NHIndustries NH90

French Lawmakers irritated by NH-90 low availability and the high cost of the program:

En 2018, le taux de disponibilité des NH-90 TTH de l’ALAT s’était élevé à 30,4% tandis que celui des NH-90 NFH avait atteint 35,5%.
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Army aviation NH-90 TTH were available at 30.4% in 2018
Naval version (NFH) at 35.5%
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The report also take example of the Belgian army that withdraw their freshly acquired TTH.

www.opex360.com

Le taux de disponibilité des hélicoptères NH-90 Caïman reste "particulièrement inquiétant" - Zone Militaire

Si elles sont mises sous le boisseau depuis 2020 par le ministère des Armées, les informations relatives à la disponibilité des équipements utilisés par
www.opex360.com www.opex360.com
 
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defbrief.com

Leased AW139s augmenting Australia's troubled MRH90 helicopters

The Australian Army's 5th Aviation Regiment in Townsville has begun operations with two Leonardo AW139 helicopters leased from Helicorp (Toll Helicopters). The contract for the two AW139s was first announced in May this year when the defense department announced it would be spending A$37 million
defbrief.com defbrief.com
 
Sadly the situation is even worse with the the Marine Caiman (Caiment?!): only 4 are reported operational among a fleet of 27 (15% availability) with a a reported 30 maintenance hours per flight hours needed on the field.

www.opex360.com

La Marine nationale ne dispose que de 4 hélicoptères NH-90 Caïman disponibles sur... 27 - Zone Militaire

Dans son avis budgétaire sur les crédits que prévoit d'allouer le projet de loi de finances 2022 à la mission "Défense", le député François
www.opex360.com www.opex360.com

I am not sure if that's what Fr MoD had in mind when speaking about high intensity
 
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Ah merde alors, it seems that NH90 issues are serious and widespread. Clearly they seem to fail at maintenance and availability rates.
Shame, because it looked like a decent chopper.
Tiger is working well, Rafale since 2015 has unlocked its foreign, export orders... but the other "flying wonder of the 90's" seems to be is serious troubles.

This could have truly severe consequences on the Armée de Terre post-Puma / Super Puma (Caracal, whatever the name) transition era. An era that has dragged on since the 90's at least.

I wonder if the AdT shouldn't throw more Caracals into the mix, if the NH90 don't hold its promises...

Damn, since the 90's they seem to be stuck with
- antiquated Pumas, vintage 1965, in urgent need of replacement
- Super Puma / EC-225 / Caracal / whatever the name as "interim"
- superlative NH90 coming soon... but really, soon...
 
yasotay said:
Yikes! France is not having a good time "down under" just now.
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Given the NH90 series is more than French - remember there are significant German, Italian and Dutch elements - it should not be treated as such. Moreover, when one looks at the troubled history of the MRH90 in Australia it should not come as any surprise.
 
GTX said:
yasotay said:
Yikes! France is not having a good time "down under" just now.
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Given the NH90 series is more than French - remember there are significant German, Italian and Dutch elements - it should not be treated as such. Moreover, when one looks at the troubled history of the MRH90 in Australia it should not come as any surprise.
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I certainly agree. It's just that the Airbus consortium has had a rough time of it lately, with consortium members bailing on their own rotorcraft products.
 
NH-90 is the product of NHI - a consortium of Airbus Helicopters, Leonardo and Fokker Aerostructures. Airbus has a 62.5% share in NHI's activities. The French Republic owns 11% of Airbus. Airbus has factories in France, Germany, Spain, UK, Canada, USA and China. Fiscal headquarters in the Netherlands, main office in France, operations office in Germany, international office in Spain.
Agusta Westland was a wholly owned subsidiary of Leonardo after Finmeccanica - Leonardo since 2016 - bought out its UK partner GKN in 2004. In a corporate reshuffle in 2016, AW ceased to be a separate company and became Leonardo's Helicopter Division. Leonardo has a 32% share in NHI's activities.
Fokker Aerostructures has the remaining 5.5% share.

Long story short: NH-90 is a French product in a very, very, very limited sense.
 
Arjen said:
NH-90 is the product of NHI - a consortium of Airbus Helicopters, Leonardo and Fokker Aerostructures. Airbus has a 62.5% share in NHI's activities. The French Republic owns 11% of Airbus. Airbus has factories in France, Germany, Spain, UK, Canada, USA and China. Fiscal headquarters in the Netherlands, main office in France, operations office in Germany, international office in Spain.
Agusta Westland was a wholly owned subsidiary of Leonardo after Finmeccanica - Leonardo since 2016 - bought out its UK partner GKN in 2004. In a corporate reshuffle in 2016, AW ceased to be a separate company and became Leonardo's Helicopter Division. Leonardo has a 32% share in NHI's activities.
Fokker Aerostructures has the remaining 5.5% share.

Long story short: NH-90 is a French product in a very, very, very limited sense.
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Multinational to the degree that there were Australians working on it too, screwing up their own little parts of the project.
 
Arjen said:
NH-90 is the product of NHI - a consortium of Airbus Helicopters, Leonardo and Fokker Aerostructures. Airbus has a 62.5% share in NHI's activities. The French Republic owns 11% of Airbus. Airbus has factories in France, Germany, Spain, UK, Canada, USA and China. Fiscal headquarters in the Netherlands, main office in France, operations office in Germany, international office in Spain.
Agusta Westland was a wholly owned subsidiary of Leonardo after Finmeccanica - Leonardo since 2016 - bought out its UK partner GKN in 2004. In a corporate reshuffle in 2016, AW ceased to be a separate company and became Leonardo's Helicopter Division. Leonardo has a 32% share in NHI's activities.
Fokker Aerostructures has the remaining 5.5% share.

Long story short: NH-90 is a French product in a very, very, very limited sense.
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Perhaps the learning point is that aircraft by international committee can prove to be a challenge. There is an old colloquialism is America - "jack of all trades, master of none."
 
The thing that caused issues in Australia wasn't the design itself but rather the poor sustainment support. From the Minister's media release (below):

The MRH90 helicopter fleet has not met contracted availability requirements nor the expected cost of ownership
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Strengthening Army's helicopter capability | Defence Ministers

The Morrison Government has taken steps to strengthen the Australian Army’s helicopter capability by formally requesting advice from the United States Government on the acquisition of up to 40 UH-60 Black Hawk to potentially replace the MRH90 Taipan helicopter.Minister for Defence the Hon Peter...
www.minister.defence.gov.au www.minister.defence.gov.au

The Program issues were addressed in this ANAO report from as far back as 2014 and earlier and has been a constant point of discussion.

Multi-Role Helicopter Program | Australian National Audit Office

www.anao.gov.au www.anao.gov.au

It has also been a Project of Concern for years.
 
GTX said:
The thing that caused issues in Australia wasn't the design itself but rather the poor sustainment support
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Presumably the design IS at fault if equipment keeps breaking down, parts age faster than expected, maintenance routines are too cumbersome, corrosion is popping up etc?

Maybe there’s nothing wrong with the inherent architecture, engines etc… shouldn’t be hard after all to do things better than a Super Puma or Blackhawk. But it sure sees like the overall result has been (sadly) rather less than the sum of the parts.
 
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Another recurring problem is on the sustainment side of things. I have worked in both the acquisition and upgrade (project side) of things and the sustainment (product side) and sustainment does my head in. You have people, like me, who move from one to the other and you also have those who live their entire career in one or the other.

My personal observation is the project side is staffed by more competent, more highly qualified and more technically capable people (uniformed and civilian), who have continually updated and enhanced their knowledge. The product side is full of people doing the same job out of uniform they did in uniform, backed up by contractors and public servants doing different jobs to what they did in uniform, as a group (with some exceptions) they seem to believe they know it all while at the same time deliberately ignoring or devaluing anything that falls outside of their area of experience.

Project side you have people, who if they don't have technical degrees, come from a technical trade background, as well as having post trade qualifications, certificates, and diplomas. Both professional and para professional streams usually pick up multiple post graduate level courses, with many going on to complete post graduate level technical qualifications. Product side, they do the courses they are sent on (mostly low level vocational) but usually rely on Recognition of Prior Learning from their defence training to grant them civilian certifications and chartered status, often based on their rank in uniform, rather than their technical skills and knowledge. When they do do higher level studies its usually in business and management, i.e. MBAs.

Buying off the shelf reduces the number of people coming up through the project side and increases the number of people whose only experience is on the product side. This leads to things like the Sea King helicopter crash, the Westralia fire, as the permeation of people with real engineering experience and an understanding of consequences reduces through the defence organisation. I am, not for one second saying we shouldn't buy off the shelf, rather I am saying when we do buy off the shelfs we need to ensure we still send a sufficient number of our people to work on suitable projects to ensure they become more proficient than the "return it to standard, return it to service" drones who thrives in the product world.

A very big issue with the Tiger and Taipan was that defence relied far too much on Airbus to keep the fleets flying, defence was only involved in operational maintenance, in fact, even the aircraft repair side that defence was meant to do was handed over largely to Airbus as defence lacked suitable numbers of qualified, competent people to do the work themselves. A causal factor in this was defence contracted out so much of the work that they lost the critical mass to build and maintain the required institutional knowledge.

With defence reducing the experience and competence base of its uniformed technical work force, where do the future civilian contractors (who are currently predominantly ex defence) come from. More to the point, what happens when your "expert" consultant is an ex defence member who has never worked on an acquisition, let alone a design or build project because there is no one else available?
 
Getting a little off topic but I don't think it is as simple as you portray there. For one thing, uniformed personnel have to also deal with the posting cycle (typically 3yts) whereas contractor staff often stay in role for many, many year. For instance, on the MRH90 program, I know that there are some there who have been on program for 15 - 20yrs.

Having said that, I do think the decision here is a good and, dare I say, obvious one.
 
GTX said:
Getting a little off topic but I don't think it is as simple as you portray there. For one thing, uniformed personnel have to also deal with the posting cycle (typically 3yts) whereas contractor staff often stay in role for many, many year. For instance, on the MRH90 program, I know that there are some there who have been on program for 15 - 20yrs.

Having said that, I do think the decision here is a good and, dare I say, obvious one.
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I am not saying uniform people are the problem, I am saying the experience base is. The best uniform and ex uniform people I have worked with have extensive project experience, the worst have all been maintainers who have never set foot outside sustainment and admin roles, they simply don't know what they don't know and seem to believe if they don't know it, it obviously can't be that important. There is a gap in knowledge and experience when someone spends their entire career returning to standard and returning to service, without any comprehension of what is involved in designing, developing, improving a capability. They tend to fall in the trap of believing that what they are maintaining is the best thing ever and any problems are due to lazy contractors and people not doing their job, they don't have enough of the big picture to comprehend what the actual root causes are.

There are long established programs to get employers, industry and politicians to spend a couples days or a week in uniform to see what its like for the operators, yet the opportunities defence had to work with industry and on projects are reducing.

IMO many of the worst capability outcomes would not have occurred if there had been better management of expectations, a clearer definition of what capability was required, and a better understanding of the investment required to achieve it. This can only be achieved when key decision makers and consultants have walked in the other parties shoes.

Tiger needed an integrated support system from before the first jet was delivered, including training, local spares holding and repair options and above all, it needed a greater number of airframes. MHR needed a clearer, better controlled baseline, with fewer variants, i.e. just produce a basic couple of variants and ensure they are adequately supported, before developing and deploying bespoke versions. It didn't help that some of those meant to be looking after Config and Certification were complete numpties who have gone on to reek havoc on other projects.
 
A very big issue with the Tiger and Taipan was that defence relied far too much on Airbus to keep the fleets flying, defence was only involved in operational maintenance, in fact, even the aircraft repair side that defence was meant to do was handed over largely to Airbus as defence lacked suitable numbers of qualified, competent people to do the work themselves. A causal factor in this was defence contracted out so much of the work that they lost the critical mass to build and maintain the required institutional knowledge.
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Considering the distance between Europe and Australia, I understand better why things went for the worse. Particularly for the NH90. Consider the following facts
- French Navy has just received its 27th NH90... ten years after the first (!)
- Serviceability of the fleet has been very bad
- Even if France is at the heart of Airbus defense (Toulouse)
- So indeed, if NH90s can't be properly maintained in the heart of "Airbus land" (let's call it that way) things won't get any better 20 000 km away...
 
Finland has 20. Deliveries were seriously late. Nine of the helicopters were still delivered in a stripped down configuration and upgraded later on. Apparently, over 50% are now operational at any given time. From 2008 to 2015, more than 50% were under maintenance, repair, or upgrading. Some media have reported that a flight hour in a NH90 costs €6000 more than an hour in an F/A-18 C/D.
 
TomcatViP said:
[quote
perttime said:
Finland has 20. [...] Some media have reported that a flight hour in a NH90 costs €6000 more than an hour in an F/A-18 C/D.
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o_O
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They are an absolute maintenance hog, the effort required to keep then flying far exceeded that of the Tiger, a supposedly more complex type.
 
It is unfortunate that the NH-90 has acquired (deservedly or not) a bad reputation. On the face of it it seems a well designed platform for the utility mission(s). Having observed the helicopter since inception, I think it really comes down to trying to satisfy far to many requirements. The plethora of software only compounds the challenge of maintaining the platform.
 
This is a discutable. IMOHO, this design presents numerous flaws that are even apparent to the naked eye. The alleged performances are also too narrowly constrained in a very limited range of operations. An opposite design philosophy from rugged market blockbusters such are the UH-60 or Mil-8. It is probable that the program banked on the dividends of peace at the onset of a reunified Germany where big defense contract were primarily... Business.

Then for the mud and glory, a new generation had to wait (or revert back like Australians were forced to do).
 
GTX said:
Volkodav said:
They are an absolute maintenance hog, the effort required to keep then flying far exceeded that of the Tiger, a supposedly more complex type.
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Funnily enough the MRH90s had more software than the ARH Tiger.
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I know and it would lock up CAMM2 for hours because of the shear quantity of data to process.
 
yasotay said:
It is unfortunate that the NH-90 has acquired (deservedly or not) a bad reputation. On the face of it it seems a well designed platform for the utility mission(s). Having observed the helicopter since inception, I think it really comes down to trying to satisfy far to many requirements. The plethora of software only compounds the challenge of maintaining the platform.
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There were too many variations, just about each customer had their own bespoke version which mate the supply chain and baseline dfor upgrades an absolute nightmare.
 
And 2022 comes with its new lot of wishful thinking, to the point, I am afraid, that only, realistically, with the Vatican Navy could the NH-90 be accommodated.
Probably someone will see a new market opportunity here?

Sur une flotte de 27 appareils (le dernier ayant été livré fin 2021), seuls "sept Caïman sont disponibles actuellement", a confié la directrice de la direction de la maintenance aéronautique (DMAé), Monique Legrand-Larroche lors du point presse du ministère des Armées, qui s'est tenu jeudi dernier. Soit à peine 26% de la flotte. Mais ce serait la fourchette haute, estime une source interrogée par La Tribune. "En moyenne, la disponibilité des Caïman est de l'ordre de 4 à 7 appareils", affirme-t-on. Et de façon très exceptionnelle, elle est même tombée à une seule machine lors d'une journée fin 2021. Soit une disponibilité d'un peu plus de 15% de la flotte pour la fourchette basse. Pourtant la disponibilité des Caïman était bien meilleure en 2017 (36,1%) et 2018 (30,4%) même si c'était loin d'être remarquable.
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On a fleet of 27 aircraft (the last having been delivered at the end of 2021), only "seven Caimans are currently available", confided the director of the direction of aeronautical maintenance (DMAé), Monique Legrand-Larroche during the press point of the ministry des Armées, which was held last Thursday. Barely 26% of the fleet. But that would be the high range, believes a source interviewed by La Tribune. "On average, the availability of Cayman is of the order of 4 to 7 airframe", it is said. And very exceptionally, it even fell to a single machine during a day at the end of 2021. That is to say an availability of just over 15% of the fleet for the lower range. Yet the availability of Cayman was much better in 2017 (36.1%) and 2018 (30.4%) even if it was far from remarkable.
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www.latribune.fr

Soutien : le Caïman de la Marine nationale boit la tasse

Seuls sept Caïman (NH90 marine) de la marine nationale sur une flotte de 27 appareils sont disponibles. Soit près de 26% de la flotte.
www.latribune.fr www.latribune.fr
 

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