SHAH ALAM: Six bidders for helo lease tender. Back in July, the Army floated a tender for the leasing of four helicopters under performance-based contract for a period of three to five years. The Army is leasing the helicopters following the retirement of the Nuri in 2019.
Among others the specifications for the lease helicopters to be able carry
at least two crew and 10 passengers; maximum take-off load from 6,000kg to 20,000kg and endurance of four to five hours. The aircraft must be certified for day/night VFR and instrumentation to carry out IFR. Apart from normal flying, the helicopter must also be able to carry underslung, spie-rig, deck landing and search and rescue missions. The underslung gear must be able to carry up 1,814kg of load. The winning bidder must also provide training for qualified flight instructors, pilots, co-pilots, crew, engineers and technicians. The helicopter must also be delivered six months after the Letter of Award is issued. The helicopters will be based at Kuantan as the Tim Nukleus Rej 882 is currently headquartered at the Kem Batu 10, Gambang. It is likely the helicopters will be operated from the adjacent Kuantan airbase.
A check with the Eperolehan website today showed that six companies had filed their bids for the tender. The lowest bid was listed at RM187 million while the highest was RM405 million. What is interesting that one of the companies had a bid of RM264.7 million for the contract. It is interesting as this was the same figure of the contract for the leasing of four AW139 for the RMAF. One must wonder whether this bid was from Weststar Aviation Services Sdn Bhd, the company that won the RMAF contract which is also a leasing deal. It is likely.
By the way, only one company had taken part in the helicopter maintenance contracts for the two Royal Malaysian Navy AW139 helicopters. Once the contract is awarded, I will report on it.
— Malaysian Defence
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“at least two crew and 10 passengers; maximum take-off load from 6,000kg to 20,000kg and endurance of four to five hours. The aircraft must be certified for day/night VFR and instrumentation to carry out IFR. Apart from normal flying, the helicopter must also be able to carry underslung, spie-rig, deck landing and search and rescue missions. The underslung gear must be able to carry up 1,814kg of load. The winning bidder must also provide training for qualified flight instructors, pilots, co-pilots, crew, engineers and technicians. The helicopter must also be delivered six months after the Letter of Award is issued.”
This is what a proper requirements as clearly stated from enduser should be like, no brand or model preference, and it is up to the buyer to ensure the selected vendor MUST fulfill all these requirements for them to even have a chance of winning. When all the technical requirements are met, then its left to the other tangibles ie pricing, servicing availability & cost, spareparts, TOT, etc. The end user should not care if they gotten Sikorsky or Leonardo or Airbus Heli or even MIL if it meets all their needs.
This unlike TLDM saying; I want Sigma and nothing else! That is just wrong.
RMN in 2011 had decided that the Sigma was best option for them after considering everything that were offered to them. It was not wrong for them to do so
Yes and they never said “; I want Sigma and nothing else”. They simply stated that for various reasons Sigma was the preferred option which is profoundly different from saying “I want Sigma and nothing else”.
Also as the service which actually has to operate the class and sustain it; the RMN is in a far better position than anyone to know what best suits its requirements. Lest it be forgotten the RMN has a long history of being straddled with stuff which simply wasn’t suited for its needs and when the shite hits the fan the politicians and bureaucrats are indifferent.W
Mtow capability from 6tonne to 20tonne is too vague as it involves so many different type of heli class. But other fields seems to be proper.
The S-92 and blackhawks have been favored by endusers as the nuri replacement since donkey years ago.