Oz Defence to hire five helicopters from UK to fill gap left by Taipan retirement

[artee]

Defence to hire five helicopters from UK to fill gap left by Taipan retirement

Daniel Hurst in The Guardian

The Australian Defence Force will hire five helicopters from the UK over the next five years as part of moves to fill a capability gap left by the early withdrawal of the Taipan fleet.

The federal government will announce today that it will procure five H135 “Juno” training helicopters from the United Kingdom through a lease arrangement, saying this will “support essential training requirements for army aircrew”.

The government will also confirm that the United States is delivering nine new Black Hawk helicopters this year. That will mean a total of 12 Black Hawk helicopters will be in Australia by the end of 2024. This number is believed to include the accelerated delivery of three Black Hawk helicopters that the US and Australia announced four months ago.

It’s part of a plan to acquire a fleet of 40 UH-60M Black Hawks from the US. While 12 of them will be here by the end of 2024, the remaining 28 will arrive in staged deliveries between 2025 and 2029.

[Mike51]

Presumably the ones that were bought for the aborted Gazelle replacement project?

[rattman]

Not sure what i has to do with taipans. They are being sent to army training facility at Oakey, if they were anything to do with taipans they would have been sent to townsville or more likely they would have leased some more AW139's from toll helicopters adding them to the existing 3 on lease

[SLXOwft]

Preumably the Junos are to replace the MRH-90 the Army Aviation Training Centre had on strength.

To support essential training requirements for Army aircrew, Australia will procure five H135 ‘Juno’ training helicopters from the United Kingdom.

They also had the MRH-90 full mission simulator at Oakey and as Blackhawks are due to operate fron Oakey and Holsworthy. I assume the Blackhawk crew trainer will be at Oakley too.

The Australian Army will also receive early delivery of a Black Hawk aircrew training simulator and other essential items.

(Both quotes from a statement released under Richard Marles's name)

[rattman]

Originally Posted by SLXOwft

Preumably the Junos are to replace the MRH-90 the Army Aviation Training Centre had on strength.

These are a basic flight trainer, that already happens through the combined army / navy program at HMAS Albatross with the Navy H135. Must mean the combined flight training program is no longer needed and is being cancelled or decreased in scope as I dont see 5 HC135 being enough for the army size

[SLXOwft]

Could it be to keep the MRH-90 pilots in some degree of currency while the replacement fleet ramps up? The Juno lease expires in '29 when the last Blackhawk is due to be delivered.

[rattman]

Originally Posted by SLXOwft

Could it be to keep the MRH-90 pilots in some degree of currency while the replacement fleet ramps up? The Juno lease expires in '29 when the last Blackhawk is due to be delivered.

Theres leased AW139 from toll aviation for that role, 3 of them are in townsville (theres definately 2, allegedly the 3rd transferred up from holdsworthy, but I have not seen 3 on the flight line so might not exist) and 2 in darwin. The 2 in darwin are emergency / crash response birds for 1 aviation and its tigers and think the 3 in townsville are for 'non military taskings' and concurrency for 5th

And with 1 aviation starting to move to townsville this year guess all 5 will be there by the end of this early next year