Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Indeed funding could be an issue. OTOH it might not be, as the projected costs to operate and sustain the MRH in the numbers required could equal or exceed what the replacement and then operating costs might be for new Black Hawks. One thing which had struck me when I was doing some research on the early model Black Hawks in US Army service and the ANAO reporting from 2014 on the MRH90's in Australian. IIRC both reports indicated that their subject helicopters were falling sort of the respective project availability targets. From memory, the MRH90 was targeted for 60% availability but only managing 55%, while the Black Hawk was just failing to meet the US Army availability requirement of IIRC 80%.
If those availability rate requirements for the Black Hawk have held true to newer variants, then some of the trouble Army has had in meeting service outputs could be eased because fewer helicopters might need to be on standby.
The base flyaway costs from around about 2013 were:
MV-22 Osprey US$72 m / AU$95 m.*
NH90 €27 m / US$ 37 m / AU$42 m.*
So basically you could buy two NH90 for one Osprey. Whilst the MRH-90 is a variant of the NH90, it is not sufficiently different to cause a significant cost difference such as the NFH variant does at €36.4 m.
However it's like comparing apples to oranges because the Osprey is not a helicopter, but a tilt rotor offering a different capability set. It also has a major drawback in that it has a tendancy to announce its arrival long before it arrives so its not exactly sneaky.
* Rounded to nearest million.
I was thinking in terms of cost of ownership, the MRH being a maintenance hog and all.
An exaggeration but I was wondering how much more it would have cost to operate ospreys, which work, verses Taipans that don't.
The Osprey can be sneaky, yes you can hear them but can't always tell where the sound is coming from. They also tend to come in at high speed, medium altitude, then drop straight onto the LZ before opfor knows where they were going.
Not sure it would be a $10b+ billion dollar project unless you are counting also O&S which shouldn't be as that is money that would be spent on helicopters regardless if what type we operate.
Based on recent FMS sales some within the last 12 months to buy a UH60M including spares and associated support/training your looking at $50m USD per a bird so to replace every taipan we would be looking at around $3 billion AUD.
That's your upfront capital costs, if we want to see if it makes financial sense does any one have the flight hour cost for the nh90 and UH60M along with annual flight hour requirements for Australia?
Based on recent FMS sales some within the last 12 months to buy a UH60M including spares and associated support/training your looking at $50m USD per a bird so to replace every taipan we would be looking at around $3 billion AUD.
That's your upfront capital costs, if we want to see if it makes financial sense does any one have the flight hour cost for the nh90 and UH60M along with annual flight hour requirements for Australia?
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
Here’s my two cent comment on military medium lift helicopters. The CH-148 Cyclone saga has been a complete PITA acquisition made solely for political reasons. Will likely be years before before the actual verdict on its performance are finally known. The NH90 verdict has been rendered by others on this thread. Of the three naval medium lift helicopters developed over the last 30 years, only the Merlin has been reasonably successful, a selection which was made by a Canadian government 30 years ago but cancelled by a new incoming government resulting in a cluster f$&@ lasting decades.
The Merlin became successful; but, like many other similar programs it suffered early on. I remember being told by FONAC, 20 or so years ago, that of the dozen or so aircraft the RN then had no two had the same configuration; that they had both avionics and airframe issues, and that the logistic position was woeful. It seems to be a fact of military helo program life that the beginnings are “challenging”.
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Redlands18
Well-Known Member
I only have my memory to go on but I’m sure Bell-Boeing actually offered the MV-22 to Australia in the late 80s as the Huey replacement eventually won by the S-70A Blackhawk. Don’t think anyone took it very seriously at the time.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
The RCAF also has 14 CH-149s (EH101) which have been ok but you are spot on wrt logistics issues. The RCAF really lucked in when the EH101 derived Presidential helicopter program was cancelled. Canada got 7 complete frames and a bunch of assorted spares for $164 million, a rare procurement success story!
A look back in time to this ADM article for AIR 87
AIR 87 bids go in - Australian Defence Magazine
The four shortlisted contenders for Army's long-delayed Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter Project, Air 87, submitted their tenders for the $1.4 billion contract on April 30. But the program may face one...
www.australiandefence.com.au
A most unusual journey
Regards S
There are certainly cases where that's happened. IIRC it was the cause of the UK special forces Chinooks fiasco. Some avionics customised to MoD (not the users) requirements, & which turned out to be impossible to certify. The MoD's internal safety people said they couldn't prove they were safe to fly.
John Newman
The Bunker Group
Yes I do remember reading about that, it certainly was a f**k up!
Not to be outdone, we of course have the SH-2G(A) fiasco to look back on.
Cheers,
That’s a high end option — as you mentioned earlier, there are cheaper options that include the H225Ms.
Singapore’s five bladed H225Ms have the TopOwl helmet-mounted display (much like Australia’s Eurocopter Tiger) — this helps modernise the capability of this helicopter to conduct more difficult missions with greater ease.
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There was a bit of scuttlebutt from Andrew McLaughlin at ADBR, that ADF was keen on a larger Seahawk / Blackhawk / Pavehawk purchase…
Seahawk of unknown designation and numbers for RAN and Blackhawk / Pavehawk to replace the SF Light Helicopter project…
Considering Army is using Chinook to (pardon the pun) carry the load for MRH-90 in addition to it’s own role (hence the extra airframes) if a relatively common standard between the proposed RAN aircraft, the alleged SF requirement, there might be some scope to do something similar to what Sweden did?
This way they‘d gain a small, useable TTH capability with a few extra Seahawk / Blackhawk / Pave Hawk airframes and might be aboe to reduce the number of MRH-90 ‘in-service’ to balance up the sustainment side of things and actually gain some useable capability from Army’s TTH fleet?
Seahawk of unknown designation and numbers for RAN and Blackhawk / Pavehawk to replace the SF Light Helicopter project…
Considering Army is using Chinook to (pardon the pun) carry the load for MRH-90 in addition to it’s own role (hence the extra airframes) if a relatively common standard between the proposed RAN aircraft, the alleged SF requirement, there might be some scope to do something similar to what Sweden did?
This way they‘d gain a small, useable TTH capability with a few extra Seahawk / Blackhawk / Pave Hawk airframes and might be aboe to reduce the number of MRH-90 ‘in-service’ to balance up the sustainment side of things and actually gain some useable capability from Army’s TTH fleet?
Sea sprite, Tiger, MRH. Not a good procurement record. Seasprite 100% our fault. Can we put the others down to French engineers? Have you hear about heaven and hell?
in heaven the French are the cooks, the Italians the lovers, the English the police, the Germans the engineers and the Swiss run the place.
In hell the Swiss are the cooks, the English the lovers, the Germans the police, the French are the engineers and the Italians run the place.
The French do have a car ...the Renault that has a car jack as it’s emblem.Renault
in heaven the French are the cooks, the Italians the lovers, the English the police, the Germans the engineers and the Swiss run the place.
In hell the Swiss are the cooks, the English the lovers, the Germans the police, the French are the engineers and the Italians run the place.
The French do have a car ...the Renault that has a car jack as it’s emblem.Renault
At least one of the "French" engineers on NH90 was an Australian and if he did on that program what he did on the program I knew him from, it explains an awful lot.
Procurement from the mid 90s was a total mess. I can not think of a single project kicked off after 95 that actually delivered what it was meant to, when it was meant to, if it managed to deliver anything at all.
In hindsight the reasons why are obvious. Cost cutting efficiency drives and commercialisation, in the post Cold War era, compounded by layer upon layer of policy and compliance, even though there were fewer experienced and competent people in defence to undertake it.
Core ADF engineering capability, uniform and civilian, was gutted, engineering capability was outsourced and experimental procurement processes enacted. Government owned entities sold off, after being handed major projects to make them more attractive for sale.
At the same time government was often over ruling defence on what was to be bought, when, and from where. Post Timor and 9/11, when defence became a vote winner, PM&C often over ruled defence.
Then there was Kinnard, the procurement model that guaranteed defence got neither what it wanted or what it needed. It selected the prefered evolved / clean sheet design option that met or exceeded all the requirements, then competed it against the prefered zero / minimum change exiting option that failed to meet most of the requirement and had minimal growth factored in. This excluded every perfectly good enough solution that was lower risk and met most of the requirements.
John Newman
The Bunker Group
Yes I remember that too.
Andrew posted an article on ADBR that was only up for half a day or a day max, then it disappeared (from memory it was last year some time).
The article suggested that apart from the RAN replacing MRH-90 with MH-60 (which we know about), the article also suggested that instead of the Special Forces operating a mixed fleet of LUH and modified MRH-90, they would end up with a new Blackhawk fleet instead.
And that would mean that Army would have all 47 MRH-90 available for the MUH role.
Be interesting to see what eventually happens.
Cheers,
A few posts on Pad Thai and worse cooks on earth moved to: The best weapon for after the apocalypse
@Volkodav you make an amazing point there. I don't know how it is in Australia, but here in the Netherlands they keep removing military personel from the upper echelons in the defense department. One comment on that article calls it, they remove people who know about how to run a military because they're difficult and exchange them for someone who won't talk back.
And even if I'm not the biggest fan of buying French, their defense industry works a lot better for their country than most. And I think a big part of that is that they're still somewhat like state companies. Unlike in a lot of other countries where the government let their defense industry be picked apart by the vultures of "liberalism" and "peace dividend".