Seen being displayed at Farnborough 2024, the Leonardo AW149 is the sole surviving entrant for the UKʼs NMH competition. (Janes/Gareth Jennings)
The United Kingdom is to shortly announce how it intends to proceed with its long-running New Medium Helicopter (NMH) requirement, a senior government official has said.
Answering questions in the House of Commons, Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Luke Pollard said that, with final deliberations ongoing, an announcement will be made in the Defence Investment Plan (DIP) that is expected before the end of 2025.
“Officials continue to consider the New Medium Helicopter business case as part of the government’s approval process, with a decision to be made shortly as part of the upcoming Defence Investment Plan,” Pollard said on 25 November.
NMH is a GBP1.2 billion (USD1.6 billion) competition to replace the UKʼs now-retired 23 Airbus Puma HC2s with “up to 44” new helicopters, although the actual requirement could be for as few as 23–30 helicopters. A previous element of the NMH requirement to replace three other helicopter types was earlier separated out.
With the requirement being launched in February 2021, the bidding phase involving Airbus Helicopters with its H175M, Leonardo with its AW149, and Lockheed Martin with its S-70M Black Hawk was commenced in February 2024. However, in late August 2024, both Airbus Helicopters and Lockheed Martin withdrew their participation, with each saying they were unable to fulfil the requirement within the allotted budget, leaving Leonardo as the sole bidder.
It is not clear from Pollard’s latest statement if Leonardo will be awarded the contract as the only bidder, or if the government’s decision is that the requirement be reframed and relaunched, or even scrapped altogether.
For more information on NMH, please see
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