“This was not our finest hour and we’ve been living with the consequences.” So said Secretary of State for Defence Bob Ainsworth at Odiham on Wednesday 13th January. It’s a line Ainsworth has used before, and in the face of repeated questioning about the farcical procurement process that saw eight Boeing Chinooks, ordered for use by the UK’s Special Forces, living in a hangar at Boscombe Down, it was well-worth repeating again.
These aircraft were procured by the Conservative government back in 1995 but without sufficient risk analysis and with the MOD deciding it would conduct the work necessary to adapt the software to the required standard itself. It didn’t happen and, to cut a very lengthy story (which has been told many times) short, two years ago the decision was made to revert the airframes to Mk.2 standard.
There is little to be gained from continually going over the failures which made this, in the words of Public Accounts Committee “one of the most incompetent procurements of all time” and, with the UK’s support helicopter force working so hard in Afghanistan, maybe it is now time to move on and accept the contention that this is a “good news story”?
The positive outlook is certainly shared by the man who heads-up Joint Helicopter Command (JHC), Rear Admiral Tony Johnstone-Burt, and also Gp Cpt Steve Shell, Chinook Force Commander and RAF Odiham Station Commander. The eight aircraft, with uprated engines ideally suited to hot and high conditions, along with the instantly recognisable ‘fat tanks’ which deliver in the region of three hours additional endurance, will be ready to deploy, as required, later this year.
Two aircraft are already based at Odiham and, if it wasn’t for the severe wintry weather, a third would already have been delivered. Gp Cpt Shell flew the first one in himself and explained the processes being followed to bring the Mk.3 to operational status.
“As I said, we have two aircraft here now and a third ready for delivery, with a further three scheduled to arrive by the summer and all eight by the end of the year. All will arrive at Odiham fully-modified with the new engines, secure comms and self defence systems. These modifications, under the guises of Projects Julius, Benic and Baker respectively, will also be implemented across the whole RAF fleet.
“By the middle of next month we will have all our instructors ready to convert crews and an operational flight in place by July. Prior to that, in May, 100% of our engineers will have gone through the Differences Course and will be qualified to work on the aircraft. At the end of the year we’d ideally like to conduct a desert exercise with the Mk.3 and then they will become just another addition to the fleet and ready to deploy whenever they are needed.”
“This is a great day for JHC” said Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt.
“The key thing is now the training and ensuring our crews are the best they can be and that they are well-versed in working with the Army. Force Commanders love the Chinook as it is so flexible and adaptable, and I honestly believe that the people who work here at Odiham, and their families, are some of the best in NATO, continually showing great courage and fortitude.”
With an order for an additional 20 Chinooks announced on December 15th, along with two attrition replacements, the RAF fleet will eventually total some 70 aircraft, a number which Bob Ainsworth concedes may result in some being based at RAF Benson when deliveries commence in 2012, although this has yet to be definitively resolved. With Benson’s relatively close proximity to Odiham, the forthcoming navalisation of the Merlin Force (more of which later), along with the fact that the Chinook simulators are already at the Oxfordshire base – it would appear, on the face of it, a foregone conclusion.
It’s worth noting incidentally that Admiral Johnstone-Burt’s comment with regards to training references the fact that a fleet of 70 aircraft will clearly need more crews to man them, and while there are already 50 operational Chinook crews at present that figure will rise to 66 in a year’s time.
Also present at the event was Quentin Davies MP, Minister for Defence Equipment and Support. GAR took the opportunity to conduct a brief one on one interview with the Minister and asked him whether decisions such as those announced in December to close RAF Cottesmore and retire the Nimrod fleet early left the UK open to accusations that we are merely “robbing Peter to pay Paul and diminishing our long term capability to meet short-term goals?”
“Absolutely not. No one could accuse us of that. In the last year and a half we have made some incredibly important procurement decisions for the frontline in terms of vehicles, body armour, counter IED, electronic counter-measures and also helicopters. At the same time we have also signed a contract to build two 62,000 tonne aircraft carriers, we have signed a contract for the delivery of Tranche 3 of the Eurofighter Typhoon and signed a contract to purchase the first JSF (Joint Strike Fighters). What more could we want than that in 18 months? This is a major core programme of investment which will determine the shape and defence capability of this country for the next 30 years.”
With the Royal United Services Institute grabbing headlines on the same morning as the event at Odiham with a ‘predicted’ cut in the defence budget of something like 15%; I asked Quentin Davies for his response to this independent report.
“Certainly not under a Labour government. Under no circumstances. We are totally committed to maintaining our existing levels of defence capability and totally committed to investing in the frontline. We are, as you know, continuing to invest more in the frontline with troops and the equipment to back them up. There is no question of that happening at all.”
Continuing the newsy theme of the day, GAR quizzed Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt a little further regarding the decision to move the Merlin Force across to the Commando Helicopter Force. A former Junglie himself, the Admiral is enthusiastic about this decision and was delighted to give us some more detail during our one on one interview.
“With Sea King retiring by 2016 our challenge is to ensure that the switch-over is completed by then. I have to assume the worst case, i.e. that the Merlin Force will be committed and deployed somewhere, so I have to maintain operational capability and availability - and get the aircraft converted.
“The CHF is totally in favour of this decision; I really want to stress that. The aircraft needs navalising and Agusta Westland will be doing that work for us as the Merlin requires a folding head and also a folding tail. What we’ll start doing is filtering Royal Navy pilots in to Benson, although we do already have some expertise in place as Navy pilots and maintainers have already worked within the RAF’s Merlin Force.”
I ask Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt for some final thoughts on the Chinook, an aircraft which has surely already cemented its place as a classic?
“I agree completely, it is an aircraft that will go down in history, and with the new capability brought by the upgraded engines and the extra range I am sure that it will go down in history for all the right reasons - and when we convert all the aircraft to Project Julius standard our capability is going to get even better.”
So how long can it go on I wonder?
“I think Chinook, Merlin and Apache will be around long after most us have retired, I’ll probably be about 90! There is a point to be made here though in that people need to be careful when assuming that older aircraft are less safe. When you have a mature platform you have a real understanding of what it’s all about and it’s easier to operate and resolve any issues; that isn’t always true of brand new aircraft.”
Interviews complete, GAR’s last engagement of the day is to join the other assembled media for a short trip in the Chinook itself. Helmet fitted and safety briefing complete we trudge through the snow storm being generated by those two mighty sets of rotor blades and take a seat near the front of the cabin for what would be twenty minutes or so of circuits around the winter wonderland that was north Hampshire, one or two demonstrations of the big helicopter’s agility and some impressive snowy landings.
The flight is a nice way to end an interesting day and, as I said earlier, while the procurement fiasco shouldn’t be ignored, nor should the importance of eight new Chinooks being added to the RAF’s support helicopter fleet. That these are such significantly upgraded cabs is also more than worthy of note, and they illustrate the level that will eventually be matched by all the Chinooks in UK service. With additional Chinooks on order, the navalisation of the Merlin, Puma being upgraded and the forthcoming introduction of the Wildcat, these are fascinating times for JHC.
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2010-01-19 - AKM
Lots of interesting snippets there: folding tail rotor and main rotor head for the Commando Merlins is good news. It will be interesting to see if they try to reduce the differences between the Mk.3As and the standard Mk.3s at the same time (if nothing else it will make the Mk.3A a bit more photogenic :) ).
If you get the opportunity you should ask if they have any plans to fit BERP IV to the Merlin force as well. That increases the maximum takeoff weight from 15.6 tons to 16.5, though there might be a problem if the decks of our ships haven't been designed to take that load.
2010-01-19 - Gareth Stringer
Thanks for the comment Peter.
It is most likely envisaged that the order for 22 more Chinooks, bringing the total number to 70, will cater for the RAF's large support helicopter fleet moving forward. That of course is to take nothing away from the great work being carried out by the people or machines of the Merlin Force either right now or indeed over the time since the aircraft entered RAF service.
With the Sea King's impending retirement I suppose this is viewed as a good way of redefining how are assets are utilised and there are no plans, that I'm aware of, to keep the MF under the auspices of the RAF once they have moved across to the CHF.
Time will tell I suppose whether anything changes but that appears to be the plan at this stage.
Cheers
Gareth
2010-01-19 - Peter Reoch
I'm glad to see that see airframes (Chinook HC3s) have finally been put in the hands of the Air Force and will soon be able to help our lads on the ground.
My point is not directly related to the main article but it was mentioned by “Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt”. It concerns me how the MoD seem to think it’s a good idea to take the RAF’s Merlins and use them to replace the Navy’s ‘Junglie’ Sea Kings, surely the aircraft are very different and other helicopters are better suited to the role. Plus this is also another large loss of aircraft from the Air Force which has only just become operational. Will all the Merlin be transferred to the Navy? If so I do hope there are more on order as personally for the Air Force as I think that these helicopters are a great asset and that they will be very sorely missed if removed from the RAF’s inventory.
Can you give us any more details on this?
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