Czech MoD may spend up to 12 billion koruna (U.S. $480 million) for 12 new helos

Czech Defence Ministry eyes $480M helo deal

By: Jarosław Adamowski, April 7, 2017

WARSAW, Poland — The Czech Ministry of Defence may spend up to 12 billion koruna (U.S. $480 million) to acquire about a dozen new helos for the country’s armed forces. The ministry initially aimed to spend only 6 billion krona on the procurement, but it is currently evaluating a proposal to double the deal’s value, according to sources close to the deal.

“The ongoing market research activities are entering their final phase. No decision has been taken so far by the leadership of the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff,” Petr Medek, spokesman for the MoD, told local business daily Hospodarske noviny.

The leading contenders for the deal reportedly include two U.S. and two European industry players, and the offered aircraft include Sikorsky’s UH-60 Black Hawk, Airbus Helicopters' H145M, Bell’s UH-1Y and Leonardo’s AW139.

Under the plan, the procurement will allow the Czech military to replace their fleet of outdated Soviet-designed Mil transport helicopters with new helos made by an allied country.

The planned acquisition is possible thanks to an increase in the Czech Republic’s military spending. In 2017, the country’s defense expenditure is expected to total more than 52.53 billion krona, which represents a 10 percent increase compared with a year earlier. This will allow the Czech government to allocate some 1.08 percent of the country’s gross domestic product to military spending, making this year’s defense budget the largest in absolute numbers since 2007.

Original post: defensenewscom

H145M: Details

AW139M: Details

UH-60M: Details

UH-1Y Venom

The UH-1Y Venom was developed from the previous UH-1N Twin Huey, introduced in the early 1970s. Extremely successful, versatile and reliable airframe of the UH-1 was integrated with modern avionics and new propulsion. It uses a lot of off-the-shelf technology. It has a high degree of commonality with the AH-1Z Viper, which was developed under the same program. Even though these air vehicles serve to totally different missions. Viper is premier attack helicopter while Venom is utility transport chopper. However they share 85% of replaceable components. These helicopters share engines, rotor system, transmission, tail boom, avionics, controls and displays and other components. Such commonality allowed to reduce production, maintenance and overall operational costs.

This helicopter can carry 8 fully equipped soldiers. Its modular construction permits cargo bay to be transformed for other roles, such as MEDEVAC and cargo carrying.

The Venom helicopter can be armed with 12.7-mm or 7.62-mm machine guns, or 7.62-mm Gatling guns installed in the open doors on either side of the fuselage. Also it can carry pods with Hydra 70 unoperated rockets or APKWS laser guided anti-armor missiles. These are used for self-defense to soften-up enemy defenses before landing.

On combat missions USMC typically deploy 2-4 utility helicopters alongside with detachment of 4-8 attack helicopters.

Entered service	2009
Crew	2 men
Dimensions and weight
Length	17.78 m
Main rotor diameter	14.88 m
Height	4.5 m
Weight (empty)	5.37 t
Weight (maximum take off)	8.39 t
Engines and performance
Engines	2 x General Electric T700-GE-401C turboshafts
Engine power	2 x 1 800 hp
Maximum speed	286 km/h
Cruising speed	248 km
Service ceiling	6.1 km
Ferry range	?
Combat radius	241 km
Payload
Passengers	8
Payload capacity	3 t
Armament
Machine guns	2 x 12.7-mm or 7.62-mm
Other	70-mm unguided rockets

Source military-today.com