..:: India Strategic ::.. Navy: Navy floats $ 1 billion RfP for utility Helicopters

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Editorial

Navy floats $ 1 billion RfP for utility Helicopters

Published: August 2012

New Delhi. The Indian Navy has floated a long-pending tender to procure 56 utility helicopters as replacement for the outdated Chetaks (Alouettes) that it has been flying for nearly 40 years.

The tender, or Request for Proposals (RfP) was issued Aug 7 just as the outgoing Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Nirmal Verma was addressing his farewell press conference and stated, without specifying, that it "should get issued any time now.”

The RfP has been sent to Boeing, Sikorsky, Bell Helicopter, Eurocopter, Finmeccanica Agusta Westland, Kamov and Rosoboronexport, the Russian arms trading agency. Besides the 56 helicopters, 28 spare engines will also be required.

The value of the tender is estimated to be around USD 900 million to one billion, depending upon the configuration and systems. Each helicopter is to be armed for Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) role and night capability radars. As against the Chetak, which has only one engine and a limited range, the new machine would be twin-engine with a range of 100 km.

Chetak, manufactured in India by HAL, is now regarded as a primitive rotorcraft and has no night operations or fighting capability.

Notably, the Navy already has another RfP due for 15 Multi Role helicopters with sophisticated combat radars and weapons as replacement for the vintage Westlands. Sikorsky and Agusta Westland are reported to be the prime contenders for that.

This RfP should also be out within 2012. The call for that now lies with the incoming Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral D K Joshi, who will succeed Admiral Verma on Aug 31st.

Although all helicopters can comfortably operate from land, the Navy’s requirement warrants safe and secure shipboard operations, The rotors have to be foldable so that the machines can be moved to their hangars in the limited space available on the ships.

Significantly, the Navy had found the HAL-made Dhruv unsuitable because of excessive vibrations in the rotors as also their large size. The air draft generated by a flying machine and its stability are crucial for landing and takeoffs from moving ships, some of which sail at around 30 knots.

Simply put, naval requirements are distinct and Navy-specific. In fact, fighter jets land on aircraft carriers only when they are moving at that speed.

IANS adds:

This naval tender comes four years after India issued a global tender for 197 utility helicopters - of which 133 are for the Army and 64 for the Air Force - also to replace the two forces' ageing Chetak and Cheetah helicopter fleet.

This Army and Indian Air Force (IAF) joint tender was reissued in 2008 after the initial tender issued two years earlier was cancelled over procedural lapses.

But the winner of the Army and Air Force tender, for which Eurocopter's AS550-C3 Fennec and Russian manufacturer Kamov's Ka-226 are in the race, is still to be out and the decision-making is in its final stages.

The Navy did not participate in that tender due to delays in finalising technical requirements, which are different from those of the Army and IAF.

The Indian Navy at present uses indigenous Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters, Westland SeaKing, Sikorsky SeaKing, Chetaks, and Kamov's Ka-25, Ka-28 and Ka-31 helicopters, making it a over 100-chopper-strong fleet. But most of them are vintage.