UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 434-iiHouse of COMMONSMINUTES OF EVIDENCETAKEN BEFOREdefence committee
HELiCOPTER CAPABILITY
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This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
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Transcribed by the Official Shorthand Writers to the Houses of Parliament: W B Gurney & Sons LLP, Hope House, Telephone Number: 020 7233 1935
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Defence Committee
on
Members present
Mr James Arbuthnot, in the Chair
Mr David Crausby
Linda Gilroy
Mr Dai Havard
Mr Adam Holloway
Mr Bernard Jenkin
Robert Key
Mrs Madeleine Moon
________________
Memorandum submitted by the Ministry of Defence
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Rear Admiral Simon Charlier, Chief of Staff, Carrier-Strike and Aviation, Rear Admiral Tony Johnstone-Burt OBE, Commander, Joint Helicopter Command, and Brigadier Kevin Abraham, Head of Joint Capability, Ministry of Defence, gave evidence.
Q93 Chairman: This is the second formal session of evidence in our inquiry into helicopters. Welcome to all the witnesses. Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt, perhaps you would begin by introducing everybody and telling us what all of you do and how everything fits in.
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: I am Tony Johnstone-Burt, Commander of the Joint Helicopter Command which is 15,000 strong. I am responsible for all the battlefield helicopters in the Army, Navy and Air Force and all the air assault assets, specifically in 16 Air Assault Brigade. On my left is Admiral Simon Charlier who works in Navy Command and is responsible for all fixed wing and rotary wing maritime-based aircraft, or what we call the grey fleet. On my right is Brigadier Kevin Abraham who is responsible for all commitments and capability from the policy perspective based in the Ministry of Defence across the whole of defence with a specific interest in helicopters in the round. If I may, I should like to make three brief points to put the whole thing into context.
Q94 Chairman: Please do so. It would be helpful if you told us what helicopters do.
Rear Admiral
Johnstone-Burt: I have just returned from
Q95 Chairman: How do the helicopters fit into the larger picture of what it is we
are doing in
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: They are making a fundamental, battle-winning contribution. They are tasked by a full colonel called Commander Joint Aviation Group and create whatever effect the commander of Regional Command South wants, so in all the roles I have just described they deliver that capability to the troops in theatre 24 hours a day seven days a week.
Q96 Chairman: Are you able to say to what extent we rely on our allies' helicopters to support our troops and our allies rely on ours to support their troops?
Rear Admiral
Johnstone-Burt: We are mutually dependent. We
contribute to our allies as much as we contribute to ourselves. Task Force
Q97 Mr Holloway: Can you give us some idea of what sort of activity the helicopters conduct in support of the so-called comprehensive approach?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: I can in the widest possible sense without going into classified material. The comprehensive approach is a loose term which tries to embrace every aspect of warfare from humanitarian support operations right through to full-scale war-righting, stabilisation operations, counter insurgency and counter-narcotics. In terms of having a comprehensive approach our helicopters do all that. To reflect that I give the example of the use of the Chinook which goes back to my earlier point in reply to the Chairman about the way the roles are blurred as we become more sophisticated in dealing with such things as the hybrid warrior I have described, in the sense that one moment the Chinook can be used as the immediate response team in terms of delivering the medical emergency evacuation of troops with a consultant physician on board.
Q98 Mr Holloway: What percentage of helicopter usage is in support of the political and developmental side of the comprehensive approach? You say that 85% of the helicopters are used by Task Force Helmand. What percentage is involved in development and political stuff?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: It is very small.
Q99 Mr Holloway: One per cent?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: I would say 15 to 20%; it is pretty small. It is a rather vague term because it depends on what you mean by that. When you say "political", for example our helicopters spend some time transporting Governor Mangal around with his team.
Mr Holloway: It cannot be as much as 20 %, can it?
Chairman: It is very difficult to link the comprehensive approach to one particular platform.
Q100 Mr Holloway: It depends on how much is going on and how much of the emphasis is on military matters.
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: If by "how much" you are referring to the transport of food or building material to help with the redevelopment of remote areas, it is hardly any at all. We use a contractor to do that. In terms of acting in a political sense it is about 20%. What you are really getting at is how much humanitarian support operations they are doing. Is that your question?
Q101 Mr Holloway: Yes - and the key political connections that we probably would not want to talk about.
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: It is quite small.
Q102 Mr Crausby: Can you tell us something about older helicopters? They have been operating in quite a difficult environment, have they not? What do the commanders in the field feel about their performance?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: Commanders in the field are extremely pleased with their performance. All the helicopters are performing extremely well considering the very high temperature which is now over 40ºC with a 6,000 ft density altitude. Serviceability rates range between 70 and 75%. However, the older helicopters find it harder work and more of a challenge than the others, specifically the Sea Kings. We knew that they would struggle in those temperatures. Therefore, we fitted the Sea King Mk4 with Carson blades and a five-rotor tail and that has improved lift considerably, but it means that compared with the Chinook its capability is not as good as it would have been in temperate temperatures. For example, the Sea King Mk4 can take about six fully armed troops during the day and about 10 at night. The Chinook and Apache are doing brilliantly well.
Q103 Mr Crausby: Generally, is there a good feeling about the older helicopters and everything is secure in that sense?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: Yes; serviceability is very good indeed.
Q104 Mr Crausby: Is there a belief that it might shorten their lives based on the present figures?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: No, not at the moment.
Q105 Chairman: How many hours are the Sea Kings being flown?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: I am afraid we cannot give the number of hours flown.
Q106 Chairman: Am I right in thinking that the philosophy about the Sea Kings has been to fly them for a small number of hours in order to preserve their life for as many decades as possible?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: Not at all. To try to help so it does not appear that I am evading the question, clearly the aircraft themselves are fine and serviceability rates are extremely high thanks to all the things I have talked about with the commander and the support we are getting there. Because it is such an abrasive environment inevitably we get through pieces of kit quicker, so rotor blades and leading edges can suffer because sand and dust get everywhere. Inevitably, you will get through component parts quicker, but the industry and integrated project teams are very good in front-loading our stores support system to make sure we get all the right bits at the right time. In that sense we are getting through things.
Q107 Mr Crausby: We had problems with rotor blades at one point, did we not, and those are now resolved?
Rear Admiral
Johnstone-Burt: Yes, we did and that is resolved.
We now have the
Q108 Mrs Moon: You have talked a lot about how vital helicopters have become in theatre, in particular with their current use for a variety of tasks: reconnaissance, ISTAR and a whole range of movements since ground movement is increasingly difficult and dangerous. What is your current manning situation like? Do you have enough pilots across the three Services?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: Yes and no. The manning situation as a whole for all our crew - air crew, ground crew and engineers - is okay and we are managing, but we are at maximum stretch and there are hot spots in certain areas depending on the fleet we are talking about. For example, we could do with some more pilots for the Apache helicopter, and I will tell you what we are doing about it. We could also do with more engineering technicians. As to the Apache crews, at the moment we have 40. We may go on to talk about harmony, if you want me to deal with that.
Q109 Mrs Moon: I do.
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: As far as concerns harmony, we act by a rule of five, so it is one on four off. At the moment, to get a rule of five for our Apache crews clearly we need 45 crews. We are now at 40. We shall be at 44 by next March and we shall achieve 50 crews, which we are budgeted for, by March 2011. We are also drawing on the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force to help us with extra crews and instructors, which they have very kindly been able to give us. I am boosting the pipeline for pilots by 20%. We are also looking at ways to retain our senior NCO air crew who are gold dust with massive hours of experience and are fabulous pilots. We are looking at ways to improve their pay scales and pension rights to encourage them to stay on longer than they might otherwise. In terms of the engineering shortages again we are looking across all three services and all my fleets at the moment. It is interesting that the Royal Navy and Air Force are overmanning us in terms of our engineering support in order to enable us to cope with the gaps and shortfalls, but that means drawing people from the rest of their core area. As far as the Army Air Corps is concerned the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers are helping us by doing a review - the Apache, Lynx and also UAVs are our top priority - to make sure we get them fully manned as best we can.
Q110 Mrs Moon: One of the suggestions made during a presentation I heard in relation to helicopters was that some of the harmony issues were being disguised in that people were being sent out with one unit and they returned and went to another unit and were sent out again with that unit. Therefore, perhaps the number of hours when people are required to spend in theatre is not as simple as has been portrayed because of lack of available crew. What would be your response to that? Are we at a point where because of the vital role of helicopters especially in the current theatre we are placing a disproportionate burden on those helicopter crew and maintenance people in terms of the hours they serve in theatre?
Rear Admiral
Johnstone-Burt: I say we are not because we are
monitoring the situation carefully. I have spent a lot of time on the harmony
of our people. The reason I say "no" emphatically is that the Joint Helicopter
Command is completely integrated, so I am acutely aware of exactly who is out
when doing what. I have talked about the rule of five, so it is one on four
off. Our average deployment cycle is about three months, so that gives us a 12‑month
gap between tours. That is the rule of thumb we are using and it is working
well in the Chinook, Puma, Merlin and Lynx communities, so I am confident that
the points you make are covered in those crews. The areas that I am not so
happy about are the Sea King and Apache communities where they are turning
round the cycle faster. For the reasons I mentioned earlier, the harmony rate
for the Apache air crew, ground crew and engineers is about a rule of four, so
one on three off, which is taking its toll. I am enormously concerned about
that. Sea King crews are worse than that; they have a rule of between three and
four, so they are doing one on two and a half off. That is something I monitor
very carefully, not least because I am concerned about families, decompression
and their ability to take stock and do what they all need to do when they come
back home, that is, readjust, do the training courses they need to do, refresh
their skills - aircrew, flying and technical skills - and then start to build
up for their next period of operations. The 12 months off sounds quite a long
time, but it is not in the sense they have all those other things to do. We
also talk about nights out of bed in the sense they have to do training which
is not necessarily at home; it could be elsewhere in the
Q111 Mrs Moon: What impact does that have on retention?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: Retention is not as bad as I thought it would be. At the moment, compared with the service averages in the Army and Royal Air Force it is very small. We talk about the premature voluntary release (PVR) rate; in other words, the rate at which people resign earlier than they would otherwise. For the Army and RAF it is a fraction, which is surprising. For the Navy it is slightly higher than the average for officers and about average for the other ranks. I do not want to use the present state of the economy to suggest that people will not leave because the possibility of getting other jobs is not as great as it was. I think that would be a false premise. I am doing all I can to make sure we look after our people and keep them because they are invaluable.
Q112 Chairman: You said that the harmony rate for Chinooks and Pumas was one in five, for Apache one in four and for Sea Kings one in three or three and a half?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: Yes.
Q113 Chairman: What is the fundamental cause of the difference?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: It is entirely manning.
Q114 Chairman: What is the fundamental cause of the difference in that manning?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: The Navy has a different scale of manning according to their harmony rules within the service itself. The rule of five that I mentioned just now is a Joint Helicopter Command harmony rate that I created because it was sustainable and robust and I could guarantee that with 20% on operations and 80% doing other things I could ensure that was a robust, enduring capability at this tempo for the next 15 to 20 years. That was my yardstick. The Navy, Royal Air Force and Army have different ratio criteria because their roles are so different. In broad terms the Navy has a rule of three, one on two off, because of the time spent at sea. You cannot join the Navy and expect to be at home all the time. We have a one third, two thirds, rule. As a consequence, our establishment - in other words, the formula we use to work out the number of people to man our stations etc. - is a smaller proportion than it is for the other two services.
Q115 Chairman: But looking at it from your joint position all of this must seem to you very strange. You must think that some of them have got it wrong. You can say "yes".
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: It depends on your perspective. If I was the First Sea Lord I would say it is not wrong at all because that is how from the point of view of the Navy he would cut his cloth. From my perspective it is not ideal at all. You are absolutely right. I have no hesitation in saying that I would like far more people in my Joint Helicopter Command organisation to make sure I can do my rule of five, but we do not have the people. Admiral Charlier may wish to speak on the Navy's behalf because he is dealing with shortfalls elsewhere as well, so it is not a binary choice.
Q116 Chairman: Admiral Charlier, have you got it wrong?
Rear Admiral Charlier: No, I do not think so, and certainly the First Sea Lord would shoot me if I said we had. The Navy is configured against a set of parameters that it has used for many years that usually rotate round a six-month average deployment cycle at sea. We try to give the teams 12 months off after that. That means that 660 days over a three-year rolling period is the maximum time we can have people away. Those are the terms and conditions of service in which people join the Navy. They are very clear and we understand them. In a normal cycle of deployment at sea - in surge operations we are content to go outside those parameters and give more time when they come back - that works adequately. What I have to do to support the Joint Helicopter Command, quite rightly - we do the same with the Harrier force - having now become heavily involved in operations, is uplift the Royal Navy's manning to cope with that particular circumstance at the time, which means I take the hit elsewhere. I tend to take it on second line manning. To answer your question, I do not think we have got it wrong at all; it works perfectly adequately in the normal naval deployment cycle we have generated historically of which we have a lot of experience. When we have surge operations, particularly in this joint environment, it is quite right to place a priority on that and take the hit elsewhere in the Navy. The only other way to do that would be to adopt a centralised harmony regulation which in effect would mean overmanning the Navy compared with what the department wanted of us in a normal circumstance, whether that was a training deployment or operation. Personally, I do not believe that would be a good use of taxpayers' money.
Q117 Chairman: Can you identify any differentiation in premature voluntary release rates as between, say, Chinook crews and Sea King crews perhaps caused by the difference in the harmony guidelines?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: Not at the moment. The numbers are lower, although I suspect for the same reasons, because probably they are both going round the cycle as often as each other.
Q118 Mr Havard: That is slightly different from what I have been told in the brief. The brief seems to suggest that the Sea King Mk4 fleet with harmony is down to one to 2.5 rather than one to four. I am told that that has a particular effect on the retention of that group of people. Are you saying that is no different from others?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: No, I am not saying that. The harmony ratio that I gave is correct; it is one to two and a half.
Q119 Mr Havard: What effect does that have on the retention of that particular group as distinct from any other?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: As I have just mentioned, it is not good; that was exactly what I said.
Q120 Mr Havard: So, it is not good but it is no different?
Rear Admiral Charlier: Obviously, they are naval people and I take as much interest in this as my colleague. We work very closely together to look at peaks and troughs of retention and PVR rates. It is a much more complex position than you might at first think. If you work people hard in an operational theatre and continue to return them to that same theatre eventually two things happen: first, they become tired of that single involvement and all the pressures that go with it in the cycle which my colleague has just mentioned; second, in the Sea King Mk4 force there are naval personnel with a particular sub‑specialisation which is the littoral manoeuvre and amphibious warfare side, in this case flying. If you continually rotate them into a land-based operation so they are doing a single task, although the task varies within that operation, you combine the effects of both operational stress and the performance of a role which they are designed to do, but they have also joined the Navy and we have to get that in balance. We work very closely together to try to balance the operational demands that must come first - there is no doubt about that whatsoever - with the performance of the amphibious and littoral manoeuvre task of flying at sea and parking. We have to watch it very carefully to get it in balance because that gives the varied military career in which most of the people who have joined want to participate.
Q121 Mr Havard: Do you need to put more resource and therefore more people into that particular area? Therefore, do you need more people in the sense of the headline figure as well? It may be embarrassing to say that you need more people but if that is the reality is that what you need to do?
Rear Admiral Charlier: No. As I said earlier, unless we were to predict a 10 or 20-year cycle of continuing to support amphibious and littoral manoeuvre operations and singularly land-based operations I do not think that to overman the Navy would be a good use of taxpayers' money. The Navy is not designed around that process and that would require a whole change of policy to deliver it. It is up to us, the commanders, to balance our people's role in employment as best we can to advance the operational theatre within the budget we are given.
Chairman: I thought that was precisely the scenario predicted for the next 10 or 20 years.
Mr Havard: Quite!
Q122 Linda
Gilroy: Are there any significant areas of
capability for which you are unable to train because of the pressures of
deployment and the harmony issues that we have just been discussing? Are there
things that you cannot train for in the
Rear Admiral
Johnstone-Burt: Yes, there are. We have been in
operations now for a decade in Joint Helicopter Command and for six years we
have been in operations at full tilt. As a consequence, we talk about ourselves
being on what we call a campaign footing. My focus has been exclusively on
delivering success in
Q123 Linda Gilroy: How long is keeping the flame alive enough because your aircraft personnel have a life, a career, if you like and over time presumably that becomes more of an issue?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: It is certainly an issue for retention and it is something on which we need to work.
Rear Admiral Charlier: What we have to do - this is where we try to work as closely together as possible - is keep alive what we call a seedcorn capability which we can grow by using often the experience of the more senior people particularly in day and night deck landing skills, but it is also related to the ship/air interface - it is exactly the same on the fixed-wing side as it is on the rotary-wing side - where the ship itself needs to understand aviation and the dangers thereof and how to operate a number of aircraft together on board as well as the air crew themselves. Although we tend to focus on air crew skills which are vitally important it is the whole package. We try to maintain the seedcorn skill and allow the squadrons to nominate those personnel who will be involved, concentrating particularly on keeping the junior members up to speed as they are the most inexperienced and building that through as has been mentioned, but there is one big exercise this year. Next year we have Origa[?] which is primarily a carrier strike exercise. We will have another big littoral manoeuvre section to it where we will get back as many people as possible for a reasonable amount of time to balance their operational training needs to make sure that that seedcorn is kept alive. What we are trying to do nowadays is be more clever in helping the JHC with its environmental training that it needs to do so people are forewarned before they go out to the operation to tie in with what we need to do in the sense of littoral manoeuvres. If you are clever you can programme those together so both gain a benefit from the same event.
Q124 Linda Gilroy: Are you able over a five-year period, say, to ensure that all personnel are able to keep those skills alive and fresh?
Rear Admiral Charlier: Yes, I believe we are but there is no doubt that we have to work at it.
Brigadier Abraham: In February I and others gave evidence on recuperation timelines.
As we have drawn down in
Q125 Linda Gilroy: On the way ahead for defence helicopter training, at the moment that is done through the defence helicopter flying school and that is contracted up to the end of 2012. I believe that a study is going on as to how coherent helicopter training can take place in future. Can you tell us a bit about that and also link that with the role of simulators? Our understanding is that simulation for helicopter forces is not as comprehensive as it could be at the moment because of limitations on the capacity and capability of simulators.
Rear Admiral
Johnstone-Burt: At Shawbury where we base our
defence helicopter flying school we train all three Services' helicopter crews
over a period of months before they go into their respective frontlines. It has
been the subject of several reviews. The DHFS comes under the RAF; I do not own
the
Q126 Chairman: In the interest of not covering too much ground again we intended to ask questions about theatre entry standard in our second session. That is not to say you cannot add something that is very useful, but we have a number of other questions we would like to ask you.
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: As to the simulators, that lags behind the UOR process; that is the last bit. It is coming on line but it takes about 18 months for it to catch up. It is happening but the sooner we can do it the better.
Q127 Chairman: What are the main limiting factors in relation to helicopter availability? Would it be manpower, spares or the hours that they can fly, fuel or money? In order of priority what are the main limiting factors?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: I know that my deputy introduced the concept of the four-legged stool when you visited Middle Wallop.
Q128 Chairman: Perhaps I may say how helpful his briefing was because we were extremely impressed.
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: Thank you. The four-legged stool analogy is simplistic but effective. The four legs are the people - the air crew, ground crew and engineers - the aircraft themselves, the support, which is all the equipment, and the training. For my 15 to 20-year robust sustainable capability on operations those four legs must be as strong and as long as each other; otherwise, the stool will fall over. There are strengths and fragilities in each stool depending on the aircraft type we are talking about, but one leg that is probably the least robust is the people. Without wanting to repeat myself, that is the one area on which I need to concentrate the most. All of the other legs are coming good very quickly. We must make sure that our training is realistic and there is enough of it and it is in time to give people confidence in themselves, their colleagues and the aircraft they are flying. As to the support and aircraft themselves again we are reducing the numbers of fleets within fleets; there is a clear plan to standardise fleets to theatre entry standards, and you will hear more about that in a minute. I am most confident that we are coming good on the other three legs. My big concern is about the people leg and that is why addressing it is my top priority.
Q129 Chairman: Can you answer a question about the hours of helicopters? As we
understand it, the Treasury of all people have put a limit on the number of
hours that helicopters can fly in
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: No, absolutely not. Brigadier Abraham may wish to add a little in a moment. If that were so clearly we would reduce the operational effect as a consequence. My whole drive is to see how while keeping the four legs in balance I can increase the capability in the hours we are flying in theatre. The hours are limited by those four legs of the stool, not in budgetary terms. Of course that is a factor according to what is achievable but that balance covers it, so the answer is no.
Q130 Chairman: So, there is no decree by the Treasury which say that Chinooks or Apaches can fly only x number of hours this month?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: No, definitely not.
Brigadier Abraham: I have never heard that before; it is not the case.
Q131 Mr Jenkin: I declare an interest on the Register of Members' Interests. I arranged a fund-raiser for Combat Stress earlier this year which was substantially sponsored by Finmeccanica. Earlier you mentioned hybrid warfare. You said in a recent speech that you would like to see "helicopters forces in the future swing from a symbol of fear to the enemy to one of hope to civilians and friendly forces." What are the practical difficulties for helicopters in that swing role? What does that mean?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: Frank Hoffman, an American academic and former member of the US Marine Corps, coined that phrase in trying to describe the complexity of warfare we face at the moment in Afghanistan and Iraq where you have an insurgent who has everything at his fingertips, whether he is using the latest laptop in the morning to stream video or whatever of IEDs to the local population or indulging in medieval warfare in the afternoon by cutting off people's heads or whatever. We have an extraordinary creature who is using everything he can including the latest in technology to his own advantage. Michael Evans has said we are now facing a war in which Microsoft co‑exists with machetes and stealth technology is met by suicide bombers. That really wraps it up. The advantage enjoyed by the hybrid warrior is the fact that he can move at will; he can exploit the dense urban environment and terrain; he can use the local infrastructure and transport facilities to hide, plan, attack and escape at will and use it to his own advantage in dislocating our own forces. My point is that the battlefield helicopter is the perfect antidote to the hybrid warrior in the sense that the agility, flexibility, versatility and potential lethality of a battlefield helicopter counter the apparent advantages of the hybrid warrior. As the roles of helicopters now begin to blur, which was why I referred earlier to being smarter about our tasking to create greater effect in theatre, what is happening is that we are using Apache not only for close combat attack but for reconnaissance, intelligence and surveillance. We use the Chinook both for emergency medical relief and assault operations. You can swing from one to the other and ditto across all the forces. You can pursue the hybrid warrior from the urban environment into mountainous terrain, desert and a maritime domain; you can swing straight from one to the other without having to recheck and reset your forces either conceptually or practically.
Q132 Mr Jenkin: This is about training and attitude, not about equipment or reconfiguring helicopters for different tasks?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: Exactly; and it is about optimising our equipment where we can to fulfil those roles, which is what we have done.
Q133 Mr Jenkin: Reverting to a previous conversation with my colleague, is it not a fact that combat operations tend to take priority and if there is a shortage of helicopter capacity in theatre it is the humanitarian and nation building aspect, the second part of the comprehensive approach, that loses out?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: That is absolutely right. We cannot do everything all the time, but my objective is to create a joint helicopter command that is capable of swinging from one to the other. What they actually do depends on exactly what you say: numbers, capacity and the priorities at the time.
Q134 Mr Jenkin: In that context helicopters are the supreme force multiplier?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: Absolutely. What I love about them is that they can deliver tempo to the ground force commander; in other words, they can ratchet it up or down, manoeuvre and put in fresh troops without breaking contact.
Q135 Mr
Jenkin: It is small wonder that every
brigade commander in
Brigadier Abraham: I am not sure I accept the premise that every brigade commander in
Q136 Mr Holloway: Privately, yes.
Brigadier Abraham: I do not accept that premise.
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: A ground force commander will always want more helicopters for all the reasons I have explained. We have what we have got and we are doing the maximum with what we have got, and I think we can do better still. That is my objective over the next two years or so of my appointment.
Q137 Mr
Jenkin: The last time we were in
Rear Admiral
Johnstone-Burt: At the moment in
Brigadier Abraham: As to the provision of helicopters to
Q138 Mr Jenkin: I am grateful to you for putting that on the record, but it underlines that the complaints to which I referred earlier were probably justified.
Brigadier Abraham: I do not accept your premise that everyone has said that. Let me tell you what one brigade commanders told me. It was said in private, so I will not identify the individual. Helicopters are like money in your bank account. If you are asked whether you would like some more the answer is always yes. Do you have enough to do what you have to do? The answer is yes.
Mr Holloway: You referred to the hybrid warrior. He is the one who is winning the
battle for the people which I would have thought would be the only way to win
this. What we face in
Chairman: You are asking the same question that you asked before, are you not?
Mr Holloway: I am, but it is a very important question.
Chairman: Putting it twice does not help.
Q139 Mr Holloway: I cannot see how 20% of your helicopter hours are used on the battle for the people.
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: It depends on what you mean by "battle for the people". Clearly, you have a precise idea of what you mean by that question. My point is that it can be interpreted in different ways. I will try to answer in the way I understand your question. Referring to my 15 to 20%, if you say that the battle for the people is the recovery of people wounded by the Taliban ---
Mr Holloway: No; I mean winning or regaining the consent of the people.
Chairman: I want to bring this exchange to a close.
Mr Holloway: It is a fundamental question.
Chairman: It may be a fundamental question, but next week we shall be conducting a comprehensive approach evidence session where I believe this question is more appropriate because it will not be confined to one particular type of platform.
Mr Holloway: That is why it is illuminating to find out how a very important platform is being used in this respect and we will not have witnesses like these to answer the point next week.
Chairman: But we have already had an answer to the question. I shall now move on to Linda Gilroy.
Q140 Linda
Gilroy: I should perhaps know the answer to
this question: which other countries provide helicopter capability? Do they
provide it in
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: No. We have an extremely close relationship with the Ukrainians, the Dutch, the Canadians, the Danish and the Americans. We are very much a coalition and the attribution of helicopter capability is shared throughout depending on what the commander regional wants.
Q141 Chairman: Arising directly out of that question, you said that 295 American aircraft were arriving as we speak. How many American aircraft are already there?
Brigadier Abraham: I do not know how many American aircraft are in
Q142 Chairman: Too many to count?
Brigadier Abraham: I did not say that. The point to understand about the additional 295 aircraft, which is not a confirmed figure and is still being worked out, is that we do not yet know the extent to which the Americans will declare those to Regional Command South or the extent to which they will maintain some for national purposes only. Permanent joint headquarters central command in Florida etc. is working on that as the Americans come to the south. The other matter that needs to be understood is that if they bring along 295 they are also bringing a lot more troops, so it is not a net increase. The additional troops will also consume some of those helicopters.
Q143 Mr Havard: I understand all of that. It will also be interesting to see whether in the mix of assets that they bring some will be able to fly at altitude or just go and get the pizzas, but that will be for them to decide. Clearly, the distribution of it is important. As I understood it, there was also currently a NATO contract which supplemented the number of hours that helicopters would be available. Will that be continued, renewed or extended? What is happening to that aspect of it?
Rear Admiral
Johnstone-Burt: That is called the ICAT which
employs something called MI17s. As far as we know, that is continuing and it is
hugely valuable. We also have something called the Raven contract which flies
MI17s and MI26s. Again, they do all the freight, lifting and shifting and cover
82% of all our shifting around. The specific
Q144 Mr Havard: But that aspect will not be sacrificed by the fact that the Americans are now bringing in a load of assets for their own use or other use?
Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt: I sincerely hope not and I have been given no indication that they will do anything other than continue.
Chairman: I draw this part of the evidence session to a close and say to all three witnesses that we are extremely grateful. It has been very helpful and clear.
Memorandum submitted by the Ministry of Defence
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Quentin Davies MP, Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, Mr Adrian Baguley, Head of Helicopters 2, and Commodore Russ Harding, Head of Equipment Capability (Air & Littoral Manoeuvre), Ministry of Defence, gave evidence.
Chairman: Minister, before I ask you to introduce your team I call on Mr Jenkin.
Mr Jenkin: There is an interest on the Register of Members' Interests that I want to declare. I organised a fund raiser for Combat Stress in March of this year and Finmeccanica was the main sponsor.
Q145 Chairman: Welcome back, Minister. Would you introduce your team?
Mr Davies: With pleasure. It is very nice to be before the Committee again. On my left is Commodore Russ Harding who is in charge of the equipment capability aspects of helicopters, littoral manoeuvres and the sorts of things we shall be talking about. On my right is Mr Adrian Baguley who is in charge of the relevant IPT. Both of them have been closely engaged with me and advised me on the subject that is before the Committee today for quite a long time.
Q146 Chairman: Would you begin by saying where in your list of priorities you put helicopters?
Mr Davies: It would be quite invidious for me to set out a list of priorities
in the sense that I think armoured vehicles, combat aircraft or ISTAR assets are
number one, something else is number two and something else is number three
because military capability requires an awful lot of things which are
interlinked. You really cannot have one without the other; you cannot deploy
troops on the ground without equipping them properly. You also cannot deploy
them without air support, so you need fire and close air support for them.
Helicopters are immensely important right across the board and they are enormously
important in the Navy. They are called the grey fleet and they consist of
helicopters which carry our central antisubmarine capabilities, for example the
Merlins, the anti-surface capabilities with the Lynxes and the AWACS capability
which is particularly important when you deploy a carrier force. We have helicopters
that are amphibious in the sense that they operate on ships but also on land.
The Sea King Mk4s are a very interesting example of that. The littoral
manoeuvre helicopter is being deployed purely in a land environment in
Q147 Chairman: That is a fair answer, but with some assets you can see their
relevance and priority rising and falling in different operations. For example,
submarines are of reduced relevance if we are concentrating heavily on
Mr Davies: Helicopters are absolutely key assets. We could not contend with
the challenges in insurgency and counter-insurgency operations like those in
Q148 Chairman: That sounds like a rising priority.
Mr Davies: They have already risen to a very high plateau of importance. I am not quite sure how they could rise to a higher level of importance than they currently or prospectively will have.
Q149 Mr Crausby: Can you tell us something about the current single service approach to procurement? The Committee is a little concerned that the single service approach does not really address the cross-service requirement for helicopters. While I completely understand that you cannot put priorities in a league table in that simple way, does not the current single service approach to procurement mean that helicopters are everybody's second priority?
Mr Davies: No. We do not have a single service approach to procurement in this
country. Some countries do. I know that the
Commodore Harding: I am no better example of that. I sit here this morning as yet another naval officer. Mine is a competed purple appointment and amongst littoral manoeuvre I am responsible as the sponsor and owner of the requirement for air manoeuvre, ie all-battlefield helicopters from Chinook down to Apache, Lynxes and everything else. To back up what the Minister has just said, we do not take any form of single service approach to procurement. Of course the single Services have a view; the frontline commands are not averse to popping a letter in the post and telling you where they think you have got your priorities wrong. In another example of the joint approach we take in areas such as anti‑submarine warfare, for Merlin we take a programme approach. I own the platform aspects of that capability, ie the air vehicle itself, and my team looks across that and liaises with the other directorates in delivering that capability.
Q150 Mr Crausby: But each of the Services is bound to be focused within Treasury limits on its own issues, the Navy on aircraft carriers, the RAF on strategic air lift and the Army on armoured vehicles. How do we ensure that helicopters come to the top of all those priorities when each of the Services is so concerned about what it might see as being more important?
Mr Davies: Helicopters are terribly important for each of the Services. It is perfectly true that each is conscious of the particular role performed by a helicopter type. I have already given the example of the Sea King Mk4 where a helicopter type was used as both a naval asset and land asset. There must always be a theoretical danger of a particular service capturing the agenda and having excessive influence. I assure you that we are very alive to that. The whole culture of the Ministry of Defence is against that. It is my responsibility to make sure that I am not unduly influenced by one service and I keep in touch with all of them. It is important that you should ask that question and we should be alive to the danger even if it is merely a theoretical one but I do not think it is more than that. I should like to ask Mr Baguley to speak from his vantage point of the IPTs in Abbey Wood because again that is deliberately structured as a cross-service organisation.
Mr Baguley: It is. At the Defence Board level the vice-chief of the defence staff has a particular role to champion the cause of helicopters when it comes to debate about cross‑departmental priorities. We often brief the vice-chief on the role and needs of helicopters. As the Minister said, within Defence Equipment and Support we have an organisation for the delivery of helicopter capability to all services. That is not in any way service-driven.
Q151 Mr Jenkin: Does not each of the various competing Services looking for its particular requirement with a high determination to satisfy all the roles mean that we buy a rather expensive helicopter? Should we not be a bit more bog standard in our approach and try to give people 80% as opposed to 95 or 98% of what they really want? We could buy much cheaper helicopters and perhaps have fewer classes and run the fleet much more cheaply as a result.
Commodore Harding: I absolutely agree. I will let Mr Baguley answer on the question of cheapness and the cost. One of the things we must be careful about is that in my first year of appointment I have on more than one occasion been presented with windscreen sticker prices that you see in car show rooms which say, for example, that for only this much you can have all of this. We need to look below that. Mr Baguley can perhaps comment on that. I absolutely agree that we must be wary of complexity driving the cost and go to the 80% solution in that respect. If we take an example of procurement that we amended recently, it is well known that last summer we took a long hard look at the future Lynx with AugustaWestland and many of its equipment programmes. I with colleagues from industry and DAS looked at the example of Lynx and determined that we could drive up the commonality of the aircraft between the Army and Navy for the benefit of defence. Beyond that, I recommended that we put them together in the same base despite others in the past saying that the level of commonality between them and the overlap in the training was only 15%. Perhaps I took a slightly brutal approach in saying that we would learn to drive up the commonality of training and everything else. But one of the key questions that Chief of Defence Materiel put to me was that I needed to assure him that should defence priorities change in 20 years' we could use those aircraft in other environments, ie the maritime aircraft over land - it goes without saying - and potentially the battlefield Lynx over the sea. I believe that we did that last year.
Q152 Mr Jenkin: Even so, the future Lynx is a very bespoke requirement and it is hardly a matter of buying it off a production line rather like Mr Ford wanted us to buy model Ts. That is the other extreme. But if we are looking for a multi-role combat helicopter should we not seek to buy something that is much more basic?
Commodore Harding: If we go to the roles that that aircraft must perform, it has to go over the land in a battlefield reconnaissance aircraft role and lift some troops. When it is over the sea it must do two missions that we talk about: first, it must find, which is as easy and simple to understand as the meaning of the word, that is, it must find where the enemy combatants are; second, it must attack them. There are two quite broadly-based requirements for one aircraft in two subtlety different variants, ie carrying radar and electrical optics and carrying missiles in the maritime role and then taking it across to the land role.
Q153 Mr Jenkin: The difficulty is that you have to buy them now; you cannot buy them when you need them. Looking at the future medium helicopter perhaps we can come up with the concept that we just buy it off somebody's production line as and when we need it rather like we do with armoured vehicles now?
Commodore Harding: I think we have a good story in relation to that. Perhaps Mr Baguley wants to comment.
Mr Baguley: Certainly, for the future medium helicopter we are looking to reduce the number of types that we operate within defence. I think you have already been briefed that along with any type comes a range of fixed costs associated with owning that type of helicopter. Our plan for the future medium helicopter is to move towards fewer types. As to buying off a volume production line, there are not many military volume production lines around in the world. We are looking at whether we can buy either from some of those volume military production lines or volume civil production lines where helicopters can be modified for military use. That is all part of the strategy we are looking at in delivering the future medium helicopter. I absolutely share your view. Commodore Harding and I are regularly pressing down on the requirement to make sure that it is not gold-plated and it is the minimum required to deliver the range of capabilities required of that platform.
Q154 Mr Holloway: To go back to what Commodore Harding said, what does the Minister think are the main concerns currently of frontline commanders with regard to helicopters?
Mr Davies: I am sure you had an opportunity to talk to frontline commanders in
Q155 Mr Holloway: I am referring to their concerns.
Mr Davies: Their concerns are that they continue to have good helicopters and in sufficient numbers with sufficient crews to operate them. That may have been a major constraint. I think the story is a pretty impressive one. I do not think commanders have great concerns. Obviously, everybody is interested in the future medium helicopter and how we specify that and so forth.
Q156 Mr Holloway: I was trying to see how in touch you were with what they were concerned about. Even if they are relatively small matters, what sorts of things are they worried about?
Mr Davies: I go to
Q157 Robert Key: Can we look at the whole question of life extension? I start by reporting from my constituency how pleased everybody is that the eight Chinooks that have been languishing at Boscombe Down are now being worked on very satisfactorily. I have been in them myself to see what is happening. That is very good news. Mr Baguley referred to the need to reduce the number and variety of helicopters. I believe I am right in saying that there are 15 major types of helicopter in service at the moment and about 13 marks or variations within that. Does that have anything to do with the delay in the decision on what is happening to the Puma extension project which was due to be announced on 31 March?
Mr Davies: To take those points in turn, thank you for your kind remarks about
the sorting out of the problem of the Chinook Mk3s. I share your delight in the
progress in that regard. In the next few months those aircraft will be
available for deployment in
Q158 Robert Key: They were being designed when I was at school.
Mr Davies: It cannot be that long ago.
Q159 Robert Key: It was in the 1960s.
Mr Davies: There is the possibility of dispensing with those two life-extension programmes and bringing forward the future medium helicopter procurement which would then certainly need to be done on a modified off-the-shelf basis. That is my strong preference for meeting that commitment anyway to avoid technical risk and some of the agonies we have had in the past with new projects of this kind. It would also mean an accelerated process of procurement. It would not be quite a UOR but possibly not the rather laborious full-scale classic international tender which up to now has been the policy and formally remains the procurement policy for the future medium helicopter. I know this Committee does not like long answers, but I think you need to know the present state of affairs. I repeat the formal position of the department remains exactly as it was. We may well decide that that is the best way to meet the country's needs in this area, but I want to make absolutely sure we have fully explored the alternative before we sign contracts. In any event we shall be signing contracts in the course of this year.
Chairman: In this case that long answer was extremely helpful.
Robert Key: Indeed it is, Minister, and it is very good news for the taxpayer. To spend £300 million on 28 airframes for an eight to 10-year extension, which is about £11 million each, when you can buy a new helicopter with a life of 40 years for £20 million seems to be rather strange arithmetic. Given that the crashworthiness, not airworthiness, of the Puma is not very good compared with a modern design - after all, we have lost 40% of the British military Puma force in 40 years' service - surely it is time to press ahead with the new future medium helicopter. I was delighted to hear you say what you did.
Q160 Chairman: I do not think you said quite that; you said that a decision was yet to be made.
Mr Davies: I did say that a decision had yet to be made. I simply want to ensure that we have explored all possible avenues before we take that decision. Therefore, I have instituted a rather last-minute re-examination of the problem. I do not believe that crashworthiness is a concept we recognise when applied to aircraft, whether rotary or fixed wing. I do not like the sound of that. I assure you that we would not dream of flying any helicopter that we were not absolutely certain was as safe as it possibly could be. One of the many considerations that must be looked at in terms of re-examining the procurement of the FMH as against the life extension programmes is the safety aspect. We may well find that the safety agencies that provide airworthiness certificates say we must do something much quicker with the Puma and perhaps the Sea King. Therefore we cannot possibly go straight away to procure the future medium helicopter because we cannot know whether at some time they will withdraw airworthiness certificates. That is one of the many considerations in all of our minds as we go forward on this one. We take safety very seriously. Perhaps Commodore Harding would care to comment.
Commodore Harding: Perhaps at the beginning I may deal with the statistics and then Mr Baguley may say something further on your comment about crashworthiness. One thing we do in defence over time - I have a particular background in this - is work with the statistics agency to determine reasonable assumptions about the attrition of our aircraft. In the Navy we used to have what was essentially a management plan which bizarrely was called the naval databook. The reason for it was that we used to put into it exactly the sorts of statistics you mentioned. You said that we had lost 40% in 40 years. We could have a little debate about whether 40 years is exactly the length of service of the aircraft, but as you go through it you do two things. The two compelling statistics that you work out are: how many aircraft will you lose over time irrevocably because you bend it or crash it. We do damage categories from one to five. Category five means that probably you will not return the aircraft to service; that is a major loss of the aircraft. For categories three and four you would probably return the aircraft to service if it was economic to do so. To give an example, in the case of Sea King we used to assume a category five about every 55,000 hours. That was what we did with the Sea Kings from 1967 when it was introduced into service and took it through. Sometimes unbelievably it holds true over time that you will suffer damage operationally and in basic accidents. In the past I have caused an aircraft to suffer a small amount of damage in respect of propellers. Those things happen.
Mr Davies: It did not damage your career, did it?
Commodore Harding: Some would say it did, others that it did not. But one expects those things to happen. Without trying to elongate this, you take out car insurance because you tend to have small accidents. Therefore, we make that assumption. I would say that the reduction in the Puma force over time is not remarkable. I would have to look at the 40-year service; I think that may be at the top end and that the aircraft has not been around for that length of time; Sea King certainly has been. But it is not unreasonable to look at those statistics. We then make assumptions, certainly with fast jets, about attrition provision. In the past we have bought sufficient aircraft in advance at a good UPC with the manufacturer to make sure we have those attrition aircraft in place.
Q161 Robert Key: Minister, would it be fair to say that part of the reason for your review of this decision is that there are implications here flowing from the Human Rights Act and recent court decisions and also the Corporate Manslaughter Act and you would not wish to put RAF personnel or any service personnel into aircraft which did not have a very good record?
Mr Davies: Of course, none of us would wish or dream to put air crew into aircraft in whose safety we did not have complete confidence. I can give you the quick answer that considerations of human rights legislation and so forth did not play any part at all in the thoughts I have just expressed and the decisions I have made so far.
Mr Baguley: For clarity, we have a duty of care to our people under the Health and Safety at Work Act to ensure that the capabilities that they operate are safe and that we have reduced the risks of any major injuries or fatalities to as low as reasonably practicable. With the life extension of the Puma fleet, if we go down that route, there will be an extended exposure to risk. One of the key things we look at in extending the aircraft are the safety aspects. The principal safety hazard on Puma at the moment is associated with its engines and particular handling characteristics which is why, if we extend the life of the aircraft, we will replace the engines.
Q162 Robert Key: That will deal with the anticipatory issue?
Mr Baguley: That will have a full digital flight control system with digital engine control which will remove the anticipatory issue. We are also looking at part of the LEP to replace the cockpit instrumentation with modern digital instruments. We will also introduce an additional flight control systems. All of these things will improve the overall safety of that fleet, so safety is a paramount consideration whenever we consider extending the life of a helicopter fleet.
Q163 Robert
Key: Minister, if you go ahead with the Puma
life extension programme all the work that Mr Baguley has described will be
carried out in
Mr Davies: My job is to try to spend the taxpayers' money to achieve maximum
effect in defence capability terms. There are obvious constraints on where we
can procure equipment. We will not procure military equipment from
Mr Baguley: To clarify the position on where the work will be done if we go
forward with the Puma life extension, the bulk of the engineering design will
be done in
Q164 Robert Key: How big will be the dip in capability while we wait for the decision on Puma or Sea King and the arrival of a future medium helicopter?
Mr Davies: We are trying to avoid dips in capability. At the present the Pumas
are not being employed in
Commodore Harding: A very good example, if you look at the written evidence submitted
in advance, is the Sea King LEP. We have some older Sea Kings, the Mk6, which
we have been operating to support Commander Helicopter Force in the past. It is
up to Mr Baguley to conduct that review for the Minister and let him see all
this background data. With the Sea Kings I can probably buy into the life
extension programme those Mk6s for use at Yeovilton to do the basic baseline
training. They are not at the standard for Afghanistan but there are two ways
to do training: that which you are about to do with all the display night vision
goggles and basic instrument flying, engine off landings and everything else.
Therefore, the IPT team leader for the Sea King is very confident that we will
not see a dip and not reduce what Brigadier Abraham and others want in
Q165 Mr Jenkin: It would have been far easier to make these decisions if we had not taken £1.4 billion out of the helicopter programme in the early part of the decade and we would not have been messing around with a patch-up job on Puma; we would have gone straight for a new helicopter. But the real question is: why not take the opportunity now to reduce the number of helicopter types and buy new?
Mr Davies: We are where we are. We have to take decisions now in the light of the circumstances at the time. I do not want to waste too much time going back and rewriting history to see what might have happened if we had not done this, that or the other.
Q166 Mr Jenkin: We opposed that then and I presume you did, too.
Mr Davies: That could very well be the case. I am not even defending the decision now from where I sit. I simply say that I am not going to go back over that. My concern is to take the right decisions now.
Q167 Mr Jenkin: What about the reduction in helicopter types?
Mr Davies: I have a lot of sympathy for what you have been saying. I believe that the answers given by Commodore Harding and Mr Baguley also confirm that. All things being equal, it is better to have a smaller number of helicopter types. As my two colleagues know very well, several times I have pressed them on the issue of trying to make some helicopters which now have a single role have dual, even triple, capability. There are some possible opportunities for that. Therefore, all things being equal it would be a good idea. If we went for the more rapid procurement of the future medium helicopter and dispensed with the life extension programmes, unless we procured several different types of future medium helicopter off the shelf, which is a possibility, we would probably end up de facto with a smaller number of helicopters in our fleet. You will be aware that the Gazelles are running out of service and they will not be replaced. There is no reason to replace their capability; we do not need it any more. Again, that will be the elimination of a new type of helicopter, so we are moving in that direction. I agree that that is a favourable direction in which to move.
Q168 Mr Jenkin: We have 550 helicopters in the current fleet. How many helicopters do we plan to finish up with in 2020?
Mr Davies: That is a very good question but I cannot answer that precisely today.
Q169 Mr Jenkin: Approximately?
Mr Davies: I would rather not do that.
Q170 Mr Jenkin: Because it is embarrassing, is it not?
Mr Davies: It is not embarrassing at all. We are reviewing the whole of this and until we know which of the two routes we shall take I cannot answer that question.
Q171 Mr Jenkin: It is likely to be fewer than 300, perhaps 250?
Mr Davies: I should like to repeat what I said yesterday in the House. I am interested in outputs rather than inputs; I am not interested in counting platforms but buying capabilities.
Q172 Mr Jenkin: It will be fewer than 300, will it not?
Mr Davies: It will certainly be fewer than 550.
Mr Holloway: Can you say to the nearest 50?
Q173 Mr Jenkin: Do you not know?
Mr Davies: It is not a question of my not knowing. The numbers will flow from the establishment of the capability, so I really cannot give a precise answer.
Q174 Mr Jenkin: Eleven years is not a very long time in the timescale of helicopter capability.
Mr Davies: I will not make any commitment today. Let us see if we can give you some idea.
Q175 Mr Holloway: Can you give it to the nearest 50?
Mr Baguley: If I may, the intention at the moment is to acquire over 120 new helicopters in the next decade and we have plans in place to upgrade over 200 helicopters over that period. That gives you a minimum number that we shall be looking at. The decision on the final numbers for any of those fleets will be made only when we make the formal investment decision.
Q176 Mr Holloway: You must have some idea of the number to the nearest 50.
Mr Davies: I think that gives a number of between 300 and 400, does it not? I am not prepared to be tied down to any figure today, but we shall make an announcement in due time. Some of the helicopter types we have we shall run through to 2040. We have 48 Chinooks at the moment and they will go past 2040. We have 67 Apaches and unless we have attrition we shall keep those until after 2040. Therefore, a lot of the current helicopter types we have will go right the way through. Some of the helicopter types cannot go all the way through. We have already explained our plans to change that. To some extent it depends on which helicopter types we go for, which ones we purchase if we go for the future medium helicopter, what capability we are purchasing and how many platforms we need. Therefore, the number of platforms should be a function of the capability you require, not the other way round. We start with capability.
Q177 Chairman: Yesterday you said you were more interested in outputs than inputs. I understand that while you are still making these decisions you do not want to be tied to any particular number of platforms, but there is something to be said for numbers as well as quality, is there not? There is something to be said for having the helicopters available to allow for increased tempo. Recently, Major General Barney White-Spunner said that, "In land operations, mass and tempo are key elements in tactical success and two available frames will always be better than one". We understand the benefits of increasing the number of hours from the helicopters we have, but do you accept that there are genuine benefits in increasing the number of helicopters that we have in order to provide for that tempo and flexibility?
Mr Davies: I agree that there are certain minimum numbers that you tend to need for any particular tactical purpose, but I do not agree that two airframes are always better than one. For example, I do not suppose for a moment that two Gazelles are better than one Apache. That would be crazy. One Apache is probably better than 10 Gazelles. You can play this game for as long as you like, but it is not true to say that two airframes are necessarily better than one. There is another reason for my reticence in this matter. We have not decided which way we are going forward; we have not entirely decided on the contractual mechanism with which we will go forward. We will be going to suppliers and asking what they can offer us. I do not want to say in advance either how much money we are prepared to spend or exactly how many units we will buy. That is not a sensible way to go into commercial negotiation. We will enter into some commercial negotiations if we go the different route that I have outlined that we may possibly be considering at the present time. I am afraid that I am not prepared to give the Committee today any precise figures or a much better indication of the numbers than the ones I have just given to Mr Holloway. It may be that in a few months' time we shall be able to give the Committee something slightly more precise about our projections.
Q178 Chairman: I have not been asking about precise figures but the general direction in which defence seems to be going with an incredible uplift in the capacity and capability of each individual platform but a general reduction in numbers so that the quality of numbers tend to be ignored or left behind. Do you not accept that that is a worry in the helicopter fleet as well?
Mr Davies: I totally accept that that is a trend in defence with improving
technology. I also accept that in World War II we had about 5,000
Q179 Chairman: Against the background of the increasing capability of each platform but a reduction in the number of platforms we know that a gap is emerging. There will be a reduction or dip in the next few years, will there not?
Mr Davies: There will be a trend towards a smaller number of platforms in helicopters as in other systems for exactly the reasons you have described and we have both been talking about.
Commodore Harding: I go back to what I said about frontline commands telling us how
well we are doing and everything else. In some areas when you have capability
going out of service particularly during operations we the military want the
old capability at this level and the new capability - that may not be numbers -
at the same level. Occasionally, you have to accept the fact that it is not
possible to do that. There is one example in the grey fleet which is the Merlin
Mk1 to Mk2 programme where we are changing processes, bits of the cockpit and
the aircraft down at Culdrose. There will be a dip down to a level that we have
deemed to be as low as we can go while the aircraft are returned to the
manufacturer for rework. They are not building new aircraft. A number of
aircraft will go back into the factory to be reworked and there will be a dip
over time that you have to live with. If you have new aircraft coming in you
will try all aspects to make sure that those numbers go down and numbers come
up. Over time in real life that is quite a tall order and it is expensive. I go
back to the point that during operations you have to get that right. Outside
operations you can take what we call capability holidays where we accept that
as a big aircraft or new project comes in we might have to transfer over the
people. A good example is the Navy's future carriers. You have to take the
older carriers out of service earlier to get the people off them retrained and
refamiliarised with the new ships and put them to sea. There is no other way of
doing that other than by employing vast numbers of additional people.
Therefore, on some aspects there are things we are able to do. Perhaps I may
add one thing about the numbers about which you asked. Over the period since we
built Gazelles, Lynxes and everything else - I refer to the different roles and
everything else as the Minister said - one bit we sometimes forget is that when
we speak of the Defence Helicopter Flying School those aircraft are leased; the
contractor delivers the service and everything else. There are other areas in
the world where we have contractors providing the aircraft as well -
Mr Baguley: For the record, we currently lease 67 light helicopters. If we look at the overall numbers we also need to consider which helicopter types we are reducing. It is at the light end of the scale and that is because some of those roles are being taken over by other assets such as UAVs.
Q180 Linda Gilroy: I want to ask about urgent operational requirements which are essential and for the most part greatly welcomed when they arrive but sometimes at the expense of maintaining coherency in the aircraft available in future. How does this affect planning? Is the impact of the number of available aircraft on the future coherence of the fleet, if that is the right term, absolutely inevitable? How do you plan that into all of the future scenarios that you are looking at?
Mr Davies: UORs always do raise the issue of coherence because the theory is that you are buying something for just one particular campaign and operation and may not want to have it as part of your core defence capability. That is the theory of it, but in practice you may well say that there are other insurgency-type operations in similar conditions and that something you have purchased for one particular UOR ought to be kept in permanent inventory and you should maintain the support, spares, training and so forth accordingly. There have been some good examples of that in the case of armoured vehicles where the issue of coherence particularly arises. It does not arise so much in the case of helicopters because we are re‑engining the Lynx. That is a very important programme to make it available to fly the existing Lynx, not the future Lynx which the Wildcat, in hot and high conditions. Apart from that I cannot think of another instance where we have used UORs and helicopters.
Q181 Linda Gilroy: What about defensive aids suites?
Mr Davies: Defensive aids suites can be slightly different in different
theatres because of different conditions. For example, in
Q182 Linda Gilroy: They may be permanent for one particular aircraft but not capable of being permanent for others and therefore there are some compromises?
Commodore Harding: There is a tension with UORs in the first place. I do not intend to
sound patronising, but it is urgent and you are trying to get it out. That is
one of the areas where initially there is a lack of coherence. You try to get
to the boys and girls on the frontline a new camera that an aircraft has never
had before and so you rush through with the manufacturers the fitting of that
camera once you have established its requirement and understood what you want.
You very quickly work back to make sure you have resilience in the training
aircraft. While in an ideal world you would say that if that camera or a
defensive aids system is the one to be used in Afghanistan we should fit it all
the way back across the fleet, the trouble with that approach is that you want
to take out as few aircraft as possible to do it and so it takes time. You may
get to the point where you spend five years fitting this particular camera as a
defensive aid system and find it is a wasted resource. Therefore, there is tension
in getting it out and how much you fit it and everything else. Another good
example is that one of the reasons we are taking time to take Merlin out of
Q183 Linda Gilroy: I think the answer to the question whether it is inevitable there is a certain inbuilt incoherence in UORs is yes?
Commodore Harding: Yes, if you do not want to waste resource.
Q184 Linda Gilroy: I think the Committee would like to know whether you doing your best to minimise that?
Commodore Harding: Yes. I came back into this job just over a year ago. I have to say that I was positively surprised by the way the relationship between the department and Treasury was going in that it was working seamlessly. Over time we are learning lessons. If we go back to the Sea King Mk4 fleet and the upgrades we requested to take it from one theatre to the other, there are now bits that I have gone back to rework. If we look at what we did on Merlin over a year later and what we asked the Treasury to approve we changed our approach. In some areas we asked for more of certain things and we were then required to provide the evidence to support them. We were grilled pretty hard, but we managed that. I think there is a positive story to tell in that respect. We are now going back to re-examine what we have done. As to Chinook, in relation to coherence and "fleets within fleets" where it becomes chronic you have to go to the point of spending resource to get the aircraft to the necessary level.
Mr Baguley: Certainly, in relation to the Merlin force, Mk3 and Mk3A, that Commodore Harding has just spoken about, we are bringing all of them to a common test standard. As to the Chinook force, we are also trying to bring it to a common standard. As to the Merlin Mk9 force, we are bringing all of it to a common standard and fitting it with T800 engines. We are also bringing the Apache force to a common theatre standard. Where we can we try to reduce fleets within fleets and the theatre entry issues.
Q185 Chairman: But this message does not seem to have got through to the men and
women we met at Middle Wallop and Yeovilton who said that sometimes the theatre
entry standard equipment in which they found themselves flying in Helmand
province was something they saw for the first time when they got to
Mr Davies: I do not think it is right to comment on that.
Commodore Harding: I heard the industry session when that question was asked. I think
Mr Hancock asked the question. We think it may have been AH where we use
some of our aircraft for environmental training outside this country, ie the
hot and high bits, that is, the experiential bits of piloting the aircraft in
that respect. At the beginning I referred to Sea King Mk4 and the enhancements
we asked for to take it to
Q186 Chairman: What is the right number? Does the right number include a number of
training aircraft for the
Commodore Harding: Absolutely, yes. You have a choice: either you make the decision to
go to
Mr Davies: Let me place on record that it is an absolute principle when we buy
new equipment under the UOR, apart from the core defence programme, that we buy
sufficient number to ensure people can be trained on exactly that type of
equipment. This goes across the board; it is not just helicopters. We always
specify the numbers and amounts of equipment we need to procure taking into
account the training programme so we do not have anybody going out to theatre
who has not been trained on the type of equipment, whether it is weapons,
communications equipment, armoured vehicles or what have you, with which they
will then be working in
Q187 Chairman: All we can tell you is what we heard from the men and women
undergoing the training before going out to
Mr Davies: I am grateful you have told us about that. Obviously, no one wants to break any confidences here. There may well have been something that has fallen between the cracks and Commodore Harding will look into it, but I want to reiterate the general principle on which we place a very great deal of importance.
Chairman: It sounds a good general principle provided it is adhered to in practice.
Q188 Mr Holloway: If you have only a limited amount of kit and it is desperately needed in theatre it is not unreasonable to get it out there and sort out the training aspect later. Surely, that is a priority; it works both ways.
Mr Davies: I believe that you were a professional soldier in an earlier incarnation. I am not sure that you would have said that at the time.
Q189 Mr
Holloway: I can give you an example of where
we received a piece of equipment. Although there was not very much of it we
were very grateful for it and did not really care whether or not we had had the
opportunity to be trained on it back in the
Mr Davies: You are trying to help me but I stand by what I have said. As Minister for Defence Equipment and Support I believe we should rigorously uphold the principle I have just enunciated and do not send people to a war zone and ask them to try out equipment with which they are not familiar in the face of enemy fire. I do not believe that that is the right principle. Normally, we will withhold equipment until we have at least the minimum number of people who are properly trained on it. That is how we operate generally and also in the area of helicopters.
Q190 Chairman: This principle applies not only to the use of the equipment in the face of enemy fire but also the maintenance of it that needs to be done out in theatre, presumably.
Mr Davies: In other words, you are saying that people would not be maintaining equipment that had not been maintained elsewhere?
Q191 Chairman: Yes.
Commodore Harding: I think I can reassure you that if something is needed tomorrow in
Q192 Mr Holloway: I worry about dogma getting in the way of practicalities.
Commodore Harding: Yes.
Mr Davies: But whether we train in theatre,
Commodore Harding: Let me give a good example where we are making a wholesale change. In the up-engining of the Lynx Mk9 with the T800, which is the engine to go into the future Lynx, the Wildcat, some of my colleagues in DAS have said that those aircraft will be delivered on that date and therefore they can be deployed shortly thereafter. Commander JFC and his team have said that we can do that but not until those crews have learned to refly that aircraft with a substantially different instrument panel and engine - there are other issues with the way the aircraft flies - and have done hot and high and environmental training. You get a certain enthusiasm to put the kit out earlier and in some cases you push back, but I reassure you that if there is a piece of kit - I can give examples but they are classified and I will not reveal them here - where you take it out and do the training there, but you are not talking of an aircraft or engine change; you are talking about that which goes in the hand and can be easily assimilated, and I think we have a good story on that.
Q193 Linda Gilroy: If helicopters are force multipliers would not spending a greater proportion of the defence budget make a great deal of sense and be a very cost-effective way of improving the capability of our Armed Forces as a whole? I suppose the simple question is: why do they not get greater priority?
Mr Davies: I have tried to illustrate that they get an awful lot of priority.
We shall be spending a large number of billions of pounds on helicopters over the
next 10 years. For reasons I mentioned earlier I shall not be more precise than
that. There are always decisions to be taken on priorities. We want to maintain
the right balance between different capabilities that we require because they
are all interdependent. If you look at our plans I do not believe you can say
that we are giving them too low a priority. I hope that the next time you go to
Q194 Linda
Gilroy: The responses we get will certainly
reflect what you have said, but they will also reflect the fact that more helicopters
can always add to capability. Last time I was in
Mr Davies: I agree with you, and that is why we are providing more helicopters. We do not talk about the number of assets we have in theatre, but I have already said that the Chinook Mk3 will be available for deployment there within a few months. The first Merlin will also be available for deployment there in the next few months. The first re-engined Lynxes will be there in the early part of next year. We are making a very substantial commitment and I hope the Committee recognises that. It would be very churlish and rather perverse not to recognise that. A very considerable effort is being made.
Q195 Linda
Gilroy: I am quite sure we will recognise
that, but whether we conclude there are sufficient numbers and capability to
add up to the required force multiplier in difficult places like Afghanistan,
taking into account all the other things we have discussed today such as the
availability of training etc. is a matter to which we will give quite a lot of
consideration. I do not think we can take it from the information you have
offered us today that as much is being done as is optimal in terms of the
capability that our Armed Forces need in
Mr Davies: Of course you do not just rely on what I have said to you today, nor would I expect or want you to do so. We want you to cross-check it. I quoted the figures in the House yesterday. There has been an 80% increase in helicopter hours available since November 2006 when the present pattern of war-fighting there has emerged and been sustained. By the end of next year the figure will be more than 100%.
Mr Baguley: It will be 116%.
Mr Davies: I repeat I am interested in capability and that is why those
figures are very important. That is a function of the number of platforms
available which we are increasing. It is also a function of good and increasing
support and sustainability and having the necessary crews. That has been a
problem and I do not disguise that fact from the Committee. There will be more
crews. I was not present during the previous session. I do not know to what
extent you dealt with that with Rear Admiral Johnstone-Burt. Normally, I do not
get involved in training, recruitment and remuneration issues but I have done
so in this case. I have been talking to him about what we can do to improve
retention and recruitment and we are making some substantial changes in those
areas. As a result of all this I hope you will conclude that we will do everything
possible to maximise the support commanders require in the field of helicopters
as in others in
Q196 Linda Gilroy: We shall see.
Mr Baguley: I give an example of where we have pulled together the four legs of the stool about which Commander JHC talked earlier. As to the Chinook force, we are now delivering 25% more hours without adding a single helicopter. That is why you need to be very careful about looking just at helicopter numbers.
Commodore Harding: Certainly I and perhaps others sitting here need to look at the other forces because the Chinook model that I hold up needs to be replicated in other places. We need to see how we get that sea change in doing that.
Q197 Chairman: I want to end by trying to get to the bottom of something which I do not yet understand. Is there any system of limiting the number of hours of helicopters?
Mr Davies: A system whereby you say to the commanders in the field that they cannot fly more than a certain number of hours?
Q198 Chairman: Yes.
Mr Davies: I know you like simple answers, Chairman: no. Commanders are absolutely free to use their assets as they wish. We would not dream of imposing such a constraint on them.
Q199 Mr Holloway: Surely, they are constrained by maintenance schedules. Aircraft need to be maintained, so what you say cannot be correct.
Mr Davies: You have completely misunderstood me. There are always constraints in life. We are increasing the number of helicopter hours available to commanders, but the Chairman was asking whether we are imposing an artificial limit and saying that commanders must not use a particular platform for more than so many thousand hours a year or a month. You had in mind whether we were giving some instruction of that kind because we were worried about the sustainability of the kit. It is entirely a matter for commanders in the field to judge how they use the hours available. We are not constraining them.
Mr Holloway: Available hours are a constraint.
Q200 Mr Jenkin: You have referred to the hours available. Suppose a platform is due for a period of maintenance after a certain number of hours. Is it at the discretion of the commanders on the ground to say that even though there is additional risk of flying extra hours without that maintenance the priority is to fly this mission now? Is that within the discretion of commanders or are they imprisoned by the maintenance schedules?
Commodore Harding: I am not intimately familiar with each and every service's aircraft
and the discretion available, but I can give my own experience in operating Sea
King helicopters and other fixed-wing aircraft. In the maintenance regime
engineers can defer a certain amount of maintenance on a calendar basis and by
hours. That is irrefutable and it is part of our engineering principles and
everything else. If you ask me how much a senior engineer for the Chinook
detachment on the ground in
Mr Baguley: One of the things we have done with the contractors for the Chinook is to deal with some of those maintenance activities which ordinarily would have required the aircraft to be withdrawn, so in that way we keep those aircraft in the frontline.
Q201 Mr Jenkin: But the commanders are not given a budgeted number of hours?
Mr Davies: No, they are not. These are matters which will be discussed between a commander and his chief engineer. The commander may say that he wants to surge some helicopters in an operation in the next few days and says, "Do you mind postponing this maintenance?" That dialogue takes place between the commander and his chief engineer. It is up to the commander to use his judgment as to whether he wants to override his own engineer. I want to make absolutely clear that we do not get involved in that. What I am trying to answer very precisely is that we do not send any central direction to constrain commanders in the use of their assets in theatre, whether helicopter hours or anything else. The implication was that we were doing this for budgetary or other reasons. Obviously, there are physical constraints; there always are. It is patently obvious that there is a certain number of helicopters, armoured vehicles and men there and they cannot be increased over night; that is a physical constraint, but there is no directional constraint or order from the Ministry of Defence not to use equipment which is available to commanders; it is for them to determine based on advice from their own engineers what to do with the kit we have provided.
Q202 Mr Holloway: We have been engaged in the so-called war on terror for eight years. It stands to reason that you are limiting the number of hours available to commanders by giving them x number of helicopters that do x number of hours. This is tautology.
Mr Davies: We are giving them x number of helicopters and they are doing more hours the whole time. The helicopters have been made more serviceable and we are increasing productivity, if you like. We have dealt with some of the bottlenecks on spares and we are dealing with some of the others in relation to crews, trying to make sure that those assets can be worked more and more. They are being worked more and more and at the same time we are supplying the new assets and platforms that I have described. We are making a double effort to increase the availability of helicopter hours.
Mr Baguley: If there are to be significant increases in activity in order to deliver the repairs, overhaul, servicing and spares to support that we need to plan ahead. Obviously, as you increase activity you use more spares and have more repairs and overhaul. We need to look ahead with operational commanders at what the likely demands will be.
Commodore Harding: You are asking us very good questions. As Mr Baguley has just said,
you plan ahead. We have a department process where I with Mr Baguley must look
at how many hours across fleets over 10 years we will fly. The operating budget
for the first four years is owned by Commander JFC; I own the bit after that.
You look and decide how many hours you anticipate flying so that creates a
tension between PJHQ and the commitments and capability area behind me and
everything else. But it comes down to the sustainable number of hours of the
people themselves. Commander JHC spoke about the four legs of the stool and
everything else. There is a maximum number of hours in joint regulations that
we set as a tripwire for our commanders in theatre, for example Commander Joint
Aviation Group in
Mr Davies: I can sum it up by saying that we are interested in providing sustainable capability. If you run a war you cannot predict what will happen at any one point. There may well be cases when you have to surge things. You cannot by definition surge all the time; if you do your crews will be damaged and your aircraft will not be maintained and they will not work. Eventually, you will not have any capability at all. We plan things on the basis of sustainable capability and that is why we look at the four legs Mr Baguley has talked about and are very conscious if temporarily we may be extending maintenance schedules or putting more pressure on crews. That cannot be sustained and commanders in the field know that, but they must make these judgments. That is not only their professional right but their responsibility and capability in theatre.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Minister, you said you would be prepared to answer our questions for as long as we wished to ask them. We have now come to the end of what we wish to ask in today's very helpful evidence session in which we have gone into this matter in some depth. We are grateful to all three of you.