Why
Sea Kings still rule for HeliOperations
By Dominic Perry17 July 2020
On the face of it, a UK company flying former
Royal Navy (RN) Westland Sea King helicopters on behalf of the German navy from
a former coastguard base in the very south of England sounds an unlikely
combination, or at least the set-up for a convoluted joke.
But for Portland-based HeliOperations, that union
is proving a lucrative one.
Source: L Howard/HeliOperations
Rewind to the last Farnborough air show and one of
the more eye-catching exhibits on the static line was a Sea King in a confusing
orange and grey colour scheme. Confusing, because at first glance it strongly
resembled the familiar red and grey of the RN’s retired Sea King Mk5s and
seemed to have no right to be at an event famed for celebrating all that is new
in aerospace. Indeed, were it not for the show’s absence, the type would again
have been at the Hampshire site this year.
The brainchild of chief executive and former RN
helicopter pilot Steve Gladston, HeliOperations had for several years been
active in a number of disparate rotary-wing sectors – ranging from the
provision of search and rescue crews in the UK and Ireland, to helideck
consultancy services for the super-yacht industry. However, it was a 2016
contract with the German navy that really raised the operation’s profile.
At that time, the Deutsche Marine was struggling
with the implementation of the European Working Time Directive (WTD), or rather
its application to Germany’s armed forces.
The minutiae of the WTD legislation is too complex
to delve into (although it is worth noting that many countries have chosen not
to include their militaries within its scope), but for the German navy the upshot
was that “overnight they lost a significant chunk of man-hours”, explains the
firm’s chief operating officer Mark Deaney.
As a consequence the service required additional
training capacity on a helicopter broadly representative of the Sea King Mk41s
it uses for search and rescue (SAR) missions.
Source: Greg Caygill/HeliOperations
It had already sought collaboration with the RN
but had been unable to come to an arrangement and was casting around for
another solution.
But at that point the RN and Royal Air Force were
about to retire their respective fleets of Mk5 and Mk3 Sea Kings on the back of
the privatisation of the UK’s SAR service.
With the likely availability of those airframes,
plus access to a large stock of spare parts, an idea was born.
“We knew the helicopters were serviceable – they
had flown in to HMS Sultan so we knew they could be flown out
again – and there was a stock of spare parts, along with a customer
with a requirement,” says Deaney.
“The timing looked really good – it seemed like an
administrative problem, although it turned out to be quite a complicated one.”
Source: HeliOperations
The shift to a privatised SAR service, with a new
base structure, also meant that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) was
disposing of its site in Portland on England’s south coast, potentially
providing a perfect operating location.
But, says Gladston, there were still three key
hurdles for HeliOperations to overcome: it needed to secure leases from the RN
for the Sea Kings and access to spares; the Portland base needed to be
acquired; and it required a firm contract from Germany that would underwrite
all this financial outlay.
One by one, the parts fell into alignment, with
the final piece being the acquisition of the Portland base in July 2017.
In all, the company had 16 months from contract
signature to go-live in May 2017.
The first year of operation was conducted with
leased helicopters, but following the retirement of the RN’s Sea King Mk7s – a
separate variant used for airborne early warning duties – the UK Ministry of
Defence (MoD) began disposing of its now-surplus airframes.
In all, HeliOperations is now the proud owner of
six Mk5s, five Mk3s and eight Mk7s (although these will be used for spare parts
recovery and the airframes eventually returned to the MoD).
Three of the Mk5s are in operation at Portland,
resplendent in that RN-apeing orange and grey livery.
Source: HeliOperations/Greg Caygill
The remaining airframes are in storage at HMS
Sultan in Hampshire but will eventually be transferred to the company’s new
maintenance and support facility in Somerton – a stone’s throw from where they
were built at the Westland, now Leonardo Helicopters, plant in Yeovil.
Crucially, the helicopters remain on the military
register, giving HeliOperations a unique selling point in that it can provide
military-type training on a military aircraft using ex-military personnel.
“We have been below the radar but we are
delivering something technical and quite unique. We are the only UK company
delivering military training for NATO partners,” says Gladston.
He argues that the contract with Germany shows
that HeliOperations can provide a “cost-effective way of outsourcing” a
particular training requirement.
“We have delivered to the German navy exactly what
they wanted,” he says. And because the business is small – a fraction of the
size of an outsourcing giant or defence contractor – there is an inherent
flexibility and agility too.
While the contract with the Deutsche Marine is
designed around taking qualified pilots and turning them into SAR co-pilots at
a rate of 10 per year, the other key metric is the provision of 500 flight hours
each year.
That figure proved important when the German navy
decided that it needed to modify the output, says Gladston. “Very quickly into
the contract they wanted a command upgrade course. We were able to do that by
trimming the number of co-pilot courses but providing the same total aircraft
hours,” he says.
Source: HeliOperations
Although Germany intended to retire the Sea King
from the middle of the decade in favour of the NH Industries NH90-based Sea
Lion, Gladston believes that training on the legacy type will persist for a
number of years.
While the Sea King is in no way modern, its
per-flight cost is way below that of the notoriously pricey NH90. Gladston
argues that if some of the co-pilot training for a heavy-twin helicopter can be
shifted onto the older model then there is a clear and obvious saving for the
end-user.
The dwindling band of Sea King operators can also
benefit from the Portland set-up, plus HeliOperations’ ownership of a simulator
for the type, acquired from the navy and based at RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall.
But given the age of most Sea King airframes, the
training need cannot last forever, a fact readily acknowledged by the company.
“Although HeliOperations is very much associated with the Sea King, there is
life beyond it,” stresses Deaney.
That could include, for example, the use of a
larger twin-engined helicopter such as the Leonardo Helicopters AW139 or AW189
or Airbus Helicopters H175 with a modified cockpit to mimic that of the NH90.
In addition, HeliOperations has applied for a UK air operator certificate, with
the aim of performing SAR training on civil-registered aircraft. “It’s a niche
market with no real providers out there,” notes Gladston.
Source: HeliOperations
And despite its rotary-referencing name, the
company is also considering a foray into fixed-wing operations, centred on the
Lockheed Martin C-130.
With the company’s strong track record in the
space, Gladston is also eyeing the MCA’s plans for its second-generation or
SAR-2G contract, procurement for which is likely to begin in early 2021.
“We have clearly demonstrated that we have a deep
knowledge of SAR – both civil and military,” says Gladston.
He sees three elements that the MCA will look for
in its tender process – a credible prime contractor (Airbus Helicopters or
Lockheed, for instance); a credible maintenance and support provider; and a
credible operator.
“The bit we have got is service delivery. We have
got the depth of experience and a track record of providing cost-effective
solutions,” says Gladston. HeliOperations is in “early stage” discussions with
three to four primes, he says, while declining to name names.
And in case anyone doubts its seriousness,
Gladston points to the company’s chairman: Vice Admiral Sir Alan Massey, the
former chief executive of the MCA; that appointment was not “a coincidence”, he
stresses.
In the meantime, the skies above Portland will continue to be filled
with those familiar-yet-different orange and grey Sea Kings.
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar
Merk: Bare medlemmer av denne bloggen kan legge inn en kommentar.