A Case for Coherence
The recent announcements of helicopter upgrades that we have blogged here and here, especially the Puma and Lynx upgrade, are to be welcomed, despite their apparent poor value for money, they will return airframes to operations and that can only be a good thing.
The Chinook upgrade especially will result in a wholly consistent and coherent modification status across the whole fleet. The Puma upgrade will also result in the same state but the Lynx, Sea King and Merlin fleet will consist of a wide variety of modification states and versions. From a through life management perspective this is a bad thing, over complicating training, logistics and maintenance. The overwhelming desire for more airframes for operations, almost at any cost, means this situation will be compounded. The same is true for Army vehicles, perhaps even more so.
The replacement for the Sea King Commando and Puma helicopters is covered in the Future Medium Helicopter programme. All existing Army Lynx’s will be replaced by Lynx Wildcat and all Gazelles will be withdrawn with no replacement.