The new boss of Leonardo Helicopters UK has stressed the “criticality” for the business of winning the ongoing New Medium Helicopter (NMH) contest, but believes the airframer can grasp other opportunities – even including selling new AW101s to the Royal Navy.

Leonardo is the sole remaining bidder in the UK’s NMH competition, for which it is offering its AW149 super-medium-twin.

If selected, it has pledged to deliver the NMH from its factory in Yeovil, southwest England, as well as to address the global export market from the plant.

Negotiations between the manufacturer and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) successfully concluded earlier this year, leading to the submission of a best and final offer; a contract could follow in the autumn.

However, doubts remain over the government’s commitment to the programme given the UK’s constrained budget environment and other competing defence priorities.

In the meantime, the backlogs for Yeovil’s existing products, the AW159 and AW101, continue to shrink, with the former’s orderbook particularly weak: at present, Leonardo is working through a contract for three examples of the maritime helicopter for a North African nation, thought to be Algeria.

Against this backdrop, Nigel Colman, a former Royal Air Force (RAF) Air Vice-Marshal and head of the UK’s Joint Helicopter Command, was in March promoted from his position of vice-president of market development to managing director of Leonardo Helicopters (UK), succeeding Adam Clarke.

Colman identifies the NMH as a “critical” part of Yeovil’s make-up but sees “other opportunities out there” too.

“But that’s not to take away the criticality of the AW149 – it is really important to the site,” he said, speaking to FlightGlobal on 18 July at the Royal International Air Tattoo.

Colman says the company expects a decision on NMH “later this year” having submitted a “compliant bid” which is “affordable, it fits the budget, and it complies with what the UK MoD has asked us for”, including a “delivery schedule that fits in with what the [ministry] wants”.

And, he notes, “the capability requirement still exists from UK defence” – a need that has become more acute since the March early retirement of the RAF’s Puma HC2 fleet, a capability the NMH is supposed to replace.

However, Colman is not unaware of the budgetary hurdles the MoD still faces, acknowledging “just how challenging the financial situation is for the UK – they have got some very difficult decisions to make”.

Delays to the procurement have not helped the programme’s viability either, with inflation eating into the available budget.

Could the entire programme still face cancellation? “That’s always a possibility – that’s a possibility for every programme,” says Colman.

“As far as I’m aware, every programme in defence is under threat until a full commitment is made. But I have no reason, or no more reason, to be worried now than I was a year ago, or two years ago.”

Colman emphasises that the “most important thing” is that the NMH will be delivered from Yeovil, which “safeguards” the country’s sovereign rotary-wing design capability, “an independence the UK needs and should desire”.

In the meantime, Leonardo Helicopters UK is fighting to win additional orders for the AW159 and AW101.

Securing new business for the AW159 is vital: Gian Piero Cutillo, managing director of parent company Leonardo Helicopters, in March indicated the business was assessing the programme’s future in the light of the dwindling backlog.

While the AW159 has already been offered to the Royal New Zealand Navy as part of an ongoing campaign, news emerged in recent days that existing customer the Philippine navy is set to procure an additional six examples, adding to its existing two-strong fleet.

Colman describes the AW159 – known as the Wildcat in UK service – as “without a doubt the world’s best small ship helicopter; I would maintain that to anybody, it’s a fantastic capability”.

But while there is “a lot of interest being shown in the AW159” and “there are any number of export customers lining up to talk to us”, he claims, “I think matching what is a high-end capability with a customer’s requirements is the thing we need to continue working on,” he says.

Maintaining a live production line and supply chain are vital if the airframer is to “deliver a cost-effective and competitive capability”.

In addition, that will help ensure continued support for the UK, its largest customer for the twin-engined rotorcraft.

A total of 62 Wildcats are in UK service: 34 are flown by the Army Air Corps and 28 by the Royal Navy (RN), deliveries having begun in 2012 and 2013, respectively.

Given the near 15 years in service for the oldest examples, the MoD is contemplating a mid-life update – referred to in procurement jargon as a Capability Sustainment Programme (CSP) – “in due course” to address some “obsolescence” issues.

Discussions with the customer are “beyond the early stages”, he says, and “we are working with the UK MoD to determine what their requirements are, where they overlap with the obsolescence challenges, and therefore what the scope of any kind of mid-life upgrade might look like”.

For the AW101, the best near-term prospect appears to be Norway, an existing operator of the three-engined helicopter in the search and rescue role.

The Royal Norwegian Air Force already flies 16 ‘SAR Queen’ helicopters – 600-series AW101s – and could firm some or all of the six options it holds to equip a seventh base.

But Norway also needs anti-submarine warfare (ASW)-roled helicopters to replace a fleet of rejected NH Industries NH90s.

The UK is proposing a government-to-government sale of AW101s as a package also including Type 26 frigates for the Royal Norwegian Navy.

If selected by Oslo, that could open the door for a renewal of the UK’s current ASW-roled AW101 Merlin HM2s with the latest generation of the same helicopter, Colman suggests.

Although the RN is driving the introduction of uncrewed platforms through its Maritime Aviation Transformation (MATX) strategy, it has also expressed a need for what it calls FMCAS – a Future Maritime Crewed Air System.

“I would hope that future system would be an AW101 – an advancement on the current Merlin [HM2] capability,” he says.

The 600-series AW101 is “head and shoulders above the first-generation Merlin – and that’s what we are looking to put forward to the Royal Navy should they require a future crewed maritime air system, which they have said they do openly.”

Its selection by Norway for the ASW mission would offer a “great opportunity for the Royal Navy as well because there could be economies of scale there”.

“There are some really good strategic reasons the UK and Norway should operate in a genuinely interoperable fashion going into the future,” Colman adds.

In the meantime, work continues on the Proteus uncrewed technology demonstrator it is developing for the RN.

A first flight of the Proteus – based on the airframer’s single-engined AW09 helicopter – is still planned for later this year.

“But from my perspective it’s not the platform that’s the important bit – it’s the autonomy, it’s the brains and that is what we need to progress, and are progressing at pace,” he says.

Indeed, Leonardo Helicopters recently performed a simulated ASW mission for the RN using multiple Proteus assets to autonomously and collaboratively detect, track and ultimately attack an enemy submarine.

At present, there is no contract to transition Proteus from a technology demonstrator to a production programme, but the RN’s ambitions through MATX are clear, seeking an end state where platforms are “uncrewed where possible; crewed where necessary”.

“I think the navy’s strategy is very clearly ambitious towards uncrewed and autonomous capabilities, and we, as a strategic, domestic partner in the UK, need to help them realise that ambition,” says Colman.

“There is no programme of record, but we hope there will be one in due course.”

Ultimately, the development of such a capability is vital, he says: “That is what I see as the future: a combination of traditional crewed and autonomous uncrewed capabilities, operating together, collaborating into the future.

“I think if we can secure even a small proportion of the opportunities that exist, Yeovil has a really bright future across crewed and uncrewed [platforms].”