Those Australian problems with the NH90...

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Defence grounds new chopper fleet

By Sabra Lane

Updated Wed May 19, 2010 10:54am AEST

Audio: Defence grounds new chopper fleet (AM)

The Federal Government has confirmed its new fleet of Army helicopters has been grounded because of engine problems.

But the decision to ground the MRH90 fleet was kept secret for four weeks, apparently because of continuing embarrassment over the cancellation of the $1 billion Seasprite helicopter project.

The Opposition says it will pursue the issue in Senate estimates hearings in the next two weeks.

Australia has accepted 11 new MRH90 Eurocopters so far. Defence has ordered 40 of the so-called multi-role helicopters at a cost of about $4 billion.

The manufacturer is also bidding to sell Defence another 24 of the machines for the Navy.

But last month one of the choppers experienced what Defence calls a "technical incident". In the aviation industry, though, it is known as catastrophic failure.

The pilot experienced an engine failure but managed to nurse the twin-engine aircraft back to the Edinburgh Air Force Base on Adelaide's outskirts.

Engineers have flown in from Europe but so far have been unable to find the cause of the failure, and as a result Defence has grounded the entire fleet.

The incident happened on April 20 and the news about it and the grounding of the fleet was kept quiet until Defence released a statement on its website last night.

The minister responsible, Greg Combet, was unavailable for interview this morning but his office confirmed the fleet had been grounded.

AM phoned Defence for an interview only to be told it responds to written requests only and it was unlikely anyone would be available for interview this morning.

'Secrecy'

The new acquisitions come after the disastrous Seasprite program commissioned by the previous federal government and cancelled by the current government at a cost of $1 billion.

Opposition spokesman for defence science and personnel, Bob Baldwin, says the issue is not the grounding of the helicopter due to a fault.

"That's to be commended. The issue here is the secrecy that has occurred under this Rudd/Labor Government, where they have hid from the public for 28 days the fact that there has been a problem with this helicopter," Mr Baldwin said.

"Now, Mr Combet has been tagged as Mr Fix It. I'm yet to see one thing that Mr Combet has actually fixed.

"This is the first report of any failure of the engine. There have been issues with the helicopter that have been rectified during the introduction phase and that's normal with new pieces of equipment."

Defence only issued a release about the grounding last night and Mr Baldwin says it is important the warning goes out to all of the helicopter's operators around the world.

"That there is an issue so that all aircraft can be examined to see whether it's an isolated incident or indeed it's spread across the entire fleet," he said.

"We don't know what has occurred there. I can assure you of one thing, that next week in Senate estimates this matter will be pursued.

"It will be pursued because the Government has tried to hide from the public an issue affecting air safety, an issue affecting our Air Force personnel safety and we need answers."

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Heli-Pacific 2010: ADF addresses MRH90 problems
May 28, 2010

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) continues to face significant issues getting the MRH90 multirole helicopter into service but defence chiefs remain confident of the capabilities of the aircraft.

At the Shephard Heli-Pacific conference on Australia’s Gold Coast on 27 May, the problems the ADF has experienced with the aircraft were laid bare, with capability managers outlining the steps they are now taking to resolve the issues.

The MRH90 programme has come under fresh scrutiny after revelations the fleet has been grounded indefinitely following a ‘catastrophic’ engine failure to one aircraft on 20 April.

Commander Tim Leonard, co-ordinator of the MRH90 Introduction into Service Task Group, said a range of issues continued to dog the programme.

‘Some of the immediate challenges we face are an insufficient rate of effort to support introduction into service activities. This has been due to a number or reasons,' Leonard said.

‘There has been poor system reliability or design on items that include cabin floors, windscreens, main gear box, machine gun mounts and recently, of course, the engines.

The inconsistent supply chain has meant that aircraft often spend longer on the ground than we would like while we wait for spare parts. This inconsistency rate of effort has hampered our ability to train the instructors required to grow the best of the capability.’

In addition, without an airworthiness certificate with a significantly broad range of operations in its scope, the ADF was limited in its development of operational capability.

Leonard said a broad range of solutions was now being implemented while industry was running a product improvement programme seeking to rectify the reliability and design issues that have been discovered by the early customers of the NH90, including Australia.

He said the ADF’s spare parts holdings, which were initially too optimistic, had been adjusted to ‘better reflect reality’.

‘Some bits that we thought would last forever clearly haven’t, and some bits we thought would need replacing often have soldiered on. This harmonising of the spares holdings will be an on-going activity as industry itself sometimes has difficulty resourcing bits from its sub-contractors,’ Leonard said.

In addition, the ADF is looking at training more pilots overseas in an attempt to ‘claw back’ some of the programme’s schedule.

However, the programme will be further delayed while the cause the engine failure of an MRH90 on 20 April, about 30 minutes north-east of Adelaide, was determined.

Although the helicopter lost one of its two Rolls-Royce Turbomeca RTM322-01/9 engines, it was able to return to Royal Australian Air Force base Edinburgh without further incident.

Leonard said while the aircraft performed ‘very well’ under the circumstances, the incident would clearly affect schedule and how the programme was implemented.

Meanwhile, Major General Tony Fraser, head of the Helicopter Systems Division of the Defence Materiel Organisation, urged that the problems experienced by the programme were kept in perspective.

‘There is a bit of apprehension about these projects. But we have demonstrated that by working as a team – France has been exceptional in supporting us, through our sister agency the DGA, as has everyone else involved – we have the ability to get through the issues,’ Fraser said.

‘They are good problems to have. It is much better to have these problems than not having them and still sitting where we were and not having the capability.’