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Snark seeking a new home
The New Zealand team behind the Snark unmanned combat helicopter family say the programme is far from becoming history and development work is planned to resume in the future.
Development programme head Trevor Rogers says the Snark diesel powered, low observable, long endurance helicopter remains fully achievable, but all future work will occur in a new host nation, not New Zealand.
Snark development originally occurred under the auspices of the New Zealand based TGR Helicorp Limited, the board of which voted to wind up its New Zealand activities in January 2008 with the intention of relocating overseas . A dispute arose with some minor shareholders over future management, resulting in them placing the shell company of TGR Helicorp Ltd into receivership two months later, in April 2008.
Rogers currently heads the New Zealand registered Ultra Helicopters Inc (NZ) Ltd which was resurrected in October 2008 after being in hiatus for the past eight years. However Ultra will not be the vehicle through which further Snark development occurs.
Rogers says the decision to find a new home country for the Snark programme in early 2008 followed repeated rejections of export license applications by New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), for TGR Helicorp to sell Snark unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAV) to other countries.
“The company is finished in New Zealand because of the frustration with MFAT and its interpretation of MTCR [missile technology control regime], classifying Snark as a Cruise missile. The lack of willingness by the previous Labour government to do anything to assist the company’s exports of its military aircraft was also in line with their anti military dogma.”
The MTCR treaty is administered in New Zealand by MFAT. Rogers, a former member of the New Zealand National Party government, describes the MFAT personnel overseeing the treaty as inexperienced and politically biased and naive. “They didn’t like anything we built”.
“Every time we applied for an export license they turned us down for all sorts of reasons like the aircraft could be used for carrying weapons of mass destruction - but then so could a suitcase or a car.”
The Snark series had attracted considerable international market interest Rogers says, and that would have transitioned into firm orders had export approvals been given.
TGR Helicorp was also developing a bigger civil version of the Snark for use as an unmanned rescue system for remote regions. That effort was to be led by an aircraft called the Alpine Wasp, which was planned for operational use in the Himalayas to aid injured climbers on the world’s highest peaks. That in turn led to the creation of a not for profit organisation – the Everest Rescue Trust – to oversee fund raising and operation of the system.
Rogers says MFAT initially rejected export proposals for the Alpine Wasp on the basis “that somebody could steal the helicopter in Nepal and use it to carry weapons of mass destruction.
“This overlooked the simple fact that operating the helicopter would require very skilled personnel.”
TGR Helicorp subsequently lodged a second application for Alpine Wasp exports approval which was again rejected, and then a third. “On the day Sir Edmund Hilary died [on 11 January 2008] after our third application we received a notice from MFAT saying they had decided to give ‘approval in principle’ to export an Alpine Wasp to Nepal. We almost fell over. Except that two paragraphs further down the letter it said that “Approval in principle” does not mean we will issue you with an export permit.”
That letter plus pressures on TGR Helicorp from minority shareholders led directly to the January 2008 Board decision to close down TGR in New Zealand. “We had decided at the board level there was no future for the company in New Zealand.”
In February 2008 TGR vacated its leased premises. “Receivers were appointed two months later by three of the minority shareholders over the now shell company, thereby destroying the company and its name.”
Ultra was established by Rogers in 1997 to sell light two seat helicopters produced in New Zealand by Ultra, followed by the setting up of TGR Helicorp in July 2000. Ultra ceased trading between 2000 and 2008 with TGR Helicorp Ltd taking the company in a new and different direction in the “embryonic UAV industry” until January 2008.
Finding a new host nation will not be a problem says Rogers. “Several countries would like me to move there yesterday. It’s sad that we were not wanted in New Zealand and yet we were the only licensed manufacturer of helicopters in the Southern Hemisphere We move on and are far from dead. With the benefit of 20/20 vision, we should have moved out of New Zealand several years ago.”
The Snark engine developer – DeltaHawk – has been a “great supporter” says Rogers. “We have worked closely with them for a long time. They have a great engine and they are excellent to work with, I hope to continue with them in the future.
“We will be back. The technology is all in my head. Where we go is yet to be decide, but would have to be a big improvement on the hopeless situation in New Zealand.”
The Alpine Wasp concept is also likely to have a place in a new programme: “We are still going to carry on with that helicopter under the Everest Rescue Trust”.
By Peter La Franchi - Asia Pacific Correspondent
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