The Yarmy Gets New Helicopters to Bolster Defence (and Wirraway's Over the Hill.....)

[air-hag]

"The Yage"

August 31, 2004 - 1:27PM

The Australian Army is to be equipped with 12 Eurocopter NH-90 troop transport helicopters under a $1 billion deal announced by the federal government.

Prime Minister John Howard and Defence Minister Robert Hill said today the government had selected Australian Aerospace to supply the new aircraft to bolster the nation's counter-terrorism capabilities.

"The helicopter can carry up to 18 troops plus four crew or 4,000 kilograms of under-slung cargo, cruises at up to 300kph and has a maximum range of over 900 kilometres," they said in a statement.

The government chose the Eurocopter aircraft over the latest variant of the Black Hawk helicopter supplied by US firm Sikorsky.

Sikorsky had offered 48 UH-60M Black Hawk aircraft.

The British Special Air Service recently opted for four modified NH-90s for use in special operations.

- AAP

[Captain Sand Dune]

Hmmmmmmmmmm......so let's see. Army will now have Hueys, Kiowas, Chinooks, Blackhawks, with the ARH and EH90 to come. The Navy will have Squirrels, Seakings, Sea Hawks and Sea Sprites. 10 different helicopters.
Why was more Blackhawks for the same money a bad idea?

[Chronic Snoozer]

The Huey and Kiowas will be phased out apparently. Source: Asian Defence Journal 8/2004

[itchybum]

As far as I know, the Aussie Tiger (ARH) will replace the Kiowa as the recon helo. I suppose it will replace the Huey in the gunship role, as well.

You can't beat the Chook for load-carrying (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/ch-47d.htm) so I doubt they will be going. But who knows, it's been a while since the ADF learnt the lesson with the chooks the last time when they threw them all away then found they couldn't carry anything bigger than a Land Rover anywhere.

The SeaKings will be gone soon and the Sea Sprites should be following them since the the navy has no need for them whatsoever. Another brilliant def contract in action there.

The S70A can carry 11 troops nearly as far or the same underslung load. Surely another 48 of them would've been better? If they want Spec Ops machines, take the MH60 if the yanks are prepared to let the technology out.

I see CS has pointed out the same wrt the huey and kiowa.

[Obiwan]

Cracks in the external fuel tank mounts is supposedly a problem on our Blackhawks - although the Army was told not to fly with them on all the time...

[Captain Sand Dune]

OK, so take out the Kiowa, Huey and the Seaking. That still leaves us with 7 rotary wing types operated by a small defence force. We just don't do ourselves any favours.
OK, so the Blackhawk doesn't carry as much as the EH90. However it's battle proven and would have commonality with the existing Blackhawk. We are just too small not to disregard the logistical advantages of type commonality.
And don't start me on the cracking in the UH60A fuel tank mounts......
(Steps down from soap box, takes a Bex and lies down for a bit)

[AIRWAY]

( Very Long )

Got this on the email not sure if anyone is interested but here it goes:





TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
DEFENCE ANNOUNCEMENT
DEFENCE OFFICE, RUSSELL





E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………




PRIME MINISTER:

Well, Minister, Acting CDF, ladies and gentlemen. The Minister and I have called this news conference to announce the Government’s decision that the Australian Army will be equipped with 12 new trooplift helicopters under a $1 billion project approved by the Government. The Government has selected Australian Aerospace to supply the new MRH-90 aircraft to form an additional troop lift helicopter squadron, subject to satisfactory conclusion of negotiations. This will bolster not only our trooplift capacity because of the state of the art technology associated with the new helicopters, but it will also release a squadron of Blackhawks and they will be shifted to Sydney to reinforce the ADF special forces under the arrangements that were announced some 18 months ago. The new helicopters will be located at Townsville. The first will be delivered in 2007 with all 12 aircraft expected to be delivered by 2008.

It’s been estimated that the new squadron will increase the Army’s trooplift capability by more than one half. And as I noted earlier, it will allow the relocation of a Blackhawk squadron elsewhere. I want to invite Senator Hill to say something further about the project and then I understand, General Leahy, the Chief of the Army, will also provide some further information.

ROBERT HILL:

Thank you, Prime Minister. I wanted to thank all of those involved within Defence in this selection process. It has been a demanding and exhausting process, a very detailed evaluation of the capabilities on offer. And the Government’s very much appreciated the efforts of the project team and of the Services and others who contributed. We are confident that the right choice has been made, particular emphasis upon the amphibious capabilities. This is the state-of-the-art helicopter, a European helicopter, fly-by-wire system with a longer range, some 900 kilometre range, able to carry a larger number of troops - up to 20 in patrol order. It has electronic folding blades, it has ditching capabilities, it has particular suitability for the amphibious role and therefore will complement the new amphibious ships that the Government is committed to purchase. And for those of you who follow
these things, you’ll know that if you go back to the 2000 White Paper, the commitment was in phase two of this project to purchase an extra squadron of helicopters, particularly with an emphasis on the amphibious task.

Australian Aerospace, we’ve already established a good partnership with them in relation to the production of the Tiger which is being produced, most of them are being assembled in Brisbane. The project’s going extraordinarily well and there’ll be some areas of overlap between the two projects. We’re hoping the new helicopters will also be assembled in Brisbane and in the industry package that is to be negotiated, we’ll look for a number of other enhanced… capability enhancements, particularly in relation to the strategic area. For phase four of the project, which was the upgrading or replacement of the existing Black Hawk helicopters we’ll continue in accordance with the original timetable, which was that the Government would make a decision on that in the 05-06 period. We did consider the possibility of combining the two phases together but in the end were persuaded that each of these
two helicopter types have particular strengths, characteristics that we require at this time. The Army particularly sees the counter terrorism capabilities and the Black Hawk as important and yet the European helicopter was seen as ahead in the amphibious role.

So we believe the best interests of the Defence Force and therefore the country is served at this stage by retaining the fleet of 35 Black Hawks whilst at the same time enhancing the capability of the Army by the purchase of these twelve new larger, in terms of troop carrying capability, helicopters that will really take us into the future. It’s a type that’s in enormous demand, as those of you who follow these things will also know, I gather there’s now about 370 firm orders from nine different countries for this new European helicopter. Ours will be modelled on the German Army’s variety, slight variances in them. They are now being delivered, the first being delivered to the German Army and it’s going through its full certification process now.

So it very much is state-of-the art helicopter with considerable potential for further development as the years go by. And with that, I think we’ll ask General Leahy to briefly tell us how the Army will operate this helicopter.

GENERAL LEAHY:

Thank you Minister. With that comprehensive rundown of the helicopter, I’m not sure there’s much more I can say. But I do know that perhaps we should make the Minister an honorary member of the Army Aviation corps.

I’d like to stress that this helicopter acquisition will improve the ADF and Army’s overall capability. And I think I should stress the joint capability and the amphibious nature of the ADF. It will enhance our troop capacity, as you’ve heard, and that would be both in the land but importantly in the maritime environment. And as we plan and develop our capability to operate off our current and our planned troop lift ships the capabilities inherent in this helicopter will mean that we’ll be much more developed and much more joint and a much more capable force.

It will also enhance Army’s capability as a hardened and networked Army. We’ll be able to provide government with a wide range of options for a whole range of contingencies from war fighting, peace operations, nation building and, as you’ve heard very clearly, in counter terrorism.

We are looking very clearly in the future and our amphibious capability and we see that the joint capabilities developed will enhance our ability to operate in the littoral environment. You’ve heard some of the characteristics of the helicopter and if I could just stress again the enhancements to our overall troop with capacity will improve it by about 50 per cent. This helicopter can carry 18 fully equipped troops, each troop will have a crashworthy seat. It’s got a very flexible equipment payload capacity because it has a rear ramp. It will be equipped with electronic warfare self protection. It can be then, with its singular capabilities, be very fully integrated into our combined arms team. We see that it will operate seamlessly with the Armed Reconnaissance helicopter, the Abrams tank and with our infantry, with our armour and our artillery. The helicopter has a digital cockpit
configuration, it has moving maps and it has digital data link, again adding to its capacities as a combined arms team member. It will improve our air mobile capacity in the 3rd brigade and this helicopter will be located in Townsville.

The Prime Minister’s already spoken about the fact that we can now further consider the relocation of the counter terrorism squadron of Black Hawks, A squadron, to the Sydney area. There they’ll be able to fully train with and develop operational procedures with 4 RAR (Commando) and a Tactical Assault Group (East). This will improve our capacity for the domestic act of the war against terror.

I see that this is a very positive announcement for Army and the ADF. I’m very happy to be here and I guess we’ll be able now to answer your questions.

JOURNALIST:

Geoff Barker, Australian Financial Review. General, how will this acquisition help towards achieving the Army’s ambition of, you know, rationalising its helicopter forces and having less different types of helicopters in service?

GENERAL LEAHY:

To introduce this helicopter we’ll be withdrawing as part of the plan the current Iroquois. So we’ll be looking at the same numbers of fleets and, as the Minister has outlined, there’s further consideration as part of phase four of Air 9000 to see where we might go and that will be quite properly done in due course.

JOURNALIST:

Mr Howard, Ian McPhedran from News Limited. We don’t see you at many of these defence contract announcements. Is it… your presence here got something to do with the election?

PRIME MINISTER:

Oh, I think I’ve been at these before. I don’t come to all of them, but I happen to be in Canberra and I happen to participate as Chairman of the National Security Committee of Cabinet in the final decision. So that’s the reason I’m here. You can make other observations if you want to, but this is not the first it I’ve come to Russell in relation to announcements, it’s not the first time I’ve been associated with acquisition announcements either. Not always. But I keep a very keen interest in them, as the Minister knows.

JOURNALIST:

Mark Forbes from The Age. Minister, did the Cabinet submission that went out on this recommend the MRH-90 or the Sikorsky?

ROBERT HILL:

We don’t obviously detail… provide details of Cabinet submissions or Cabinet debate. This is a decision of government and it’s on the advice and with the support of the Defence Force, as you’ve heard from General Leahy, or if you want to hear it from others, the Acting Chief of the Defence Force can speak and so forth.

JOURNALIST:

Minister, Lincoln Wright from the Sunday Herald Sun. Were you offended by comments last night by the President Bush’s former terrorism adviser that Australia’s contribution to Iraq is insignificant?

PRIME MINISTER:

Is that directed at me?

JOURNALIST:

Oh, either one.

PRIME MINISTER:

Well, I saw his…a large part of his interview last night. I thought he made an interesting comparison between the stances of opposing political parties to incumbent administration. I don’t want to go any further than that. I’d rather not develop that theme that might be seen as political, here. I’d be happy to talk about it somewhere else, not here because of the venue. It’d be appropriate if you asked me and I’m very happy to talk outside but I’d rather not answer ultra political questions on this podium if you don’t mind with the leadership of the Defence Force present – I don’t think that’s appropriate.

JOURNALIST:

Mr Howard, Michelle Grattan of The Age. You might want to move this one too, but…

PRIME MINISTER:

Sounds as though... if you’re asking it Michelle, I think I’m almost certainly going to...

JOURNALIST:

It’s not very hard at all.

PRIME MINISTER:

No.

JOURNALIST:

You were around when approval was given for the Ranger uranium mine… much talk in those days of safeguards. Could you give us a comment on the latest developments on that?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well, I would have been around, yes, I think that came out of the Fox Inquiry, did it? Is that right?

JOURNALIST:

Indeed.

PRIME MINISTER:

And well, we agree on that and I think the… it followed a very lengthy process. I think the only comment I make is that given the material that has come to light, the proper procedure has been followed and the right steps have been taken.

JOURNALIST:

General Leahy, I understand that the flyers, the aviators themselves favour the other option in this contract and were a bit concerned about the manning issue and about the manning issue generally of being (inaudible) comment on that on the shortages of air crew?

GENERAL LEAHY:

Oh, well, the first thing is – there are no shortages of air crew, we’re well served by our air crew at the moment. I wouldn’t characterise that the flyers preferred one option over the other. What I would say is that all competitors in this acquisition have been very competitive, it’s been a very close run thing and we’ve seen from Army, from the project team, I think an enormously difficult task done very professionally and very well. We’ve got differing points of view. I think the point is that we’ve got a good helicopter, we’ve got a good result and we can really do something with this capability.

[What Red Line?]

Good to see some sense in embracing new technology. We don't need another deal like the tired old Seasprites or any more 1970's design Blackhawks either. This is the 21st century.

Could you imagine the Chief of Army taking delivery of his shiny new car in 2004 and finding it is a '78 Kingswood.

[HarveyGee]

1 billion is 1000 million, right? For which we get 12 helicopters. That's 83 million each. So the yarmy could have had 36 Cessna Caravans for troop transport for each one of these mind-blowingly expensive beasts. What's going on here? This just doesn't sound right, or sensible to me.

[What Red Line?]

HG

The overall price does sound high but it isn't just the purchase price of the basic helicopters. You will find that its the price for a whole package that includes the helicopter purchase and things like crew training, training simulators and full through life support for 20 years or so, plus an absolute welter of other things we couldn't even imagine.

[wessex19]

so when the Sea King goes, we will have the Army conducting all maritime helo utility ops at sea!!! I think it would of been a wiser move to put the NH 90 into service with 817 Squadron and pay off the old ladies with dignity with the NH 90's introduction.
Just a thought.

[Bobster]

Gee wessex19, your've set me thinking about re-forming 5, 9 and 12 squadrons.

Dons helmet and flack jacket.

[itchybum]

HarveyGee...... Caravans?? Have you ever tried to fastrope out of one? You get one and some fearless volunteers to trial the technique and I will supply the beers and belly-laughs.

I read that some of these helicopters are going to be "spec-ops" machines for the chicken-stranglers. That probably means they come with guccier (and much pricier) kit inside. Might help explain the price-tag.

[ftrplt]

Its a 1 billion project - that will mean there are entire service life support costs included in the price tag

It would be a lot more comprehensive and inclusive than a pure cost of purchase price

[HarveyGee]

So, itchybum, you would have me believe that every time the Yarmy transports troops, they fastrope out at the destination. I'm talking about balance - about spending these huge amounts of money in a way that gives the poor old taxpayer value, as well as bang for the buck. It seems to me that the Yarmy has succeeded in replacing the Porters with helicopters, without anyone noticing. And whilst helicopters are wonderful things with superb capabilities, they are also complex, and expensive to buy and run - in this case, it would seem, exceedingly so. I repeat - a massive addition to the fixed wing capability could have been had for a mere fraction of this money. I remain sceptical that these funds are being spent to best advantage.

[itchybum]

No Harveygee, I never said that the Yarmy always fastrope, did I? Of course they don't but they do have the option too. With a fixed wing aircraft they do not. If the Yarmy need to go somewhere in larger numbers and perhaps less tactically, they call the Raff who are kind enough to supply a C-130 or DHC-4, if they haven't already knocked off for the day.

For the YAyDF, who don't have the cash to buy EVERYthing they want, this is, I presume, considered to be the balance of which you speak.

I noticed the Porters were sold. But with a speed of less than 120Kt and a capacity of 8, there wasn't much they could do that a helo could not unless you value high angle, beta-mode rocket salvoes closer to vertical than a helo could achieve. They reckon it came in handy in forested areas of 'Nam.

I do not know the actual reasons they were sold. There are enough ex-army Porters still dropping meatbombs around the world that they obviously didn't run out of hours.

The NH90 will carry more troops further, faster than the porter fleet. But I cringe whenever I see something Euro added to the inventory.

[Obiwan]

itchybum I do not know the actual reasons they were sold. There are enough ex-army Porters still dropping meatbombs around the world that they obviously didn't run out of hours. I thought it was to re-equip them with unsold Nomads?

[itchybum]

Are they STILL operating the Gonad???

[Obiwan]

I think they got rid of them after the tail fell off one. Not good enough for the Army but our neighbours fly lots of them still in the defence role. There was a pretty interesting write up in a recent Aero Australia mag. Always had a soft spot for the Nomad after watching 'Flying Doctors' as a youngster, although that spot is probably in my head... :p

[ausdoc]

HarveyGee, I think you'll find that the Porters were replaced with Nomads, then KingAirs and Twotters, not helos.

[HarveyGee]

Ausdoc, that's my whole point. Three Kingairs and two Twotters (which I understand they don't even own) does not constitute an adequate or sensible fixed wing capability, or a replacement for the Porters. In reality, the helos have taken over.

[Pass-A-Frozo]

I'm still curious why anything with rotary wings on it has to be Navy or Army. Army troop lift eh. I suppose we should hand over the Caribou's and Herc's to them as well. The army will have more aircraft than the RAAF with in a few decades.

:cool:

[Ogsplash]

Pass-A-Frozo...and the problem with that is??????????

[OZBUSDRIVER]

I may stand corrected here. I think the army already own the Hercs and Caribou (at least in a budget sence).

As for ArmyAv, If the pilots could actualy fly the things like they were meant to, maybe things would be different.:E

[itchybum]

Maybe the army feel that if they had the tactical fixed-wing transports (which spend a fair amount of time transporting or inserting army personnel) they might actually get to experience the novelty to have:
1. the Herc actually turn up to fly the grunts around and
2. the pilots not "run out of duty hours" just about beer o'clock.

What does the RAAF need heloes for? The mud-moving Hornets should be next so the army can make sure the Mk82s land exactly where they are meant to and on time.

[Captain Sand Dune]

OK then..........

So why does a small defence force like ours have three air arms?
Why not transfer all Army and Navy aviation assets to the RAAF?
To any pollies out there - think of the money it'll save!:}

[Pass-A-Frozo]

You're surely not going to start throwing mud at the RAAF for servicability. You're joking right. Let's compare servicability rates for blackhawks vs Hercs.

Captain Sand Dune is right. It's an expensive way of doing business. You have an entire service structured around operating aircraft, yet the other two services insist on also operating aircraft. While the RAAF controls a lot of the higher issues, it's still expensive to duplicate support functions for aircraft.

As for what does the RAAF need Helo's for -- I'm interested, what do you think the role of the RAAF is. It's simple, Air Power -- and choppers fit into Air Power.

[wessex19]

Captain Sand Dune: good point however there are many reasons why each force operate there own aircraft. Take for example a Seahawk pilot. Although he/she flies the machine, he/she is primarily firstly a Naval Officer. Generally has completed not only their aviation training, but some seamanship training (in many instances have a Bridge Watch Keeping Certificate), Naval Officer training, all the requirements to go to sea (eg NBCD, Helo and ship escape training etc). It takes a long time to get someone to the point where they are trained to fly off an FFG or an Anzac and be truely part of the team!! Its more than just talking the talk and walking the walk!! The Air Department is just one department on a ship with each relying on the other!!
I remember once chatting to the Captain of HMAS Onslow (now retired submarine) and it was in his opinion that it was harder to avoid detection by a RAN Tracker than a RAAF P3B because the Tracker Crew were taught to think like submariners.