Helicopter Questions - The National Audit Office the body responsible for certifying the accounts of all Government Departments as usual is a mine of information by way of its reports.   In no particular order these are:-

The MERLIN HM.2 modernisation programme has a revised completion date of June 2014 and will cover 30 airframes – leaving 12 airframes unmodernised.   The cost of this fleet upgrade will be £ 791 million thus a cost of £ 26 million per airframe.

The National Audit Office “feels” is maybe necessary to extend the lives of the SEA KING ASaC7 by four years until a replacement is “identified”, built and accepted into service.  

Comment: Considering the investment being made in the Aircraft Carrier programme procrastination in this area in really not acceptable – why order beef if you cannot afford the plate on which to serve it!!   We have 12 MERLIN airframes now available immediately ?

There has been no mention of the SEA KING HU.5 ?

Comment : The dilemma facing the MoD is the fate of 771 Naval Air Squadron and its cache of eight (8) SEA KING HU5 which is likely to be stripped of its Search and Rescue role shortly but that is only part of the remit of this unit.   This never seems to be mentioned anywhere.

Commando Air Wing – SEA KING HC.4 - There is a 38% shortfall is the availability of the SEA KING HC.4 which are due to be retired in 2016 and a two year gap before the MERLIN HC3/3A will be available operationally until April 2018. 

Comment : Not a surprising state of affairs as the decision of the SEA KING replacement was delayed and delayed and when the decision was finally made in the 2010 SDSR there was an unexplained six year “wait” before the RAF handed over its MERLIN Force to Fleet Air Arm.