Australian Military to Buy US Black Hawks and Ditch Its Fleet of European Designed Taipan Helicopters

Australia has 47 Taipna helicopters designed and developed by Airbus. The helicopters were supposed to last until 2037 but are plagued with groundings. Hence, Australia will stop using the helicopters and will switch to US Black Hawks and Seahawks designed by Lockheed Martin.

The new helicopters (47) will cost 7 billion which is $ 4.8 billion Australian dollars. Australian military will switch to the US helicopters for is believe the Lockheed Martin designed helicopter are more reliable. The move comes from Australia after it cancelled a deal to buy French submarine three months before.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on its move to switch to Lockheed Martin designed Black Hawks and seahawks said, the Australian government is strengthening its defense forces buying the best possible equipment in its defense system. He further said that Australia has built good partnership with US and wants to maintain the same in future for improving its defense capabilities.

Morrison said, the Taipan’s helicopters were not meeting their marks and were plagued with groundings. He said, Australia wants to strengthen its defense forces with best possible equipment in operations and US’s Black Hawks and Seahawks can do that well. Furthermore, defense minister Peter Dutton said that the Black Hawks are cheaper and can fly well and have more advanced capabilities than Taipan’s helicopters. He mentioned that the Taipan’s helicopters have found to be unsuitable in many instances in past decade. He said, the US’s helicopters are more reliable and can address instability in the region.