Reminds me of the British Chinook HC.3 procurement.
Decision leaves navy in parlous state
COMMENT: Patrick Walters | March 06, 2008
FINALLY, Joel Fitzgibbon has bitten the bullet.
A year ago, Brendan Nelson, as defence minister, wanted to cancel the $1 billion Seasprite helicopter program, having been advised that a full operational capability was still years away.
But with an election looming, John Howard's national security committee walked away from his recommendation, anxious about the adverse political fallout.
In the end, the Defence Department simply lost confidence both in the Seasprite platform and the ability of US prime contractor Kaman to eventually deliver a fully "mission capable" aircraft.
This was despite the fact that nine of the 11 helicopters had been handed over to the commonwealth and Kaman's stated confidence that all the technical glitches identified by the customer had been addressed.
The junked Seasprites, which could cost the taxpayer as much as $1.3 billion, are a monumental defence debacle -- arguably the worst in the modern era.
The sorry saga will be studied by generations of defence procurement experts as a classic case of how not to go about a major equipment purchase.
The Seasprite project dates back to the early 1990s, when the navy wanted a helicopter for its planned "Offshore Patrol Combatant", a smaller warship it planned to build in partnership with Malaysia.
When the Malaysians pulled out, Defence should have axed the project, but the Seasprites were then earmarked for the Anzac-class frigates, with a contract finally signed in 1997.
Australia's Defence Department stands indicted for approving an "orphan platform" uniquely designed for our navy with the extraordinarily ambitious aim of incorporating state-of-the-art avionics into a 1960s airframe.
As Nelson once observed, the Seasprite program was like trying to fit an EH Holden into a 2010 motor vehicle. [sic? - shouldn't it be modern computing/avionics into a EH Holden]
While Kaman incurred major problems in fulfilling the original contract, much of the blame must be sheeted home to the Defence Department and its successive decision-making failures in regard to the Seasprites.
Kaman has continued to insist that problems with the Seasprite's avionics and combat systems integration have been solved, but Defence has had serious doubts that it would ever perform fully in line with contract specifications.
Fitzgibbon, as Defence Minister, has had the courage to act, ending two years of procrastination by the Howard government. But his decision leaves the navy's Fleet Air Arm in a parlous state, with the Sea King fleet due to be phased out and the Seasprites abandoned.
The navy's Anzac frigates face a lengthy period without an adequate helicopter-borne maritime strike and surveillance capability.