UKs NEW MEDIUM HELICOPTER PQQ DECISION - BACK TO THE 1980s?

In 2018 I posted an?article on military helicopter procurement in the United Kingdom?referencing an earlier competition in the 1980s which led to the public resignation of the Defence Secretary (Michael Heseltine) and the start of the decline of the then Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher).??That project,?AST 404,?was for a battlefield support helicopter which would replace the Puma and Wessex, this time with NMH it is a competition to replace a number of types and roles.??These are:

·??????Puma as a Support Helicopter

·??????Dauphin N3 as a Special Forces helicopter

·??????Bell 412 as a Support and SAR Helicopter (Cyprus)

·??????Bell 212 as a Support Helicopter (Brunei)

Offers from Airbus, Boeing, Leonardo, and Lockheed Martin have been successful in passing the pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) stage. Offers from Bell and AceHawk Aerospace did not pass.??Airbus is offering the H175M, Leonardo the AW149, and Lockheed Martin the S-70M Black Hawk with Boeing believed to be . offering the MH-139 Grey Wolf.??In a sense these aircraft represent the current new build medium lift challengers to western defence organisations but there is more at play here than just a conventional procurement decision based on performance, cost and time.

This is a battle that has been underway for some time with each of the main players, excluding Boeing, making very public marketing announcements and demonstrations with a large focus on ‘UK content’.??It is no secret that Britain’s place in the defence industrial world has had helicopters at its core since the end of the Second World War.??Although rationalisation has eaten away at the core elements of this, Leonardo’s factory at Yeovil remains a major OEM facility and one where AW101, AW159 and AW189/149 continue to be built to varying degrees.??With recent decisions on Apache and the DHFS training helicopter having gone the way of Off The Shelf purchases from the United States and France, there are precious little maritime helicopter programmes in the pipeline. The long term success of the Yeovil business as a manufacturing facility is therefore, heavily hedged toward the AW149 despite other Mid Life Update projects underway for international customers.

Airbus nonetheless has been forceful in pushing its UK credentials, its Oxford HQ having previously been utilised on the AS365N3 Special Forces helicopter and the Puma??life extension programme (although actually most of the work was completed in Romania).??This time a commitment to build a new facility on Deeside, actually an offshoot of the Airliner wing factory, has been utilised as the political lever it knows it needs to get any real headway as a ‘made in the UK product.??The Achilles heal to all this flag waving is that Airbus jointly developed the H175 helicopter with the Chinese and there may be concerns over how exactly Airbus might firewall the product from this.??Real questions remain though whether this is really little more than just an ‘assemble from parts’ activity or the institution of a true manufacturing plant that will last longer than the nominal 25 or so aircraft production run.

Lockheed Martin Sikorsky, although technically in a good position due to the phenomenal international success of the Blackhawk helicopter series, suffer from similar problems with UK input.??With an underused Polish subsidiary already able to manufacture the S70M, it is unclear how any offer could provide OEM like capability at the depth offered by LH.??The fact that they offered the S70M rather than the UH60M as a Foreign Military Sale is indicative of this problem alongside the fact that the NMH requirement is for more that just battlefield support.??In addition the ability to tailor a product to the details of the UK requirements set for installed equipment really isn’t something that works for FMS.

Although Boeing have not indicated the helicopter contained in their offer most commentators are firmly of the view that the MH139 (currently entering service with the USAF) will be the platform of choice.??Noting that this aircraft is, in effect a Leonardo product, one can easily see that should they win the company will have to use LH at Yeovil to produce the main elements taking advantage of the political element and of course, support to UK industry.??This would be similar to Lockheed Martin being the Prime Contractor on the Royal Navy’s grey Merlin fleet and would build on existing MOD expertise with Apache and Chinook.

As the UK heads towards a general election, by the latest in 2025, this is a competition full of pollical ramifications.??The loss of much of the UKs defence aviation industry to both US and European control over the past 3 decades means that the defence industrial strategy of successive governments (of all parties) has failed to define any meaningful ‘strategic industries’ outside of military shipbuilding and perhaps fighter jets (with partners).??Yeovil and its surrounding area is heavily reliant on Leonardo Helicopters and the associated supporting businesses which none of the other competitors can claim about there offers – this is without the extended UK supply chain which is also in play.??

You might note that I have made no comment here on the individual helicopters and their capabilities.??This is deliberate on two levels, one that I want to focus on the defence political economy (it was my thesis after all) and the second that my current role really does preclude it.