Australian Aviation — January 2018

Scholes was really struggling and he
got hold of me and said ‘go into the
caucus and into the cabinet and you
are going to hammer them on the
need for a Seahawk’,” he said.
Hawke believed Seahawk was the
superior aircraft.
“Hawkie was into everything
and he preferred the Seahawk so I
was ordered in to crush the caucus
opposition. Lynx was offering a better
industry package. Seahawk hardly had
a package at all.”
“I took the delivery of them by the
time I became defence minister and
they are rippers.”
Beazley said the sole shortcoming
of Seahawk was the absence of a
dunking sonar, redressed on their
Romeo replacements.
“We have always been a bit off the
pace in ASW but we are on the pace
again now with the new ones,” he said.
“What they need is another six
and they need to reconfigure the two
LHDs for ASW capability. They have
room for them because they are only
carrying half a dozen of the others and
they have capacity for 20 aircraft.”
The decision to acquire a naval
combat helicopter capability really
followed other bigger and better
known decisions – to retire carrier
HMAS Melbourne and shelve plans for
acquisition of a replacement.
One of the first acts of the new
Hawke government, elected in March
1983, was to drop plans for a new
carrier.
Fundamentally that was because a
big deck carrier was just too expensive
and there were other new capabilities
on the way with a stronger claim on
limited funds. And maritime aviation
capability could be delivered by
helicopters operating from warships.
“With the demise of the Fleet Air

Arm fixed-wing capability we needed

to maintain a footprint at sea. In

rolls the Squirrel, and the next thing

you know we are operating these

impressive aircraft off frigates at sea,”

CDRE Smallhorn said.

“We were shaping and preparing

our Navy for helicopter small deck

operations that were to be the

mainstay of naval aviation.”

The acquisition of Squirrel – or

Ecureuil in the aircraft’s native

language – stemmed from a decision

of Fraser government Defence

Minister Ian Sinclair in August 1982.

What was needed was a

replacement for Vietnam War era

UH-1B Iroquois in the training role

plus a new utility type for the RAN.

The government decided to buy 18

Squirrels for $23 million – 12 for the

RAAF and six for the Navy.

This was a type first flown in

Marignane, France in mid-1974 and

intended as a civil utility aircraft. It

proved more than popular, with more

than 3,500 produced and operated

around the world.

The first Australian Squirrel was

a Navy aircraft, serial-numbered

N22-013, handed over in France in

November 1983.

CDRE Smallhorn noted the

Squirrel was a basic small helicopter

designed for civil operation and never

intended for operation off ships.

“You look at what the aircraft

is, how it’s made and what it was

originally designed for and it really is

rather extraordinary when you think

of what we have achieved,” he said.

The RAAF initially operated

Squirrels as its training helicopter

at 5 Squadron at RAAF Fairbairn,

Canberra. Subsequently they went to

the joint Australian Defence Force

helicopter school at RAAF Fairbairn,

although as Army aircraft.

That gives the Squirrel another

distinction as just about the only

aircraft to have served in all three

services. Even widely-used Dakota

transport aircraft and Tiger Moth

trainers never served with all three

services.

Some RAAF Squirrels were also

intended for search and rescue

operations at RAAF bases at Darwin,

Williamtown, NSW and Pearce,

WA but proved not well suited to

that mission. Subsequently the SAR

contract was awarded to the National

Safety Council of Australia with larger

Bell 212s.

Navy Squirrel aircraft were

intended as the fleet’s training and

utility helicopter, operating from the

Adelaide class FFG frigates, pending

the arrival of the larger Seahawks.

The Navy used its Squirrels to learn

about operating helicopters from small

warship flightdecks.

Di Pietro said in those early days

the Navy did quite extraordinary

The Squirrel allowed the Navy

to build experience operating

helicopters off small ship

flightdecks.DEFENCE

Two Seahawks and a

Squirrel overfly Nowra.

DEFENCE

Bravo Zulu

Seahawk ‘Tiger 79’ aboard HMAS

Melbourne.DEFENCE