Will The Blackhawk Wear RAAF Roundels?

The Australian Department of Defence has announced its requirement for an Iroquois helicopter replacement programme. Responding to what will ultimately be a billion-dollar order are Aerospatiale with their Super Puma, Sikorsky with the export version of the UH-60 Blackhawk, Westland with the military development of the W30 and Boeing/Bell with the revolutionary JVX Tilt Rotor. In a series of four articles, we examine what these individual aircraft have to offer the Australian Defence Forces in the nineteen nineties and the years beyond.

Selection of the Sikorsky Sea Hawk for the RAN makes Sikorsky the strong favourite to win the even larger RAAF utility helicopter order on commonality as well as operational grounds.

Commonality is something of a Defence Central hobby horse and if they are really serious about it there is only one way to go. Commonality (or the illusion of it) comes in different forms including inter-service commonality, commonality with the equipment of allied forces and commonality within one make and model of helicopter – although outwardly identical, different batches of the same type of helicopter can have major differences in components throughout the life of the type.

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