It’s a pity nobody from defence procurement was able to run a tape measure over the door frame of the MRH-90 Taipan helicopter before the troubled aircraft was purchased in 2005.
A simple check may well have exposed a serious problem before the $3.7 billion contract went ahead. As a subsequent damning ANAO (Australian National Audit Office) report into the helicopter’s many failings found, the cabin door was not wide enough to allow the chopper’s self-defence gun to fire while troops exited the aircraft.
In layman’s terms, the new Army helicopter was unable to put out suppressing fire during a ‘hot’ or contested landing or take-off rendering it a sitting duck, not fit for purpose – and unsuited for special operations support, a key prerequisite.
Narrow doorways were just one of a swag of unresolved problems surrounding the European-designed helicopter. Following their acquisition, the choppers proved nothing but trouble and a full-time offender on the government’s notorious ‘Projects of Concern’ watchlist.
Matters came to a head in September in the middle of a defence exercise when a tragic crash off the east coast left four aircrew dead, the cause of which is still being investigated. However, it followed a slew of other critical problems, including engine failure, oil cooler fan failures, poor availability of spares and issues with the fast roping and rappelling device (FRRD) on the army variant.
That deadly incident spurred the Albanese Government to announce the entire Taipan fleet would be retired a year earlier than planned. In fairness, it should be noted the previous coalition government was already moving to phase out the troublesome Taipan.
US-made Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk military helicopters will now replace the Taipan, a deal worth around $2.8 billion. Three of the 40 choppers on order have arrived and defence minister Richard Marles says he is seeking options to fast-track delivery and crew training to mitigate any capability gap.
“The first of the 40 Black Hawks that will replace the (Taipan) MRH-90 have arrived and are already flying in Australia. We are focused on seeing their introduction to service as quickly as possible,” he said.
What is the upside of ‘back to Black Hawk?’ For starters, the uniform branch didn’t want the Taipan in the first place, preferring the tried and trusted American chopper which had served the ADF well, including in Cambodia in 1993 hauling UN ballot boxes, and as a reliable troop lifter deployed for East Timor peacekeeping operations six years later. Memo to government – it pays to listen to your customers.
“Certainly, the feedback I have heard from the diggers is that they were never comfortable with the Taipan or the other EU rotary solutions and overwhelmingly the troops wanted a US platform – the Black Hawk and the Apache (attack helicopter),” says Guy Boekenstein, a senior associate with the Cognoscenti Group who has worked in the defence and national security sector for more than two decades including diplomatic postings to Japan and Indonesia.
In 2021, Canberra announced plans to replace the ADF’s 22 European Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters with 29 US-made Boeing AH-64E Apache attack helicopters.
By opting for a familiar brand, the Black Hawk contract adds another plank to our key US alliance. It was the right call to scrap the Taipan rather than continuing to persevere with time-consuming problem solving that would have involved design changes outside the scope of the contract and at substantial additional cost to the taxpayer.
Teething issues are inevitable in any new advanced aircraft system – their sheer complexity guarantees that. I recall in the early 70s and the savaging by so-called experts of RAAF’s new ‘swing wing’ wonder, the cutting-edge General Dynamics F-111 strike aircraft following a spate of early mishaps. But ask any former pilot or navigator and they will get misty-eyed with nostalgia for the supersonic bomber, at 37 years, the longest-serving strike aircraft in RAAF’s history. However, the Taipan contract deserves further scrutiny.
The decision to buy 46 MRH-90 Taipans was made in 2006 by former Liberal prime minister John Howard and his defence minister Brendan Nelson who hailed the deal with Eurocopter subsidiary Australian Aerospace as providing the ADF with, “the most advanced helicopter for its size in the world.” In 2001, Eurocopter had won another lucrative contract to supply the Army with its Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH), another chopper that would set no world record for reliability.
A sweetener of economic spin-offs likely helped sway the government ahead of Eurocopter’s sole competitor – drum roll please – the US-made Black Hawk.
Eurocopter’s Brisbane headquarters would become a cornerstone in the company’s global supply chain, foster 400 new jobs and inject $1.1 billion into the economy. (Some of those workers will now be redeployed to 1st Aviation at Townsville). But alas, it was all downhill after that. Australia is not alone, with other disgruntled European customers Norway and Sweden now axing their MRH-90 equivalent the NH-90 over performance and reliability issues.
On offer from Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, is an older but tried and proven design, a revamped chopper with upgraded engines, rotors, gearbox and cockpit, a 10-tonne multirole utility helicopter that seats 12 fully equipped troops. The Black Hawk is in service with the US military its largest operator and 34 other countries.
Its makers claim the type (UH-60M) can be easily configured for a variety of specialised roles including military search and rescue, combat assault, medevac and firefighting with the addition of a specialised ‘bambi bucket’ which attaches to the helicopter’s cargo hook.
Given the onset of a prolonged La Nina weather pattern and high bushfire risk, and an increasing trend to call on the ADF for help in natural disasters, that last feature might carry considerable appeal for the Country Fire Authority and Rural Fire Service in the bushfire prone states of Victoria and NSW.
