If the AW101 made sense as a cost effective platform for this bid, then it would be in the solution (just look at it’s runaway success in the offshore oil market), so let’s not bring UK manufacturing jobs into the equation when talking about saving lives.
Both the Danes and the Canadians have found out the hard way that they require a larger fleet of new build AW101’s in order to provide the same SAR coverage, and still both countries are struggling to achieve 50% operational availability. If testament were needed as to why the AW101 should be excluded from UK-SAR-H, then surely this is it.
The AW101 is a very high maintenance platform and as a result, a very expensive solution. Using both civil and military in-service operational availability data, just how many platforms would be needed to cover 12 bases and add to this the cost to the UK taxpayer over 25 to 30-years doesn’t bare thinking about.
Politically, building someone else’s platform in the UK looks good, but it adds substantially to the cost of the platform (think WAH-64) and as this is a competition, this notion fell by the wayside on day one.
This bid isn’t about protectionism, platform choice or UK jobs, it’s about providing the best SAR-H solution for saving lives for a cash strapped Government who is legally bound to provide (long-term) reliable SAR-H cover around our nations coastline.
PFI’s may not be the best solution for the UK taxpayer in the long-run, but a PFI is the Governments preferred choice and all the bidders since day one have merely responded to this chosen method. As the requirement is for UK coverage, there can be no doubt that a large part of the tax payer’s money will be recycled back into the UK economy through crewing, maintenance, support and even finance over the next 25 to 30-years.
Both Mil and Civil Rotary aviation has been my bag since leaving school many moons ago and as a result I’ve got to know a great many people within both sectors and I’ve also been following this PFI closely.
With the teams now whittled down to the last two and being so close to selection of a preferred bidder (assuming SAR-H is not canned by the very people who instigated it), I suspect the crews, engineers and heaven forbid - even most of the management involved in both the bidding teams are a nervous bunch of late and for them winning is not about profit or greed, but about coming out on top (and no not at any price) and the pride that is associated with being selected as the preferred choice to provide such a challenging and worthwhile service.
For the loser there is only disbelief and hurt (and a legal challenge I suspect), so good luck to both teams.