Contract poised to receive final go-ahead from MoD
The UK Ministry of Defence will sign a contract within the next few weeks for AgustaWestland to remanufacture up to 80 Lynx utility helicopters for the British Army and UK Royal Navy. The Future Lynx programme has already received backing from the MoD’s Investment Approvals Board and is now with ministers awaiting a final contract go-ahead, say industry and ministry sources.
The UK early last year confirmed its selection of the Future Lynx to meet its Land Find and Maritime (Surface) Attack requirements under a non-contested deal originally expected to total around 130 aircraft. However, plans to finalise the contract were delayed late last year, partly as a result of the December publication of the UK’s Defence Industrial Strategy white paper (Flight International, 20 December 2005–2 January). This supported the selection of the Future Lynx, but said detailed analysis was continuing “to ensure, among other aspects, its value for money”.
UK investment in the Future Lynx will benefit from key systems already incorporated in Super Lynx airframes ordered by customers including Malaysia, Oman and South Africa, while the platform will also leverage elements of a £750 million ($1.3 billion) upgrade to at least 30 of the RN’s EH101 Merlin HM1s. The Future Lynx will share touchscreen cockpit displays with the Merlin Capability Sustainment Programme (CSP) platform and the US Navy’s EH101-based VH-71 presidential helicopter, and could also later undergo the Merlin’s electrically actuated fly-by-wire control upgrade, says AgustaWestland.
The industry team behind the Merlin CSP deal has, meanwhile, provided additional details of the project, which will cover aircraft modifications between 2010 and 2014. A key element of the work will be to improve the HM1’s human-machine interface by doubling the amount of cockpit display area available to the pilot and by replacing the displays for the two mission operators.
The aircraft’s Selex Blue Kestrel radar will also gain synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) and inverse SAR modes and an increase in track-while-scan capacity from monitoring around 30 threats to potentially hundreds, the RN says. Speaking at CSP prime contractor Lockheed Martin’s Havant site in the UK last week, Merlin integrated project team leader Simon Baldwin said the MoD also has around two more years to leverage technology from the VH-71 airframe, potentially including new communications equipment.
CRAIG HOYLE / HAVANT
Source: Flight International
