Beyond the possibility that the UK’s New Medium Helicopter (NMH) requirement may not survive the new Labour government’s ongoing Strategic Defence Review, to be published in the first half of 2025, there are increasing indications that the programme could effectively implode by the end of this month, when bids for the programme are due to be submitted, due to programme numbers not adding up to a viable procurement.
In February 2024 three teams led by Airbus Helicopters, Leonardo UK and Lockheed Martin UK were issued with invitations to negotiate for the NMH programme by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). Even before July’s Farnborough International Airshow (FIA 2024), however, there were rumours that Lockheed Martin UK, bidding the UH-60M Black Hawk from the company’s Sikorsky business, would withdraw from the programme. Approached about this by ESD at FIA 2024, Eric Schreiber, director of international sales for Sikorsky, neither confirmed or denied the reports, instead noting that some of the recently announced Black Hawk orders – eight from Croatia, 12 from Sweden and 12 from Austria in July alone – had been “10 years in the making”.
Following FIA 2024 it has since emerged that Airbus, which has offered its H175M helicopter for NMH, may also ‘no bid’ the NMH programme. When ESD contacted Airbus on 20 August, the company’s official response was as follows: “We have no comment to make at this stage in the competition. At FIA our managing director, Lenny Brown, said: ‘We are in the process of seeking clarification from the MoD regarding certain aspects of the tender. And, of course, we will now need to wait for the outcome of the Strategic Defence Review to see if there are any implications for NMH.’”
Further to this, however, Airbus had stated three years ago, when the NMH requirement was first issued, that the number of helicopters sought against the announced budget for the procurement was “unrealistic”.
When Leonardo was asked by ESD whether the company would, indeed, table an NMH bid by the end of August, the company replied,” Leonardo stands ready to deliver the AW149 military helicopter to meet the UK MoD’s requirements, doing so from the Home of British Helicopters in Yeovil, Somerset.”
If both Lockheed Martin and Airbus Helicopters were to ‘no bid’ the NMH programme, leaving Leonardo as the sole bidder with its AW149 platform, it remains to be seen whether the MoD would still proceed with a programme that might not be perceived as a competitive procurement. That said, the ministry would still be able to judge the Leonardo bid on its own merits.
When the NMH programme was originally announced by the UK MoD in March 2021, the ministry stated that it intended to procure up to 44 NMHs in a contract worth GBP 0.9-1.2 billion (EUR 1-1.4 billion). NMH at the time covered four distinct rotary-wing requirements. As well as replacing the fleet of 23 Royal Air Force (RAF) Puma HC2s operated by No 33 and No 230 squadrons out of RAF Benson in Oxfordshire from 2025, the programme was also intended to replace five Bell 212s serving with the Army Air Corps’ (AAC’s) No 667 Squadron in Brunei, three Griffin HAR2s operated by the RAF’s No 84 Squadron out of RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus (tasked with search and rescue), and an original six special-forces-roled AS365 N3 Dauphin IIs operated by the AAC’s No 658 Squadron from the Special Air Service (SAS) barracks at Credenhill in Herefordshire (of which five are believed to remain).
Then, on 18 April 2024, the UK MoD announced it had awarded Airbus a GBP 122 million (EUR 142.6 million) contract for six Airbus H145s – smaller helicopters than the NMH solution was intended to be – to provide aviation support for UK troops in Brunei and Cyprus. This procurement means that the original premise of the NMH programme – to replace four distinct rotary-wing requirements with a single type, with all the logistical and support advantages that would bring – is already not happening.
ESD understands that the MoD never stipulated precisely how many NMHs would be required; instead, it was left to the bidders to determine how many of their aircraft would adequately meet the requirement, with bids offering higher aircraft numbers being favoured under the scoring system being used to determine the winner.
Extrapolating unit costs for aircraft purchases is notoriously difficult; higher-volume purchases can generally reduce overall unit costs, while packaged sales invariably include additional items such as spare powerplants, mission systems and in-service support costs.
However, looking at Sweden’s 10 July 2024 Foreign Military Sales (FMS) order for the UH-60M Black Hawk, it can be seen that Sweden secured the purchase of 12 UH-60Ms for USD 900 million (EUR 825 million) in a package that included six spare T700-GE-701D engines; numerous associated avionics, communications and mission systems; plus a support package.
On 12 July 2024 it was announced that Croatia had secured an FMS purchase of eight UH-60Ms for an estimated USD 500 million (EUR 458 million) in a package that included three spare engines along with various mission systems, spares and support.
Even though these figures cannot be directly applied to the NMH case, it appears clear that not enough Black Hawks could be purchased for even a minimal rebaselined NMH requirement, which is understood to be a minimum of 23 helicopters, while the notion of procuring “up to 44” such helicopters for a budget of around GBP 1 billion looks entirely fanciful.
The unit prices for the H175M and AW149 will, of course, be different – both are lighter and smaller than a Black Hawk – but it is still difficult to see how either Airbus or Leonardo could still offer at least 23 helicopters for around GBP 1 billion and still oversee a profitable procurement.
If the NMH programme ultimately becomes undone, either by the contest falling apart or the requirement being cancelled, it would appear that the RAF Puma HC2s and AAC AS365 N3 Dauphin IIs will have to soldier on.
While the RAF’s Pumas have been in service for more than 50 years, 24 of an original fleet of 53 aircraft underwent a mid-life upgrade, the contract for which was signed in September 2009, with the RAF returning this modernised fleet of Puma HC2s to operational service in 2015.
Published UK MoD data states that the RAF had a total of 18 Pumas in its inventory in 2023, of which 13 were in active service. The same data shows that only a couple of Dauphins have been in active service for the last several years.
