Russian Ministry of Defense acquired the first five helicopters made by Eurocopter and delivered them to the State Proving Flying Center (SPFC) for testing. As reported by Lenta.ru with reference to a source familiar with the situation, two twin-engine AS355NP and three single-engined AS350B3 helicopters were delivered to SPFC. The Ministry of Defense intends to acquire a total of 47 helicopters.
According to the source, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Eurocopter have already carried on negotiations regarding purchase of the helicopters. As the result the agreement assuming that Russian MoD will carry out testing of the helicopters and then take the final decision regarding acquisition of the vehicles. Helicopters are intended for transportation of top military leaders and command of military districts.
Russian Ministry of Defense has issued a tender on delivery of 50 light helicopters (43 single-engined and seven twin-engine ones) in February 2012. It was intended to spend 6,61 billion rubles on acquisition of these vehicles. Despite the fact that the desired vehicles were not specified in the tender’s documentation, experts believe that this refers to single-engined Eurocopter AS350 and AS550 helicopters and twin-engine AS355 or AS555 ones.
Russian Ministry of Defense has declared the tender void in late March. Auction was cancelled because “the number of allowed proposals on this lot is <=1". Two proposals were submitted in the network of this tender and both of them were declined by the commission due to mismatch between the offered helicopters and technical requirements of the MoD in the area of layout of rotors’ location and rotation. Moreover, the MoD was not satisfied by the dates of delivery.
Some of the vehicles offered in the network of the tender had coaxial scheme, while the traditional scheme was specified in the requirements. The commission was not satisfied by other helicopters because their rotors were rotating anti-clockwise while the MoD required traditional clockwise rotation. What types of vehicles were offered within the framework of the tender is unknown. SupposedlythisreferstoКа-226 and AgustaWestland AW-139 helicopters.
Presumably AS350 and AS550 helicopters were included in the second proposal; however they did not satisfied MoD due to insufficient flight speed (5 km/h lower than required). According to Interfax’s source, in spite of closing the tender, the MoD continued negotiations on delivery of Eurocopter helicopters.
