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Australian Army seeks additional Blackhawk support
The Australian Defence Materiel Organisation has released a competitive tender for additional maintenance support for Army Sikorsky S-70A-9 helicopters.
The "Black Hawk Maintenance Manpower Supplementation" tender, issued 11 November, is intended to free up existing uniformed helicopter maintenance personnel to work on the Australian Army's new Australian Aerospace MRH-90 aircraft.
According to tender documents the service based arrangement "will support the maintenance of the Black Hawk aircraft and allow the transition of Army maintenance personnel into the Multi-Role Helicopter (MRH) program.
"The successful tenderer will work at the direction of the senior maintenance managers, within the respective Army Aviation Regiments' Authorised Maintenance Organisations (AMO), in order to supplement existing Black Hawk aircraft maintenance personnel. "
Tender responses close 27 January with a two year contract planned for mobilisation from 1 may 2010. The tender also proposes the award of options consisting of five extensions, each of one year's duration.
The Army operates 34 Black Hawks, the majority based at Oakey in Southern Queensland but with a special operations detachment located at Holsworthy, in western Sydney.
The Australian Department of Defence's latest annual report, issued earlier this month, says that the 34 aircraft achieved 7175 flying hours during the Australian 2008-2009 financial year ending 30 June. The aircraft had been targeting achieving 7,500 hours though the report notes that this was "substantively achieved. This is the best achievement against Black Hawk helicopter targets in the past 10 years."
The Black Hawks are to be replaced by 30 MRH-90 aircraft from 2011, however the contract extension options indicate that plans to sustain a number of aircraft in special forces roles continue to be progressed.
By Peter La Franchi / Asia Pacific Editor
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