Updated 14/03 1420
On the second day of Avalon 2023, head of Army Aviation Command Major General Stephen Jobson confirmed that Defence’s project to acquire a light helicopter to support Special Forces operations – Land 2097 Phase 4 – has been cancelled by Shane Fairweather, First Assistant Secretary Joint Aviation Systems within the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG).
“The Land 2097 Phase 4 project has been cancelled,” MAJGEN Jobson confirmed on the sidelines of an industry briefing at Avalon on Wednesday 1 March.
The program was cancelled by Fairweather because Army’s new overlapping aviation capabilities, represented by the Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian, Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk and expanded fleet of Boeing CH-47F Chinooks will be able to support the future needs of Army’s special operations soldiers.
The Black Hawk is set to replace Army’s NHI MRH 90 Taipan fleet under a rapid replacement under Land 4537 with the first helicopters due to arrive in Australia in the second half of this year. Army’s Airbus Helicopters Tiger ARH will be replaced by 29 AH-64E Apaches later this decade.
“We’re actually growing the attack helicopter fleet from 22 Tigers to 29 Apaches, we’re rapidly replacing the MRH 90 with UH-60M, we’re also growing from two batteries of Shadow Tactical Uncrewed Aerial Systems to three batteries of Insitu Integrator, and we have expanded our CH-47F Chinook fleet from ten to 14 aircraft,” MAJGEN Jobson explained.
“The UH-60M will come in to into service as an aircraft system that will provide dedicated support to Australia’s Special Forces.
Sixteen Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) light and rapidly-deployable helicopters were to be acquired under Land 2097 Phase 4 (Light Special Forces Support Helicopter) to support Special Operations’ Counter-Terrorism (CT) activities.
“The light helicopter will be in the four-tonne class and, by virtue of its size, it will be optimised for insertion and extraction of Special Forces teams within complex terrain, including dense urban environments, complementing the MRH 90 Taipan and enhancing the output of a combined helicopter formation,” a Defence spokesperson explained when the project was announced.
Three bidders responded to the Land 2097/4 RFT, including Airbus Group Australia Pacific offering the Airbus Helicopters H145M; and Babcock and Jet Aviation each with a solution based on the Bell 429. The H145M was ultimately eliminated but the successful bidder was never announced.
Note: ADM wishes to apologise to MAJGEN Jobson for any inference that the program was cancelled by him in the original version of this story. It was not ADM’s intention to do so and the story has now been updated to reflect the facts.