beneficial driver in the selection of the platform. Unfortunately, neither side seemed to be able to provide a solution within the customer's budget and the procurement was terminated, only to be challenged in court by Lockheed Martin who failed to convince the Judge that this was done illegally. So now the selection is looking for a US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) solution, as a means of managing full life cycle program cost. The current UK CH-47F procurement is an FMS case, so it remains highly likely that FMS solutions will feature, if nothing else, as a means of maintaining control of the budget!