British and American helicopters have been demonstrating their capabilities working together on Exercise Swift Response.

Joint Helicopter Command’s Aviation Task Force 1 (ATF-1), which commands the attack, reconnaissance and support helicopters in the British Army’s global response force, is flying in support of the major multinational exercise in North Macedonia.

The British Army say in a news release here:

“The Apache attack helicopters of 4 Regiment Army Air Corps (AAC), 1st Aviation Brigade Combat Team and Chinook support helicopters of the RAF’s 18 Squadron are working alongside the Chinook and Blackhawk support helicopters from the US Army’s 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, known as Task Force Lobos (TF Lobos). On the exercise, mountains over 2,000m high and dusty ground makes for challenging flying conditions, while ground crew are out in the field running Forward Arming and Refueling Points (FARP), the military equivalent of a Formula 1 pit stop.

A key activity was the combined arms live fire exercise. Protected by the Apaches, Chinooks and Blackhawks delivered soldiers from 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment into live fire battle runs, with the Apaches providing fire support from their 30mm cannon and Chinooks from their 7.62mm miniguns and machine gun.”

ATF-1 Commander Lieutenant Colonel Alex Harris was quoted as saying:

“What we’re delivering on Swift Response is incredibly challenging. We’ve deployed helicopters and everything we need to operate them thousands of miles across Europe to set up in an austere location, quickly build a relationship with another unit with different procedures and equipment, and now we’re planning and carrying out complex air assault missions together. To be able to do this is testament to the quality of our soldiers – their skills, physical robustness and mindset – and they’re enjoying the chance to get out and do their job.”

American Chief Warrant Officer 4 Daniel Thompson flies an HH-60 Blackhawk and was quoted as saying:

“I’ve been flying with British medics and our role is to evacuate casualties, both in the exercise scenario and if there are any actual injuries. Together with the British we have attack, heavy lift and medevac helicopters that makes for a pretty powerful team, where each of us has brought different slices to the pie. I first served with the British in Afghanistan in 2003 and we work together really well. This training is about building the trust between us even further, so that we can be ready to respond to any global contingencies.”

Exercise Swift Response sees more than 3,000 troops from eight NATO countries working together in North Macedonia under the command of 16 Air Assault Brigade Combat Team, with some 2,000 British soldiers and airmen taking part, you can read more from this at the British Army website here.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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58 COMMENTS

  1. Good to see!

    But ugggh, we’re going to get those Blackhawk advocates in the comments again, aren’t we? Give it a break lads; we’re not getting fucking Blackhawks.

    • Probably not, but I reckon in 10 years time we’ll all be complaining that we should have got the Blackhawk’s!

      • Well, you will be.

        I’m just filing it under the ‘we should have 30 frigates and 500 Challenger 3s’ crowd.

      • Really? Merlin carries more passengers and freight, is faster and has longer range. Puma carries more passengers. Why is Blackhawk so special in your view?

    • I hope not, I’m not a fan either. What might work for the US won’t for our forces, also i don’t really see a need for medium role helicopters. What we have is light(wildcat), heavy(Merlin) and super heavy(Chinook). What’s the point in adding a medium into the mix when surely everything is covered there?, Just increase the numbers in what we have to drive cost reductions across board. Eventually with what is being experimented on the light and medium will be replaced by unmanned vehicles, I get that’s a way off still but that’s where the money should be not by buying another model

      • Wildcat is very poor for transport. Merlin is very expensive.

        Blackhawk is old and too big size for the space it offers.

      • Merlin is only used by the Navy and is too large to replace the Puma.
        If we want to help out the UK rotor industry then order more, fully kitted out, Wildcats for recce work.

    • Did someone say Blackhawk, yes please, I’ll have 50 fuc**ng Blackhawks, now what’s the question?

      • Now now, don’t be greedy, or delusional mate.

        FIFTY! With the other contenders I’d go on my knees and thank god if we scrape to 30 and half the squadrons needing to be reequipped get canned as a result.

        But UK PLC will win so all is good with the forces!!!

        No. 44 Blackhawk please, pronto, for a pittance so MoD can spend the money elsewhere, like Excalibur rounds GPS guided for our obsolete outgunned artillery BJ is grandstanding about supplying to Ukraine.

        • Out of interest do you think that 44 Blackhawks will be cheaper than 44 others? I’ve not seen prices. Will the government give the army the left overs to spend or would the £1.3b be spent pimping out the Blackhawks and until the moneys all used up? I remember working in a government role and managers desperately spending any left over dept cash before April as if any was left next years budget got reduced.(crazy way of doing things)

  3. Pity the RN is in such a perilous state and the RAF could do with more jets. Weve got great military personnel and some amazing equipment just not enough of either.

  4. These are the exercises that make our forces so good. Great to see and so valuable. Can’t wait to see the American officer saying the AW149 is a brilliant machine and so much better than our Blackhawks.
    Bomb thrown, running for cover😂😂😂😂

    • Hi MS. Interesting to note the AW189 hasn’t been mentioned in any of the commentary, could be an interesting contender?

      • The AW189 is a civilian version of the AW149. The coast guard use the 189. I had a search and rescue 189 fly over my house twice the other night doing 165-172kts. That was the speed on flight radar in knots. I saw it and it was tanking it.
        Now if they could make them quieter that would be a game changer.
        I like the new black hawks also but I think the AW149 has the edge. Leonardo can offer more money to stay in the U.K.
        If Blackhawk team can put a great offer in then either team are worthy of winning.

        • As a sweetener Lockheed could offer to speed up weapon integration on F35, give radar work to U.K. etc etc. something to make the built in Poland a non issue. Most other countries are saying Reinvestment of a percentage of contract price has to be done.

        • Hi MS, doesn’t the USAF already operate the Grey Wolf which I think is a licence production of the smaller brother AW149, the AW139? Nice to see the US buying some foreign equipment.
          May the best helo win…

          • In the US, it’s a Boeing product called the MH139A and is being produced in the US. Being scenical, it’s probably the only reason it got looked at.

    • USAF choose 80 AW 139 for their nuclear missile silos and the USN will get 130 AW 119K (called by USN TH-37A) for training.

  5. My pick from the start, the Blackhawk is also a serious contender. Either way, let’s hope we get on with it and get the winner into service asap and in the correct numbers.

    Optimised for multiple missions
    “The AW149 is designed for a multitude of missions such as troop transport; re-supply/external load lift; medical and casualty evacuation; Search and Rescue (SAR) and Combat Search and Rescue; special forces operations; close air support/armed escort; Command and Control C2); and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).”

    https://helicopters.leonardo.com/en/products/aw149

    • Entirely this. Even if the AW149 is selected, if it is at a good price and the 44 are acquired all is good, and the factory and UK PLC is happy.

      I fear it will be more money thrown after bad and Yeovil ends up in the same begging bowl condition every half decade until HMG have a proper strategic build strategy and the forces still miss out.

      Which is one reason I prefer BH.

  6. AW149 will be built in the U.K., not in Europe. Interestingly, the Blackhawk you advocate for will be built in Europe. I don’t think the Apache or, especially, the Chinook can be termed “U.K. US” success stories since there’s hardly anything U.K. about them. Simply buying Blackhawk will destroy our national industry and, in time of need, we will not have any foundation to stand on when rapidly trying to expand our fleet. If war breaks out two years later, it would be a lot harder building choppers if we had no Leonardo in Yeovil than if we do.

    • Correction, the AW149 will be assembled in the UK not built. The Polish company PZL-Swidnik will be build the airframe, which will then be shipped over to the UK for assembly and fitting out. PZL construct the majority of Leonardo helicopters and a few Airbus one. They even have the contract to build the Blackhawks for Poland and Finland. For Leonardo, the airframes like the Aw139 and 189 are shipped to Brindisi for final assembly. This is where the previous AW149 were assembled for countries such as Egypt.

      The problem the UK has, is that the skilled workforce costs more to pay than the Polish one. Leonardo are just using the cheaper option.

      • That was with previous Chinooks. The new ones are being supplied by the US Army and not Boeing. This means the US Army are the design organisation, we have very little wriggle room of what can be changed on the aircraft. There will be a few things added such as certain radios. But the aircraft will be delivered to a very similar specification to what the US Army operates.

        I am not sure about the Apaches. As far as I know these are again a very similar spec’ to the US Army ones, with a few added radios such as Bowman.

      • In that sense one might argue neither does the US have a completely independent military manufacturing capability; 92% of its rare Earth materials come from China. Yes the world is inherently interconnected, that does not mean that due to a small dependency we should simply throw up our arms and say why bother with anything. A lot of American fighters use Rolls Royce engines which in turn use American and European as well as British components. Being the foremost European power warrants a necessity for us not only to stop shrinking our helicopter industry, among others, but to be ready for impending increases. The problem with what you advocate for is that it completely destroys our chopper industry for good. If it remains, however small, it can be scaled up in time of need. If it is gone, it is gone. Recovering it becomes impossible.

    • Exactly it’s ok with Chinook and Apache because they are world beating and fill a particular niche that would otherwise be left blank hense the need to buy foreign, we could not afford to develop these capabilities with the numbers that we have alone. But light to medium size helicopters, a nation our size and with the MOD budget should easily be able to design and produce its own helicopters no problem. The reason why we are in this predicament is bad management of the industry by successive governments and the MOD/forces not speaking out more about sell offs/cuts to our industry. So in effect we are forced into buying American for everything, buy blackhawk and we are out of the rotor industry for ever. Same is happening to the armoured vehicles, absolute shambles and they go on about levelling up.

      • But light to medium size helicopters, a nation our size and with the MOD budget should easily be able to design and produce its own helicopters no problem.

        No, i am afraid many here don’t understand the realities of industrial resources and know how. .The optimisations necessary to make a competitive product. You can’t pick engineers from trees…you need to make them want to join a project and then be sustainable.

        The only design out of Westland was the Lynx with some French cooperation.
        Sea King, Wessex were all American designs. To design Merlin a 50/50 joint venture with Italian Agusta was made.
        In the end Agusta bought Westland because after Merlin there wasn’t any Westland product. while Agusta(now Leonardo) had for years invested in civilian market so they had a product line.
        Their A-109 that never looks old is from 1975 still being build..

      • So you want to turn “Europe” into a quasi enemy?

        And you have no notion how the industrial world works. That attitude will not make you go very far.

      • Not sure I agree that we don’t work with Euro countries due to Brexit.
        We have rejoined the (Euro) Boxer programme. Rheinmetall has joined with BAE to build CR3. We have observer status on the Euro future tank project.

  7. Never mind trying to scam us Brooklyn bot, come on, get with it, what do you think about the blackhawks option?

  8. Did not Westlands have a shot at selling the Blackhawk to the rest of the world back in the 70/80 and the grand total of ZERO were sold due to lack of interest?

    What was the “Westland Affair” about?

    Regardless how much you update the electronics l would guess the reason the airframe design has been adapted is that it fits the US orbat and equipment to be lifted need and we some what don’t Mach the requirements or scale of said primary user.

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