Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
240-256)
GENERAL SIR
KEVIN O'DONOGHUE,
DR ANDREW
TYLER AND
MR GUY
LESTER
1 DECEMBER 2009
Q240 Mrs Moon: You are happy with
the capacity to fly hot and high and to provide enough lift capacity?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
There is always an attraction in having more lift. There is a
balance between the amount of armour you put on, the amount of
protection you put on and the lift of the engines, and it is that
operational balance that we need to consider. Am I happy? I am
happy that we have got more aircraft out there with a lift capability.
Would I like it to be a better lift capability? Of course, and
we will look to see what we might do about that, but the key issue,
I would suggest, is we have got them out there, and that is a
plus.
Q241 Mrs Moon: Is it a case of something
better than nothing?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
No, they are good aircraft, Merlins. They are big, heavy aircraft.
Some of the weight they are lifting is their own air weight, but
they are good aircraft.
Q242 Mrs Moon: How does the award
of the Puma contract to Eurocopter align with the Defence Industrial
Strategy? Are there any UK-based subcontractors that will be working
on this?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
I cannot answer that last bit of your question, but I can certainly
come back to you on that.[10]
Eurocopter are OEM (the original equipment manufacturer), and
it was appropriate to include them in the competition, and they
came in the most economically.[11]
To answer your question about the Defence Industrial Strategy
and perhaps put a name to it, AgustaWestland have a lot of work
in hand. Again, we never said that all helicopter work would go
to AgustaWestland. This is a partnering arrangement we have, a
partnership with AgustaWestland. We need to make sure that their
skill-sets and their industrial capability and capacity is maintained
so that they can deliver military capability for us in the future,
and I am confident that we are doing that.
Q243 Chairman: Before we move off
that, how is the Puma life extension programme going?
Dr Tyler: It is going very well.[12]
Q244 Chairman: There are no problems
that you want to flag up?
Dr Tyler: No. One of the real
attractions about the Puma LEP programme is, of course, its low
technical risk.[13]
Q245 Chairman: How much extra life
will it give to the Pumas once it has been completed?
Mr Lester: Ten years.
Dr Tyler: It is about 10 years.
I do not have the precise number but, yes, it is in the order
of a decade or so.
Q246 Mr Hamilton: Chairman, if we
are investing such an amount of money in Pumas which have only
got a 10-year lifespan, that does not make sense to me in the
long-term, and that was the conclusion of the Committee. Could
you explain why is it that, in spite of all that and, indeed,
a number of other people saying that this did not make practical
and financial sense in the long-term for a 10-year involvement,
when you could have taken an alternative which would have given
you another 30 or 40 years, you came to this conclusion, in spite
of, I think, a logical recommendation to the contrary?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
I think, going back to something I was saying to Mr Jenkin earlier,
given unlimited money we would have probably bought new helicopters,
but we do not have unlimited money, and there is nothing wrong
with the Puma aircraft.[14]
Q247 Mr Hamilton: That is not the
question. I understand the money was not the issue because you
would have got the same value and there would have been less helicopters
coming from the other company in the UK and they would have had
a greater capability of uplift. The question I come back to is
the one I have never understood. You are investing substantial
amounts of money in extending the Puma for a 10-year period, which
will not be 10 years, it will be less than that, because by the
time you get to the 10 years you will end up extending it again.
Ten years does not make sense to me.
Dr Tyler: The Puma did have a
lot of attractions to us from the point of view that it was a
known quantity. It is a helicopter that has been very well used
and understood by the user. There are a lot of benefits that come
through in the other defence lines of development, through things
like training and so on, the familiarity, and also, time being
of the essence, this was a low risk route to getting a helicopter
that was a known quantity very quickly, relatively speaking, life
extended and getting it back into active service. One of the things
we are trying to do with helicopters at the moment is to get helicopters
into service and have as many in service as we can at any particular
point in time, and that helicopter is a very important one within
the defence inventory and it was important that we were to get
it upgraded and back into the inventory as soon as possible.
Q248 Mr Hamilton: Just to be clear,
you get these helicopters into operation quicker than taking another
contract?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
You get more helicopters into operation quicker by going down
the Puma LEP route than you would by buying new of anything else.
Mr Lester: The assessment was
that, without a very large amount of extra money in the next few
years, we would have a big capability gap in operational helicopters
if we bought new helicopters rather than upgrading the Puma.[15]
Q249 Mr Hamilton: The two major factors
were availability quicker, and of course, commonality, the knowledge.
The other one, you are saying, would have been more money.
Mr Lester: It is the CDM's point,
which is that with infinite amounts of money we could afford new
helicopters.
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
More money upfront would have been needed. I have just been passed
a note, the Puma LEP out of service date is 2025.
Q250 Mr Crausby: Did AgustaWestland
ever come up with a figure? My understanding is that AgustaWestland
said that they could not produce it for the same price, but I
do not think we ever saw any detail of that, did we?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
We would have required 44 Merlins, to replace Puma and Sea King.
There were only between 14 and 16 affordable by 2015, which is
in the middle of the gap, so we would not have had as many helicopters
for the same amount of money as we have got with Puma.[16]
Q251 Mr Hamilton: What would have
been the uplift of those helicopters compared to the Puma? Would
it have been the same, more or less personnel? That is the key
question.
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
There is a balance between the lift and the number of platforms,
which is why I said earlier we increased the numbers. No, I do
not know the answer to that. I suspect a Merlin will lift more
than a Puma, but I do not know.[17]
Q252 Mr Jenkins: I have got a note
here (and I presume it is accurate) saying that the Puma fleet
has now gone from 43 to 34 because nine have been damaged and
are not expected to fly again as Puma aircraft. Are we renovating
those nine fairly heavily damaged Pumas or are we going to stick
with the 34 we have got at present in the fleet?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
We will not need 34. We do not need to uplift, improve all 35.
I am hedging round this. I apologise for hedging round this. There
is a strategy about to be published and announced by Ministers.
That will set out the numbers of aircraft of various types that
we need, and overall you will see it is a significant increase.
Q253 Chairman: If you only need 34,
why would you have needed 44 Merlins?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
Because that is to replace the Puma and the Sea King.
Chairman: We will not ask about the future
helicopter project.
Q254 Mrs Moon: Can I move on to the
Chinook Mk3. What progress has been made in making them operational?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
The first one was taken over by the RAF this morning. There will
be two more in the next couple of weeks, as we said, and the others
will come in throughout next year.
Dr Tyler: By the end of the next
calendar year we will have them all back in service.
Q255 Chairman: Can they fly in cloud?
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
They can fly exactly where all other Chinooks can fly, Chairman.
Q256 Chairman: Then I think we ought
to take you up on your suggestion of listening to some further
evidence briefly in private. We will now sit in private.
General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue:
While this is happening, I have brought body armour with me, Osprey
Assault. I do not know if you have had a chance to see it. Would
you like to look?
Chairman: We would, perhaps after the
evidence in private.
10 Ev 115 Back
11
Ev 115 Back
12
Ev 116 Back
13
Ibid Back
14
Ibid Back
15
Ev 116 Back
16
Ibid Back
17
Ev 116, 117 Back
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