How a helicopter deal flew into trouble
"We should never have bought them in the first place," said Aldo Borgu, an adviser to former defence ministers John Moore and Peter Reith and now a director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The plan to build a unique helicopter was unrealistic and poorly executed, and was designed for a proposed Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) to be built jointly with Malaysia. The patrol vessel never got off the ground.
"Once the OPV didn't go ahead, the rationale for buying a smaller helicopter disappeared," Mr Borgu said.
"There was a problem with not connecting the helicopter purchase to the OPV purchase," Mr Borgu said. "When cabinet decided to kill off the OPV nobody thought about the Seasprites. It's adding an additional helicopter platform to the ADF unnecessarily as the Anzacs could take the Seahawks."
A senior member of the Seasprite project agrees the deal should have been scrapped. "It's smarter to get 27 Seahawks rather than 16 Seahawks and 11 Seasprites," he said.
Mr McLachlan said he has no recollection of the Defence Force ever telling him of the pivotal link between the patrol vessel project and the Seasprites.
Despite the belief that the patrol vessel the Seasprites were designed for would never be built, Defence - never keen to reject already-committed funds - went ahead and signed the $660 million helicopter contract with Kaman.
That contract contained the seeds of today's fiasco, Defence insiders admit. Ever ambitious, Defence wanted to build a high-tech helicopter at a bargain price. The number of helicopters ordered had shrunk to fit under the price cap and it was determined to go for an option that would cut costs further, rebuilding surplus US navy helicopters up to 40 years old.
Expecting Kaman to install a new, sophisticated weapons and avionics system into these "old birds" is where the project came to grief, insiders said.
Too much was expected of Kaman in too short a time. The Seasprite deal was Kaman's biggest ever and the company was no big-time defence player. Founded by eccentric inventor Charlie Kaman, who also designed the Ovation electric guitar, it has made more in recent years from musical instrument sales than aerospace. "The Commonwealth has signed up to an unachievable contract at an unachievable price," said one senior member of the project team. "The whole thing was set up for failure."
It was unfair to blame Kaman, said one official who played a key role in the contract. "Defence has to realise you can't lay all the risk and blame on this little company," he said
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