UK government commits £6bn to boost helicopter capability

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The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has set out its helicopter support plans for the next 10 years in a written answer to a parliamentary question released on 16 July.

In the MoD's response to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee report, entitled 'Helicopter Capability', Secretary of State for Defence Bob Ainsworth said that the government is committed to investing GBP6 billion (USD10 billion) in the UK's helicopter capability over the next decade.

In addition, the statement included the MoD's first official announcements that the Puma service-life extension programme will proceed and that all Lynx AH.9s and Chinooks will have more powerful engines fitted.

The GBP6 billion investment will include a service-life extension of the Royal Air Force's (RAF's) Westland Puma HC.1 transport helicopters to give them a capability similar to the more advanced Super Puma/Cougar helicopter.

In officially confirming the MoD's commitment to the Puma upgrade, Ainsworth said: "It is not feasible to advance the purchase of the Future Medium Helicopter and forego the Puma Life Extension Programme." This upgrade will include new engines, cockpit and avionics worth more than GBP300 million.

UK government commits 6bn to boost helicopter capability

 

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looks like the British are facing shortages of Helicopters.

Now we are borrowing Russian helicopters to fight the Taliban

British frontline troops in Afghanistan are so short of helicopters and transport planes that they are being bailed out by the Russians.

The Mail on Sunday has established that the Ministry of Defence is using civilian Russian-built Mi-8 and Mi-26 transport helicopters to ferry supplies and soldiers in Afghanistan. The pilots are freelance Russians and Ukrainians.

Britain is also hiring massive commercial Russian Antonov aircraft to fly vehicles and heavy equipment from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to Afghanistan.

Even more extraordinary is that elite British special forces troops have been forced to use helicopters from a Third World nation to mount covert operations because of a desperate lack of UK aircraft.

Senior defence sources have confirmed to The Mail on Sunday that the SAS, the SBS and the Special Forces Support Group are using troop-carrying helicopters on loan from another country's army.

The aircraft - camouflaged but carrying no British insignia - are flown by an elite team of UK Army Air Corps pilots, trained at a secret special forces base in Afghanistan.

British three-man crews - two pilots and an engineer - use the helicopters to fly about 24 special forces soldiers at a time on dangerous night-time missions deep into Taliban strongholds.

The humiliation of Britain's crack regiments having to beg a lift is a stark example of the shortages of men and machinery that sparked the row between the head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, and Gordon Brown.

Britain's top soldier - who himself had to hitch a lift in a U.S. helicopter in Afghanistan last week because of a lack of British aircraft - found himself the subject of a Labour dirty tricks campaign after demanding 'more boots on the ground' and extra helicopters.

Eight British Chinook troop-carrying helicopters designed for special forces' use have been lying dormant in an air-conditioned hangar at RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire since they were delivered in 2001.

The Chinook 3As, which cost a total of £259million, are white elephants that cannot be flown, as the Ministry of Defence failed to ask Boeing for the rights to the avionics software.

Now we are borrowing Russian helicopters to fight the Taliban | Mail Online