Without Software, Britain's Chinook Helicopter Fleet IdledAugust 28, 2009

 

chinook

The British military mothballed eight Chinook Mk3 helicopters upon delivery from Boeing in 2001 because in its misguided effort to cut costs, the country's Ministry of Defense (MoD) ordered the high-tech Chinooks without Boeing's proprietary avionics software.

The software that the MoD thought it could develop more cheaply never worked effectively and the helicopters were stored in a hangar as the MoD kept trying to tweak its custom software, according to the British paper, The Times.

Boeing had warned the MoD that the Chinooks' avionics were extremely complex and custom software would be difficult to integrate. "But they thought they could do it better," an insider told The Times.

The Chinooks cost the MoD about $430 million without the code upon delivery in 2001. Adding the necessary software would have bumped the price to just over $500 million. The Chinooks, lacking the avionics software, could not be certified as airworthy, according to The Times.

Once the U.K. found itself deeply involved in the Iraq war in 2004, the need to put those mothballed Chinooks into action led the MoD to admit that their software was a failure and it turned to Boeing for help.

And that's when things got really expensive.

It took 30 months of negotiations for a new deal and a final estimate of about another $360 million to bring the avionics up to date. The final blow was that the helicopters would not be ready for service until 2011 or 2012, according to the article.

With the growing need for the helicopters in Afghanistan, the MoD decided to change the Chinook Mk3s back to standard Mk2a utility helicopters to have them ready sooner – by 2009-2010. The cost was revised to $87 million but slowly rose to nearly $150 million as work progressed.

While the helicopters were idle in the hangers between 2001 and 2007, the MoD spent nearly $1 million to inspect them once a week and remove them from the hangers for a detailed inspection every two years.

(U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Steven R. Doty (released))