‘Huge effort’ yields Tiger, MRH90 performance boost for Australia
collaborative” approach with Airbus Helicopters has driven availability and ironed out performance issues, he says. Full operational capability was declared in 2016 and the army’s fleet has now passed 32,000 flight hours; 4,000h were accumulated in 2018 alone.
“It is now a capable platform and one that can be relied upon, but it has been quite a journey – we have had to drive it really hard,” says King.
“It has suffered from low confidence and poor public opinion for many years now. We are slowly but surely beginning to turn this around.”
Similar efforts were required on the MRH90 Taipan – the majority of its 47-unit order assembled locally by Airbus Helicopters subsidiary Australian Aerospace – to address low availability levels and the “high rate of effort” required to keep the fleet operational.
“We planned to be a world follower – we would let a number of other countries lead the world in how they operate this aircraft and learn all the lessons,” says King.
Instead, Canberra again ended up as a fleet leader: it has accumulated almost 35,000h – nearly 15,000h more than any other country.
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However, King stresses that the so-called capability assurance programme is limited in scope, and “we are not looking to expand that into an upgrade” such as the Tiger Mk III enhancement currently being defined for France and Germany.
Source:
FlightGlobal.com
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