, Over the next two years, fourteen additional helicopters will be made available for use on military operations, the Secretary of State for Defence, Des Browne has announced today.
The Ministry of Defence has agreed to buy six new Merlin helicopters, which will be available within a year and to convert eight existing Chinook Mark 3 helicopters to make them available for deployment in two years. The complete package will cost around £230 million.
Des Browne said:
“This is the best possible outcome for our joint helicopter force and for the Armed Forces as a whole. This package will deliver 14 additional military helicopters into new operational roles, with the first available for operations within a year.
“Battlefield support helicopters are one of the most crucial capabilities for military commanders. I am determined that we have enough if we need to send more to operations in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere.” The Merlin has already performed well on operations in Iraq. These six helicopters are brand new aircraft originally purchased by Denmark, the last delivered in January this year. They have not, however, entered operational service with the Danes.
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The UK has agreed in principle with the Danish Government and AgustaWestland that the Merlins will be transferred to the UK. Denmark will then receive six additional aircraft from AgustaWestland. We are grateful to the Danish Government for this agreement, which demonstrates once more the strong link between our two NATO nations.
The £175M firm cost will equip the UK Merlins with operational enhancements and the latest generation of advanced rotor-blades which will enhance their speed, range and lift. This will ensure good performance even in demanding environments like Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Chinook Mk3s were ordered in 1995 for special operations. They were delivered in 2001 but have been unavailable since then due to well reported technical problems.
Having taken military advice, the Defence Secretary has decided that given the high priority attached to supporting current operations, a better solution is to convert the Mk3s to a battlefield support role. This is judged to provide a lower delivery risk than other options considered for the Mark 3s and is the only one that provides significant enhancement to our Chinook helicopter capability in the next two years.
Work will begin immediately on the conversion, which will cost in the region of £50-60M.
Background Information
1. The package announced today will increase by 14 the number of battlefield support helicopters available for operations. All 14 will be fitted for operations but not all will be deployed at any one time. These measures will also improve the long-term sustainability of our helicopter fleet and increase the number available for any new contingent operations.
2. The MoD has been working hard to increase medium-term support helicopter availability. Last year, as part of the force enhancements in Afghanistan, two more Chinooks were deployed. There has been continual work on spares and crewing to increase the number of hours the aircraft can fly per month. Operational commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq have consistently and publicly confirmed that they currently have sufficient support helicopters to do the tasks required, although we can always do more with more. For example, Brigadier Jerry Thomas (Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan) has said, “Our success on operations would not have been possible unless our forces were properly equipped and supplied. To be clear, I have not asked for additional helicopters and the supply system is working well.”
3. The deal agreed in principle between the Secretary of State for Defence and his Danish counterpart will allow the UK to acquire 6 of the Merlins recently delivered to Denmark. This will increase the UK's battlefield Merlin fleet of 22 Merlin Mark 3s, by over 25% to 28 aircraft. The Merlin has a proven capability on operations.
The agreement with Denmark and AW has a cost to the UK of £174.7m, including: the airframes, some UK specific modifications including defensive aids, spares and “BERP IV” blades which offer improvements to speed, range and lift capacity of the platform, and will give the hot-high performance needed to deploy to Afghanistan. We should have a deployable capability early in 2008, and it would provide long term benefit to our support helicopter fleet. The aircraft will be based at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire alongside the rest of the Merlin fleet.
4. The Chinook is the mainstay of the support helicopters currently deployed in Afghanistan. In order to augment this fleet, the 8 specialist Chinook Mk3 aircraft currently grounded due to technical issues will be immediately converted to operational standard for the battlefield support helicopter role. This will deliver the aircraft into operations years earlier than previously anticipated – the current estimate is that they will start to be available for operations in two years, but we will refine this estimate as work progresses.
It will increase the size of the Chinook battlefield support helicopter fleet of 40 Mark 2 or 2a, by about 20%, to 48 aircraft. We estimate this work will cost about £50-60M, but further work is urgently underway to detail both the costs and the technical aspects of this conversion. The Chinooks will be based at RAF Odiham in Hampshire.
5. In addition to this package, we will continue the work previously established under the auspices of the Future Rotorcraft Capability (FRC) programme to ensure we are able to meet our battlefield support helicopter capabilities in the long-term. This includes plans to launch a competition early next year for a new medium-lift helicopter.
6. The active UK support helicopter force currently consists of:
22 Merlin Mk3
40 Chinook Mk2/2A
38 Puma
42 Sea King Mk 4/6c
Total: 142 aircraft
7. With the additional aircraft the UK support helicopter force will consist of:
28 Merlin Mk3
48 Chinook Mk2/2A
38 Puma
42 Sea King Mk 4/6c
Total: 156 aircraft
