Inside the Archive #20 | MRH-90 Taipan

As a variant of the NH90, the Taipan was designed for interoperability with NATO, and featured fly-by-wire controls, a composite fuselage, a maximum take-off weight of 10,600 kg, and two Rolls-Royce Turbomeca RTM322-01/9 turbine engines. It could carry two pilots and up to 20 troops or 12 stretchers, and had a maximum speed of 300km/h and an 800km range, according to specifications.

Unfortunately, the Taipan project was plagued with issues almost from the outset: the side doors were not wide enough to allow the self-defence gun to fire while troops were exiting the aircraft; the fleet was grounded in 2010 due to engine issues; spare parts were difficult to come by; and operating costs eventually blew out to around $50,000 per hour, among other problems.

The headaches with the Taipan program forced the Army to keep using its aging S-70As beyond their planned exit date, and to buy extra Chinooks and lease several AW139s as stopgap measures. Everything came to a head in 2023 with two high-profile incidents involving the Taipan: the first, in March, saw an MRH-90 ditch in the waters of Jervis Bay, NSW, after an engine turbine blade failure.

While the helicopter was towed to shore with no loss of life, the fleet was grounded again until April – but the second incident in July spelled the end of the Taipan after another one crashed off Hamilton Island during Exercise Talisman Sabre, causing the deaths of all four personnel on board. Following the disaster, the government decided to retire the Taipan 13 years early, having already planned to replace the Army’s MRH-90s with a fleet of new UH-60M Black Hawks and the Navy’s with more MH-60R Seahawks.

Pictured above is a Taipan towards the end of the helicopter’s service with the ADF, in June 2023. Snapped by LCPL Riley Blennerhassett, the image shows soldiers from the 4th Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery and 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment dismounting from an MRH-90 during Exercise Chau Pha in Townsville Field Training Area, Queensland.

Following their retirement from service, the Taipans have been stripped for useful spare parts and dismantled, with their airframes buried; a request from Ukraine to use the helicopters reportedly came too late. The first of the Army’s replacement Black Hawks arrived in August 2023.