royal navy merlin enters service

1 December 1998

The Royal Navy’s Merlin helicopter, the world’s most advanced helicopter in its class, enters service at Royal Navy Air Station Culdrose today. Merlin is the Royal Navy’s first new aircraft for 20 years, and is the result of close international collaboration that has brought major equipment benefits to the service and to the European aerospace industry in terms of both new technology and jobs.

Speaking at Culdrose, Mr Peter Schultz, managing director of Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the RN Merlin programme, said: “The fixed-price contract is worth about £1.5 billion and has brought a massive workload to British and European industry, with much of it in high technology areas.

Several thousand jobs have been provided in the UK by the Merlin programme. Since the programme started there has been a considerable transfer of knowledge and skills to British industry.”

He said: “The work has been spread among the nine primary subcontractors who are in partnership with Lockheed Martin and has included nearly 300 other companies in the UK and Europe. Over 230 of those companies are here in the United Kingdom.”

In addition to the work provided to British industry under the contract, Lockheed Martin agreed to make skills from its US systems integration experience and financial management available to UK companies. Initially its 500-strong Merlin team in the UK had been 80 per cent US and 20 per cent British. That ratio is now reversed 80 per cent british and 20 per cent American employees, and UK partners in the programme have used the transferred knowledge in their own businesses.

The Royal Navy Merlin is a variant of the EH101 helicopter, designed, developed and built by GKN Westland Helicopters of the UK and Agusta of Italy. The EH101 was designed from the outset to operate in maritime, military and civil roles and it is only new-technology medium-lift helicopter in production today. In its Royal Navy Merlin configuration it is the world’s most advanced anti-submarine, anti-surface warfare helicopter.

The award of this contract in 1991 to Lockheed Martin brought its 35 years of experience managing the financial and technical aspects of complex military and civil programmes, together with GKN Westland and Agusta’s 50 years of involvement in the design, development and integration of helicopter systems.

The contract called for the first aircraft to enter service in 1998; a target met with the formation of 700M Squadron at RNAS Culdrose today. Alan Johnston, Chief Operating Officer of GKN Westland Helicopters, emphasised the significance of the complementary strengths of Lockheed Martin and GKN Westland in meeting the contractual deadline. Speaking at Culdrose he said: “The two companies have worked extremely well together throughout this complex programme. Lockheed Martin’s extensive experience of similar complex integration contracts meshed very well with GKN Westland’s knowledge and understanding of the unique systems engineering environment of rotary wing aircraft. Between us we have provided the Royal Navy with what we both believe to be the most capable naval helicopter in service today.”

Background Information

Royal Navy Merlin capability

Capable of cruising at 150 knots with a range in excess of 1,000 kilometres, the Merlin can operate in all weathers, including deck landing and take off in up to sea state six and cross winds up to 50 knots. The Merlin carries both active dipping sonar and sonobuoys, and can be equipped with four homing torpedoes or four depth charges, enabling it to detect and destroy hostile submarines without the need for mother ship or shore base intervention.

Merlin Systems Integration.

As its simplest it makes sure the pins fit when the operational equipment is plugged into the helicopter. And, at the other end of the scale, it specifies the smallest detail of the electronic language of the complex and advanced systems that perform the helicopter’s missions, so that they can communicate with each other and with the aircraft’s own computer systems. In between, is more than 8000 man years of team work establishing the requirements, development of hardware and software, demonstrating total system performance and finally delivering the most advanced helicopter in it’s class.

Additional primary partners are:-

• Roll-Royce Turbomeca - Supply the RTM 322 engines. Three power each RN Merlin
   
• Thompson-Marconi Sonar Limited - Developed the sonics and active dipping sonar subsystems
   
• GEC Marconi - Responsible for radar and communications equipment
   
• Racal Radar Defence Systems - Provide the electronic support measures and mission planning device
   
• Computing Devices of Hastings - Supply the digital map
   
• Ultra - Supply the data link processor
   
• M/A Com - Produce the I-band transponder
   
• Chelton, round off the team with the sonobuoy homer

This team is backed by the wide range of suppliers, mainly in the UK and in Europe, where they are primarily in France, Italy and Germany