A little extra context – in 2015 Polish Armed Forces selected H225 over AW149 and Blackhawk in a tender for around 50 frames (with few different missions). That order was cancelled in 2016 after elections. Polish government settled with Airbus few months ago (paying close to £20M for walking away).
While the current order is related to another program and mission profiles are different, it will inevitably be heavily contested – especially given that the selection process was not very transparent. There has been an ongoing conversation with potential suppliers (apparently, 12 of them…). LM was there, too – and with the assembly line in Mielec & 8 orders for S-70i to date (plus 3 for Police), it is likely that this announcement is not the end of challenges for Leonardo. There is a strong LM/Mielec lobby and a sort of status quo was maintained to date – to balance the S-70i orders, Leonardo is now supplying 4 AW101s.
Apparently, for this specific program, Leonardo was promoting AW139M with AW149 also on offer – but the focus was on the former. Given the requirement to carry 5 fully equipped troops or 1000kg, AW139 would probably do the job well enough. It is the Polish side that wanted AW149. The plan is to operate them in a safe distance from an adversary, reducing the need for ballistic protection etc. (and decreasing the appeal of S70).
It will be interesting to see how Leonardo navigates any potential promises/commitments for local build (beyond just assembly) if UK’s NMH ends up being AW149. Offset & job creation has been a major point in the 2015 tender debacle, although LM manages to get a drip of S70i orders without any offset (or tenders).
Also, hello everyone since it’s my first post
, Jakub