A good start would be to close Abbey Wood.

Reminds me of UKSAR2G, come up with a laborious tender regimen and ridiculous assessment criteria which prevents innovative solutions and forces tenders to withdraw rather than spend additional cash to get through the next gate...

The irony in all this is LM informed MOD in April and were vehemently told not to tell anyone of their intent not to submit. It’s a freaking joke, DHels (oh look Bethell got promoted 🙄) and Army Futures need holding to account. Time to spend the money elsewhere one feels and take a capability holiday!

So, the hairbrush solution is to:
extend the Puma at xxx millions;
purchase a untested ‘M’ version of an O&G design at xxx millions
which will save you money even if we still don’t know how much an ‘M’ version will cost……

It’s OK because Keith Bethell got promoted within DE&S for another failure.

Sounds like this one has finally died after a long battle, would anyone like to say a few words?

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-...es-2024-11-20/

No it doesn't, it doesn't say anything of the sort!

The existing Puma fleet is to be retired in March 2025 when the current support contract expires. 6 Airbus Jupiter HC2 have been bought to replace the current Puma's deployed to Cyprus and Brunei, and the new medium support helicopter contract will replace the remaining Puma fleet in 2027 onward.

Yes of course it will.

And Putin will hand over Crimea

And Liz Truss will get the Nobel Prize for Economics.

She will be runner up.
Rachel Reeves has it in the bag.

and the Mayor of London will retract the ULEZ if new medium support helicopter contract comes in.....

cheers

They absolutely have. Sounds like Maria Eagle is reading of a briefing sheet from Q1 2024. Leonardo are the only company to put anything forward for it....

I'm 90% sure that there will be no Puma replacement or NMH.

I can't see DE&S managing any evaluation process; surely they'll just sole source to Airbus like they have done the last two times. All that evaluation, requirements and value for money malarkey is hard work.

Much easier to just write a cheque to the French.

I think The UK Defence Journal is confusing matters, there was no reference to LM or Airbus still being involved, just that they had received the invitation to negotiate last February'

James Cartlidge asked six questions related to NMH, the civil servant drafting the answer used the same text in five answers for Maria Eagle to sign.

The sixth appeared to be digging about whether Blackhawk is still an option, I wondered if he was thinking about remanufactured ex-US Army pre-Ms . The question was flat-batted away.

Question: "To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending the operational lifespan of the Lockheed Martin UH-60 Black Hawk."

Answer: "The Department has not assessed the potential merits of extending the operational lifespan of the Lockheed Martin UH-60 Black Hawk as the Department does not own any."

[QUOTE]To ask the Secretary of State for Defence:
1) whether his Department plans to change the extant New Medium Helicopter competitive tender.
2) ... how many platforms his Department intends to procure through the New Medium Helicopter programme, in the context of his decision to decommission 17 Puma helicopters.
3) if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of his decision to retire (a) Chinook heavy transporter helicopters and (b) Puma helicopters on tender scoring for the New Medium Helicopter programme.
4) what his Department's planned timetable is for announcing the award for the New Medium Helicopter contract.
5) if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of his timetable for reaching 2.5% GDP of expenditure on defence on the progress of the New Medium Helicopter programme.

To all of which the answer was:

From thread https://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/65...sh-sar-15.html

As the usual suspects regurgitate the same narrative all over again: https://www.unitetheunion.org/news-e...-somerset-jobs

A fourth entry has entered the market to provide the RAF with a cheap Puma replacement to meet the needs and harsh reality of the UK’s financial predicament, development is ongoing.

And in another questionable move, oil and gas companies have finalised their acceptance of UH60s for offshore transport out of ABZ.

Not quite the passenger carrying capacity of an S-92.
Do you have an article one can review to understand this decision?

somehow I doubt that, no float system, no baggage bay etc best assault helo in the world but not an offshore machine and not civil certified for pax ops..

It was a just light hearted comment to draw a comparison to selecting the wrong aircraft for the job required.

Hey, this is a serious topic in a serious forum - no levity allowed!