£6billion to be spent on Military Helicopters over the next decade

8/9/2019 6billion to be spent on Military Helicopters over the next decade

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6billion to be spent on Military Helicopters over the next decade

Lieutenant Colonel Adrian Palmer of the UK Joint Helicopter command speaks to Defence IQs

Bryan Camoens on the challenges, emerging capability requirements and the future of military

helicopters in Asia.

IQPC:What were some of the difficulties and challenges faced in terms of UK Rotary wing activity

in Afghanistan?

Lieutenant Colonel Adrian Palmer:

The operating environment provides the greatest challenges for helicopters in Afghanistan. We are

required to fly in a range of environments at any time of the day. Temperatures can vary widely

from -25 to +50 degC and can have a marked effect on aircraft performance and crews. They can

also affect our aircraft sensors and potentially limit their effectiveness. Added to the climate is the

harshness of the environment; every take-off and landing at austere operating locations exposes the

aircraft, its crew and its sensor suite to a pounding from highly abrasive sand and dust. In addition,the challenges presented by the extremely low ambient light conditions mean we rely on the

extraordinary courage and flying skills of our pilots to continue to operate in theatre.

As well as the environmental considerations, our enemies have prolific numbers of low tech

(unguided) weapons (such as Small Arms, Heavy Machine Gun, Light Anti Aircraft Artillery and

Rocket Propelled Grenades), which provide a major threat to helicopter activity.

IQPC:

What are some of the recent and emerging capability requirements that the UK Joint

Helicopter Command is currently working on?


In recent years we have increased our helicopter capability through:

o The provision of new helicopters, e.g. Danish Merlin Mk3A;

o The incorporation of new capabilities, e.g. engines, Defensive Aid Suites, weapons,

communication systems and avionics systems.

Many of these capabilities have been procured under the Urgent Operational Requirement process

(where capability gaps are addressed by rapidly procuring new or additional equipment, or

delivering enhancement or essential modification to existing equipment, in order to support a

current or imminent military operation; UORs meet Operation specific requirements).

Capability enhancements are matched to in-theatre requirements and are therefore not always fitted

to entire fleets. Joint Helicopter Command is working to bring all Battlefield Helicopters supporting

Land Operations to a common standard, with sufficient aircraft fitted for and fitted with specific

capabilities in order to sustain current ops, enable essential Pre-Deployment Training and to provide

a contingent capability. The aim is to significantly reduce fleets within fleet issues and bring a

majority of aircraft to a common, resilient standard. Such coherence within and across fleets should

optimise and reduce training burdens.

Ongoing capability requirements are focussed on the following:

o Surveillance: whilst our current capability, focussed on electro-optical/infra-red devices, is

already well-advanced, we need to look at increased ranges, lighter payloads, ongoingimprovements in sensor fusion and technologies such as Synthetic Aperture Radar to assist in

the Counter-IED battle.


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o Pilotage/Situational Awareness: we need to ensure our helicopter crews can operate during

the period of the night where there is insufficient moonlight and starlight for Night Vision

Goggles (NVGs) to provide a picture of adequate fidelity to allow safe flight. In addition, we

are focussing on the provision of advice and technologies that enable the maintenance of

situational awareness during the transition through dust/snow clouds, highlighting obstacles

on or approaching a landing zone. We also need to keep up with Future Helmet-Mounted

Displays and Night Vision Devices, making them lighter, panoramic, colour, etc.o Protection: aircraft and crew protection remains an ongoing area of development.

IQPC:

What does the future hold for UKs future Rotary Wing Strategy taking into account the

Chinook, Sea King, Merlin, Lynx Wildcat and Puma?


The key element of the UK MODs Rotary Wing Strategy is procurement of an additional 22 new-build Chinook (in addition to replacements for two destroyed in Afghanistan this summer). The first

10 Chinook will be delivered in 2012 and 2013. The strategys priority is support to operations

through it we will deliver, by 2016, some 40% more support helicopters suitable for operations in

Afghanistan.

More broadly we are rationalising the number of types of helicopters to four core fleets (Chinook,

Apache, Wildcat and Merlin) with much smaller niche fleets for specialised roles from the

retirement of the upgraded Puma fleet from 2022.

We are planning to withdraw all variants of our Sea King fleet by 2016. Its amphibious/battlefield

helicopter role and Airborne Search and Control role would potentially be subsumed within theMerlin Fleet. In the case of Search and Rescue capabilities this will be provided by a Private

Finance Initiative (alongside the Maritime and Coastguard Agency).

Our future strategy is part of a 6billion investment over the next decade on new helicopters and

upgrades to existing helicopters. This includes some 2.5Bn upgrading over 200 helicopters and

some 3.5Bn acquiring over 120 new helicopters.

Our previous plan to rationalise and replace the current medium fleet of Merlin, Puma and Sea King

with a Future Medium Helicopter (FMH) capability was re-analysed during 2009; taking into

consideration funding, requirement and task priority, and how best to maximise operationalflexibility. The key facets of the resulting Rotary Wing Strategy are to rapidly minimise the number

of helicopter variants, thereby significantly reducing the cost of ownership and delivering an

increase in lift capability as quickly as possible. So, with the majority of personnel and materiel lift

roles pointing towards larger helicopters with their greater latent capability and ability to lift

indivisible loads, we concluded that within our existing types we should focus much of our lift tasks

on the Chinook.

IQPC:

What are some of the challenges facing the JHC in future operations?



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Helicopters contribute to a wide range of military operations and environments. Assuming the

majority of our future operations will be expeditionary, as well as highly complex, extremely

demanding and potentially enduring, we will need forces which are adaptable across the scope of

conflict; from stabilisation operations right through to major combat ops simultaneously, and

capable of adapting rapidly to a changing tempo and the consequences of our own actions.

JHCs aircraft need to be able to lift troops, conduct medivac, datalink with UAVs and ground

forces, pass real time full motion video, and bring fires to bear if necessary. In the future theseaircraft will need to be able to swing between roles and operate across the spectrum of

environments more readily, notably from the sea to the land environments and back again. We will

also need to conduct realistic training with ground, maritime and air elements, utilising portable and

connected simulators.

In order to keep up with the increasingly cluttered and hostile aviation and networked battlespace,

our aircraft should be capable of rapid technology insertion. The crucial importance of having the

latest technology cannot be overstated. Technologies that we need to embrace and work with the

Defence Industry to develop are those which enable us to harness ever-increasing data generation

and capacity, and thus enhancing our ability to understand and interpret the future battlespace more

readily.

IQPC:

What are some of the untapped opportunities with regards to Military Helicopters in Asia

and how can these opportunities be fully utilized?


We need to capture and learn from the experiences other nations have had of operating in the types

of environments and against the types of threats we are currently facing. This will help us to ensure

that we continue to optimise the use of our aircraft whilst minimising through life costs.

In terms of opportunities, much depends on the actual audience at the Conference what are their

interests and levels of expertise.

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Lieutenant Colonel Adrian Palmer is a speaker at Military Helicopters Asia. For more information

on the event please contact Estrelita Masiglat at [email protected] .

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£6billion to be spent on Military Helicopters over the next decade