Region features in French helicopter drive

One of the areas where France aims to extend its strong market presence is helicopters. The dominant European player is Eurocopter, which now exports around two thirds of all of its production, says Dominique Maudet, the company’s executive vice president for government programs. About 50 per cent of its helicopter activity is military-related, thanks in part to the US Army’s choice of the EC-145 as the basis for that service’s new 345-strong fleet of UH-72 Lakota Light Utility Helicopters (LUH).

However, the company isn’t just a platform supplier, Maudet told Aviation Business. About 40 per cent of its activity is based on services, principally maintenance and training, and this proportion is expected to rise.

Eurocopter’s global footprint should help underpin this growth strategy – the company has 20 subsidiaries around the world, with two of the busiest biggest at present being in Columbus, Mississippi, where it is rolling out the LUH, and Brisbane, where its wholly owned subsidiary Australian Aerospace is assembling 18 Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters (ARH) for the Australian Army and 42 MRH90 helicopters for the Army and RAN.

The two major new opportunities in Australia lie in separate phases of the ADF’s Project Air 9000. Phase 8 will see the RAN’s current force of 16 S-70B Seahawks replaced as a matter of urgency by at least 24 new naval combat helicopters equipped with dipping sonars, anti-submarine torpedoes and capable of firing air-surface missile.

Almost concurrently, Phase 7 will see the introduction of a new Helicopter Aircrew Training System (HATS) for the ADF, based at the RAN’s air station at Nowra, south of Sydney. The synergies between these projects are significant: both are scheduled to achieve Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in 2014-16, with HATS providing the flow of trained pilots and observers who will fly the new naval helicopters.

Maudet told Aviation Business the company is pursuing both programs through Australian Aerospace. Competition for the HATS contract, expected to be worth as much as $1 billion, will be fierce, he acknowledged, and Eurocopter is positioning itself both to bid as a prime contractor and to offer its EC135 to other potential primes as the training platform for both Army and Navy pilots and observers.

Training opportunities

The training requirement is demanding: aircraft must replicate or simulate the characteristics of operational types – the Tiger ARH, MRH90, Chinook and Seahawk replacement; and it must deliver fully mission capable graduate aircrew as quickly as practicable.

The training helicopter itself must be a twin-turbine machine with a digital, Night Vision Goggle (NVG) compatible cockpit, a cargo hook and at least 2.5 hours endurance. It must also be compatible with the ADF’s now-standard Thales TopOwl helicopter aircrew helmet, equipped with a pilotage FLIR and electronic warfare self-protection equipment such as threat warners, jammers and decoy flares and chaff.

The prime contractor for this program will be required to supply and maintain the helicopters, provide flight and ground instructors and a suite of full-motion simulators, fixed-base and part-task trainers and computer-based training facilities and course ware. The HATS will also include an aviation training ship – in effect a floating flight deck to train both Army and Navy pilots in maritime operations.

The EC135 faces stiff competition from Bell’s new 429 twin-turbine helicopter and especially from Agusta Westland’s A109 LUH model, which was selected last year by the RNZAF to replace its veteran Bell 47G training aircraft. The RNZAF has also ordered the NH90 to replace its UH-1H Iroquois.

Eurocopter believes, however, that the German Army’s NH90 training system at Buckeburg, which uses the EC135, would be a good model for HATS. Also, the Australian Army’s 1st Aviation Regiment at Robertson Barracks in Darwin currently operates two EC135s to familiarise Bell 206 Kiowa pilots with twin-engine helicopter operations and a digital cockpit environment prior to Tiger ARH conversion.

Another French player in this market is Defense Conseil International (DCI) a company half-owned by the French MoD and which is one of the trusted French government conduits for training and other support for export customers, as well as a
vehicle for outsourcing some defence support functions. DCI also has a 10 per cent share in Helisim, whose two majority shareholders are Eurocopter and Thales.

Last year DCI and a local operator, Proteus Helicopteres, formed a joint venture, Helidax, to take over basic helicopter flying training for the French Army’s Ecole d’Application Aviation Leger de l’Armee Terrestre (EAALAT) at Dax in south-west France, under a 22-year Private Finance Initiative (PFI, or Public-Private Partnership – PPP) agreement. There pilots undergo a 14-month basic helicopter training syllabus including 100 hours on the Gazelle and 35 in fight simulators. EAALAT’s Gazelles are now being replaced by 36 single-engine EC120 Colibri machines owned by Helidax whose contract requires a rate of effort of 22,000 flying hours a year, or about 610 hours per helicopter.

According to a DCI spokesperson in Paris, the company is a potential contender for the HATS program, though it’s not clear what teaming arrangements it may have made with potential partners such as Eurocopter or other firms.

If the RAN selects the NH90 NFH (NATO Frigate Helicopter) variant to replace its
Seahawks, the ADF and ALAT could provide important lessons for each other.

The NH90 Tactical Transport Helicopter (TTH) variant will start replacing ALAT’s Pumas and Cougars from 2011. Meanwhile, the NH90 NFH will start entering French Navy service later this year to replace both its Lynx anti-submarine helicopters and the much larger, shore-based Super Frelon transport and Search and Rescue (SAR) aircraft. So the ALAT and the French Navy are establishing a Joint NH90 Training System at EAALAT’s base at Le Luc in Provence and the nearby naval air station at Hyeres. This will provide a common introduction to the NH90 family for air and ground crews from both services, before splitting into separate specific-to-role tactical and operational training.

This resonates with the ADF’s aspirations for HATS. The ADF has already ordered 46 NH90s (dubbed MRH90 locally), six of them for the RAN to replace its ageing Westland Seaking Mk50s. If the RAN selects the NH90 NFH to replace its Seahawks there are obvious synergies between the Army and Navy in air and ground crew training, not to mention engineering, logistics and airworthiness management.

And while the Seahawk replacement won’t enter service until at least 2014, the RAN and Army will stand up a joint MRH90 training system next year, alongside, or even slightly ahead of, the French Army and Navy. This might be a slightly uncomfortable experience for a defence force which never expected to lead the introduction to service of a new class of helicopters.

Partly for this reason the ADF has played a key role in setting up an international NH90 User Group, and this is likely to generate important feedback and shared lessons on training and other issues for the broad family of NH90 operators, as well as helping inform its eventual choice of naval helicopter.

Seahawk replacement?

There are only two contenders to replace the Seahawks under Phase 8 of Air 9000: the NH90 NFH and the new MH-60R variant of the Seahawk, which is already in US Navy service. Although development of the maritime variant of the NH90 is being led on behalf of the NHI consortium by Agusta Westland in Italy, the first two navies to field an operational capability will actually be France and the Netherlands.

First deliveries of the NH90 NFH to the Dutch Navy are due towards the end of this year, according to Eurocopter’s Dominique Maudet. He told Aviation Business the French Navy will start to take delivery in early-mid 2010 of NH90 NFHs equipped with a full suite of Anti-Submarine and Anti-Surface Warfare (ASW and ASuW) sensors and EW equipment.

However, they will lack the final mission system software, which is due by 2011, and will be confined initially to conversion, training and utility operations.

The French Navy’s NH90 NFH matches the RAN’s requirements closely: it will carry two Eurotorp MU90 lightweight torpedoes, or two air-surface missiles, sonobuoys, a dipping sonar and the Link 11 tactical data link. It will also be capable of carrying out the full spectrum of utility and ASuW operations. One of its acknowledged advantages over its US rival is its much larger cabin which enables a 12-strong boarding party to be carried without requiring the dipping sonar and operator station to be removed.

The 2009 Defence Capability Plan, released on 1 July, suggests a quick tender process (possibly as soon as late-2009) will be followed by Federal cabinet approval to order the preferred helicopter possibly by late-2010.

The DCP sets Initial Operational Capability (IOC) some time between 2014 and 2016, a window which either contender could meet easily. From Eurocopter’s point of view the timing is good, believes Dominique Maudet, because if it wins the
contract these aircraft will be assembled by Australian Aerospace in Brisbane, dovetailing neatly with the current MRH90 assembly program which is due to end in 2014; the first of 42 locally assembled MRH90s was handed over earlier this year. An order for 24 NH90 NFHs would mean Australia, with 70 aircraft, will be the third-biggest NH90 customer after Italy and Germany.

Afghan adventure

Meanwhile, French defence minister Herve Morin announced in June that ALAT would deploy a flight of three Tiger HAPs to Afghanistan later this year. They will replace three armed Gazelle escort helicopters operating from the French Army’s base near Kabul.

The ADF is watching the process closely, Maudet told Aviation Business. He said he believed the Australian Army is willing to deploy alongside the ALAT to learn from its experience. However, it’s more likely Australia will send observers to watch ALT’s Tiger operations in Afghanistan than one of its own Tiger ARHs, which are based on the HAP configuration.

At present Australian Army Aviation has its hands full introducing both the Tiger and MRH90; with 17 Tigers delivered of 22 ordered, and aircrew training ramping up, the Tiger capability is probably too immature at this stage for an Afghan deployment. Delivery of the last of 18 Tiger ARHs assembled in Brisbane for the Australian Army is scheduled for next year.

However, the Army would benefit enormously from learning any operational and technical lessons it can from the French deployment. Sending a small team of specialists to observe the French Tiger deployment might help the ADF determine whether and when it should deploy the Tiger ARH to Afghanistan also, in due course.