Australia’s MRH90 mess

This article is just polite way to state that the Australian taxpayer is in trouble with the MRH90 program. Another victory for the DMO I am sure. Can someone remind me what we pay the DMO for?

Some of the immediate challenges we face are an insufficient rate of effort to support introduction into service activities. This has been due to a number or reasons,’ Leonard said.

‘There has been poor system reliability or design on items that include cabin floors, windscreens, main gear box, machine gun mounts and recently, of course, the engines. The inconsistent supply chain has meant that aircraft often spend longer on the ground than we would like while we wait for spare parts. This inconsistency rate of effort has hampered our ability to train the instructors required to grow the best of the capability.’

In addition, without an airworthiness certificate with a significantly broad range of operations in its scope, the ADF was limited in its development of operational capability.
Leonard said a broad range of solutions was now being implemented while industry was running a product improvement programme seeking to rectify the reliability and design issues that have been discovered by the early customers of the NH90, including Australia.

He said the ADF’s spare parts holdings, which were initially too optimistic, had been adjusted to ‘better reflect reality’.

‘Some bits that we thought would last forever clearly haven’t, and some bits we thought would need replacing often have soldiered on. This harmonising of the spares holdings will be an on-going activity as industry itself sometimes has difficulty resourcing bits from its sub-contractors,’ Leonard said.

In addition, the ADF is looking at training more pilots overseas in an attempt to ‘claw back’ some of the programme’s schedule.

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