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Westland W30-400 Evaluated For RAAF Use
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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.
The Westland W30-400 is generally regarded as number three among the leading contenders for the long-delayed RAAF utility helicopter order, but its purveyors are showing true British fortitude in sticking with their sales campaign despite the apparent odds against them.
Although there is a clear, if unofficial, preference in the RAAF for the Sikorsky Black Hawk, or the Aerospatiale Super Puma if it cannot have the Black Hawk, the W30 offers a blend of value and capability which makes it increasingly attractive in these straightened times when the ever-inflating cost of the F-18 is consuming more and more of the defence budget.
When Westland lost out to Sikorsky for the RAN helicopter order, the then Minister for Defence, Mr Scholes, quoted a price of $317 million for eight aircraft. Westland claims it could have provided 1 O of its admittedly lower-capability Lynx helicopters with the same support for $206m and that its W30 would have a similar cost relativity to the Black Hawk for the RAAF order.
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