The United Kingdom and Norway have signed a new agreement deepening helicopter cooperation between their navies, allowing British aircraft to operate from Norwegian warships and bases.
First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins and Chief of the Norwegian Navy Rear Admiral Oliver Berdal signed the agreement in Oslo on 25 February. It builds on the wider “Lunna House” defence agreement concluded in December, which committed both countries to closer naval integration, cooperation on future frigates and collaboration on autonomous systems.
The new arrangement formalises the ability for British helicopters to embark on Norwegian naval and coast guard vessels, as well as to be stationed at Norwegian bases. Norway’s navy currently sails its frigates without organic helicopters, a gap the agreement is intended to mitigate during joint operations and exercises.
Rear Admiral Berdal said the UK is one of Norway’s most important allies and that integration between the two forces has increased in recent years. He noted that embarking British helicopters would support effective integration in joint operations and exercises, while also strengthening Norway’s own defence capability.
The cooperation builds directly on Operation Highmast in 2025, when the Norwegian frigate KNM Roald Amundsen deployed for eight months with the UK Carrier Strike Group led by HMS Prince of Wales. During that deployment, a Wildcat helicopter from 815 Naval Air Squadron operated from the Norwegian frigate, with British aircrew integrated into the ship’s company.
British Wildcat helicopters have since returned to Norway, with one currently stationed at Haakonsvern and set to participate in Exercise Cold Response 26. Several British personnel who served aboard KNM Roald Amundsen during Operation Highmast were this week awarded the Norwegian Medal for International Service.
The agreement signals a continued shift toward routine cross-decking and deeper operational integration between the Royal Navy and the Royal Norwegian Navy, particularly in the High North and North Atlantic.
I hope that this doesn’t provide an excuse to (further) reduce the UK medium lift helicopter order -still hopefully imminent…
I doubt it.
I too read they might announce something soon. Such a palavar over two dozen ( if that ) medium helicopters that should have been replaced OTS years ago, and cheaply too.
I expect Grandstanding from the usual suspects at the “world leading” handful we will buy at eye watering cost, with more emphasis on jobs than on the actual military capability they will provide.
NMH? Shirley not Sir!
NMH = anything Euro, UH-60 not allowed
Yes, we’re going to buy a handful of green painted executive transport helicopters – minus the leather seats and tables
AW149 is a lot more than that.
And why would we want the 1980s Blackhawk to replace the 1970s Puma?
It’s a steaming pile that sold barely a handful in two decades of trying.
The UH-60 is still the gold standard of battlefield utility helicopters
Maybe LM shouldn’t have pulled out of the program then?
The Gold Standard that crashes into planes with it’s bright landing lights on? No thanks.
Blackhawk remains an outstanding rotary asset. Puma2 was still very capable before it’s premature retirement
The 149 is a military rotor.. it was a ground up military build..
Good to hear some reasoned common sense over pre-conditioned prejudice. Far too easy to get into if it’s made here it’s clearly rubbish territory. May be a lot to complain about but we are far too prone to invent new fabricated ones sadly.
It’s because it doesn’t have a new shape that only the military could buy or use… Ultimately, if it were the same internals, avionics and engines, but in a different exterior shape, they’d all be banging on about it’s a bespoke for military operations platform and how could it be used for Civil applications…
Meanwhile, sensible heads have looked at it from the other way, how can we make a commercial success story into a sensible military helicopter, bearing in mind that it can’t be armoured out the arse because it still needs to fly and travel some distances.
It’s a green painted fi I,Ian helicopter with a high sink rate undercarriage carriage – Even the Thai police, the launch customer aren’t impressed with it and only bought a handful.
No it’s a complete rebuild, I had a very good chat with on of the design team about it once..
1) The ballistic tolerance of the blades
2) the ballistic tolerances of the hull
3) the ballistic tolerance of all key drive components
4) ballistic armour to crew cabin
5) crash high G resistance seats
6) a very high rated undercarriage.. infact it’s got a higher sink rate that a black hawk.
7) self seallinf fuel tanks
8) run dry gearbox
9) weapons hard points
10) integrated self protect suite…
10 reasons why it’s not a civilian rotor panted green…
? AW149 started as a military helicopter, and a civilian version was later developed.
I think it was actually an upgrade of the civil-military AW-139, a stretched version specifically for military use. The AW-149 should be fine for our medium lift rotary requirement. But would like to see it fitted with weapons pylons from the outset, as the air environment is a lot friskier than the Pumas were equipped to handle.
That’s not what Army Recognition says.
Hi M8. On a related issue I think we may be about to get the long awaited DIP ! The critical underlying indicator of how it will go will be when “Rachel from accounts” delivers the Spring Statement on Tuesday 3rd of March which sets out HMG spending for 26/27 so she either announces an increase in the Defence budget or not !
Either way they have to announce something, and odd as it sounds Unite the Union has read Starmer the riot act regarding this. Either she agrees to a substantial increase in Defence spending or be fired. Seems they are concerned about jobs in BAe, RR and AW etc etc. I know you may not like that but I’ll take pressure of Ghengis Khan (increased sales of Bull manure for political speeches) if it gets Defence spending boosted.
I have a long understanding of how our creaky old Political system functions and how it has to do things ! In December the DIP was put back in the pre scheduled Defence Oral questions session (lots of pre staged low key questions and John Healey to answer them and then make a statement).
Well as of this morning Oral Defence questions have dropped into the Westminster schedule for 2pm Monday 16th March with no other details given !
🤞🏻
As for Helicopters well I think they will put in the order for AW149 but possibly start talks for new Merlins as well, fact is it isn’t just Norway that would put in orders in UK kick starts production as there are lots of new frigates being built but few ASW helicopters. The NH90 has bombed, buying US is a last option regardless of how good the Blackhawks are, which in the west leaves the Merlin as the best ASW helicopter.
Any way happy POETS day 😉
Hi mate.
After the Green/Islam coalition last night, which should terrify everyone here, they need to stabilise Starmer with some positive news, anything to keep the far left at bay.
Merlin would be amazing, though again cannot see us buying any. We already have 54, 30 of the HM2 variant. Far too few, but it’s all about Drones now apparently. If Crowsnest is replaced by a Drone type then those Merlin can go back to ASW full time.
Better than Nazi Nigel and his Russian puppets.
Hi M8,
Japan, Italy, Poland, Norway, Portugal, Denmark and ourselves all have one major ASW issue at present, due to them all expanding their requirments they have (or will have) more spots than ASW Helicopters.
Most of them would be interested in an updated / modernised AW101 because A)Its still the most capable ASW Cab out there and B)Just like Lynx/Wildcat you get to leverage all you existing infrastructure.
The problem is no one will make a move until the UK does and with nothing else out there and an OOS date of 2040 we should do so. From our perspective if you total up the number of Frigates, Destroyers, Carriers, RFA Spots even with the Crowsnest ones return we don’t have enough to fill the capacity. And then when we do get the FSS and MRS ships we are even worse off.
Anyway lets see what Tuesday brings, no more £££ = Cuts !
There’s a huge amount of external political pressure being heaped on the UK Government at the moment. As the UK Government has stalled signing any more GCAP financial agreements. Both Italy and Japan have allocated Billions into the program, whilst the UK is dragging its feet. I think there will be movement with the DIP very soon, otherwise Japan in particular will start looking elsewhere.
It is far more to do with stopping ASW can skills fade.
We deploy 2 maybe 3 frigates at any one time but then need a whole load of Merlin cabs for ASW off a QEC. See the issue?
Everyone agrees that Merlin ASW is key to dealing with Russian SSNs.
So we need good deployments first the Merlin crews as well as cross training Norwegian crews ready for T26 and selling them Merlin ASW.
The Lunna House Agreement is a rare instance of a defence agreement having real substance rather just vaguely worded aspirations. 9 out 10 amount to no more than a ministerial PR opportunity, a press release, and perhaps a small scale (low cost!) military exercise – after which it all gets forgotten about and the agreement is sent to the archives.
General understanding is that the Norwegians are a serious nation. Excellent strategic move to have them watching your flank.
More importantly a Country with a small population a border with Russia and vital sea lanes that enemy would love to dominate while being closer to part of the UK than mainland UK is, not to mention key to operations in the North Sea and North Atlantic undeniably crucial to any security for Britain and well beyond. So the average uk voter might be woefully ignorant of the importance of this Country but clearly someone with influence does. Scandinavia generally is the secret to our safety and a potential weak underbelly (or is it overbelly) if we don’t give it the importance it deserves.
Has Norway decided on its helo for their T26s yet? I guess finalising number of their ships first up will affect the final number of helos.
The UK offered Leonardo AW101 helicopters (aka Merlin) as part of the Type 26 package, but Norway unexpectedly declined to take up the option – the cost of NKr13.9 billion ($1.3 billion) for six aircraft plus three years of support was apparently just too high. Lockheed Martin has instead offered ASW optimised MH-60R Seahawk’s – presumably at much lower price. But for sake of interoperability with the RN, hopefully a deal may still be struck on the AW101’s, and Yeovil desperately needs the work.
A joint FAA/RNoN Merlin squadron to provide T26 helo flights would make a lot of sense. Perhaps with a few Canadian and Australian personnel seconded to it!
As yet I don’t think they have decided.. as far as I’m aware it was not cost issue.. it’s more the fact the RN has not committed to Merin beyond 2040 and Norway does not want to buy a fleet the the UK scraps its Merlin fleet in 14 years leaving Noway high and dry
Assuming this is leading the way to a Merlin and 149 buy from Norway.. the insanity is I suspect they would have announced it ages ago but they are almost certainly undertaking a joint negotiation with the UK government so cannot announce until the DIP is Deposited.
I feel like everything is now just waiting on the DIP.
And we know it’s a spinning coin..as infighting within the government determines which side it will come down on. I fear the winning of the Green Party answers Labour coming third will mean there is less likelihood of it coming down on the side of more money…..
TBH Labour should have pulled out of that election. Green is preferable to Nazi Nigel’s lot getting in, and labour where just splitting the vote.
To be honest I think what we now have is a 6 party system ( five national 1 Scottish).. I would lay money on reform dropping off as the conservatives get a bit better and the Green Party essentially stabilising, maybe dropping of.. but I think we will in the next election see massive levels of tactical voting because of the perception of 6 parties.. but with different parts of the country having a massively different vote dynamic..
My finger in the wind prediction is that the five UK wide parties will each have 14%-20% of the vote share and the SNP will keep its present Scottish vote share… with the Scottish unionist vote now splitting 3 ways not 2.. increasing the number of seats.. I think the Welsh nationalists will also develop up.. it would not surprise me at all if we did not have 6 parties with 50-150 seats each… I think this is a seismic shift in UK politics.. not to the left or the right..but simply to the rainbow politics of Europe… essentially we now have a very right wing party, a centre right party, a centrist party, a centre left party and a very left wing party..with the far right and far left parties ( reform and green) now essentially also absorbing the small fascist and communism elements of our political system.. I’m not going to say the greens are communism or reform are fascists but I think both parties being on the ends of the normal democratic political spectrum have picked up those two elements and as such need to be aware of them and voters should also be aware.. having a few fascists or communists in a party are fine as long as it’s managed and democracy is not subverted.
Very good news. On the helicopter could we not open up the idea of Merlins accross the board, maybe extra builds instead of the MLH. Extra army lift boost the Commando force and the R.N. and the R.Nor.N as well as other countries.
Please stop writing sense; it is very annoying and certainly not gong to happen.
Now, go back to your cocoa.
I’m intrigued. I know you can’t talk about your secret work but how do you know about my cocoa? 🕵️😴
Didn’t we try that, and the RAF got rid of their Merlin?
I don’t know. I’ll have a look. Just a thought really. Opens up manufacturing capability for an existing type?
Hi mate.. completely agree I would order more Merlin’s.. personally I would just confirm they will be the ASW platform of choice out to 2060 and order some new ASW airframes to encourage Norway to do the same.. as Norway are reticence because they think we will ditch Merlin in 2040 and leave them with a 15 10 year old orphan fleet.
The Merlin is really a bit to big for a standard army tax medium lift rotor.. well actually it’s a lot to big, calling a Merlin a medium lift rotor to my mind has always been a stretch
61 foot rotor diameter, 64 feet long, 34,100ibs max take off weight.. 30 troops for a Merlin
47 foot rotor diameter, 57 feet long, 18,600ibs max take off weight, 16 troops for so you need about 15 foot less space for the AW149
Now the Blackhawk is interesting because it’s got a
54 foot rotor diameter, 65 feet long, 22,200ibs max takeoff weight, 11 troops.. so the Blackhawk actually needs a lot off space for a medium rotor.. about 10 foot around more than a AW149.
No real argument with what you say Jonathan. I appreciate it’s not the same beast but I suspect the MLH order may come down to a small number but we coud do with more Merlins anyway and they do have export potental as well. Perfect no, but a good comprimise maybe.
Hi mate.. completely agree I would order more Merlin’s.. personally I would just confirm they will be the ASW platform of choice out to 2060 and order some new ASW airframes to encourage Norway to do the same.. as Norway are reticence because they think we will ditch Merlin in 2040 and leave them with a 15 10 year old orphan fleet.
Well, that’s our discussion out the window. 😊 The MLH is to go ahead but only 23 airframes. Still, it is movement.
I think 23-25 was always going to be the number.. the RAF likes its Chinook fleet and the army has its wildcats for smaller stuff.
Yep. in the order of things acouple of squadrons is sound enougth. Timescale for delivery is going to thenext question.
Ahh the 149, well from what I know, It looks like a good choice, a bigger but military spec build than the excellent 139 which Itself has sold well all over the World with military versions being flown even by the US. The 149 seems to get negative comments on here but other than the cost, I can’t really understand why the UK should not buy this, It’s supporting thousands of UK jobs, has comonality with other Leonardo products, It’s a new design not an 80’s one and to be honest, It does what It is designed/required to do, just like the Wildcat, Merlin and all the commercially owned 139’s.
Watching two 139’s at Portland flying around training SAR pilots recently left a positive Impression In many ways. Watching them with Wildcats and Seaking (yup privately owned) I couldn’t for the life of me, see what the Issue is.
Let’s get the order placed and move on to the rest of our wish list.
The thing is both Airbus and LM have withdrawn from the competiton of their own accord, so either the MoD goes back to the drawing board, resets the requirements and budget to re-attract prospective applicants or it goes with the 149. So yeah, even if there was some basis to complaining about it (and not just MAGA “American is best” bollocks) it really is the only choice if we want a Medium Helicopter in service some time soon.
Exactly and we don’t need another major Asset purchase of American made product, especially with the mad man In charge.
Well, the Torygraph reporting Reeves has blocked the Helicopter Purchase and as such, the bid expires on Sunday… Leading to another long bidding process.
Is that the sound or a steady rotor beat? No of course not its a can rattling down the road once more.
Very good!