Latest news with #NigelColman
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Royal Navy helicopter contract helps secure 200 jobs
A new Royal Navy contract will help sustain 200 jobs in Somerset, according to a government announcement. A fleet of more than 50 Royal Navy helicopters will receive maintenance under a £165m contract extension with Leonardo Helicopters, supporting 1,000 UK jobs. Leonardo, based in Yeovil, is the prime contractor, with Lockheed Martin and SERCO appointed as key sub-contractors. Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry, Maria Eagle, said: "This investment demonstrates our unwavering commitment to maintaining cutting-edge defence capabilities that keep us safe, while utilising defence as an engine for economic growth." More news stories for Somerset Listen to the latest news for Somerset The Merlin Mk2 helicopters are primarily used as submarine hunters but can also carry out search and rescue operations, intercept drug runners and support humanitarian relief efforts. As well as jobs based in Somerset, the agreement will support jobs at RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall. Nigel Colman, managing director at Leonardo Helicopters UK, said: "We're extremely proud to have provided the UK's AW101 Merlin fleet from the home of British helicopters in Yeovil. "Working closely with the Ministry of Defence and Royal Navy, we're keeping the Merlin fleet supported and available, so it's ready to fly whenever and wherever it's called upon." Follow BBC Somerset on Facebook and X. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. Engineers building 'helicopter that flies itself' Helicopter jobs secured with £435m investment Helicopter workers 'anxious' over MoD contract Ministry of Defence Leonardo
Telegraph
23-03-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
The former Spitfire factory building Britain's drone army
Britain's longest-running aircraft factory has built it all – from Spitfires and Seafire planes to the Sea King, Lynx and Merlin helicopters. But now a crack team of engineers at the Leonardo facility in Yeovil, Somerset, are working on the next big revolution: a helicopter that flies itself. The Proteus demonstrator drone – believed to be a world-first – is being developed by the company on behalf of the Royal Navy, with test flights expected to take place later this year. It is roughly the size of a transit van but has no cabin. Nor will it be remotely piloted, like other drones used by the military. Instead, Proteus will use a combination of clever computer software with an array of cameras and sensors to autonomously take off, land and carry out its missions. To begin with, this will mean assisting with tracking Russian submarine activity in the North Sea. But the drone's Thunderbird 2-style 'modular mission bay' means it could eventually be used for a wide variety of tasks, both military and civilian, from intelligence-gathering and cargo transportation to even tackling forest fires. 'Proteus will do what we call the 'dull and dangerous' stuff that you don't want to use people for if you can help it,' explains Nigel Colman, managing director of Leonardo Helicopters UK. 'You won't have to put people's lives at risk. You won't have to be limited by food rations or, quite frankly, the size of your bladder. 'It provides mass, reduced cost of ownership and reduced workforce requirements, so it's tackling all those challenges that the Navy faces with crewed aircraft.' Colman was a navigator for the RAF for 30 years, serving in the cockpits of Merlins, Wildcats and Pumas during deployments to the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Northern Ireland. He is keen to stress that Proteus isn't meant to replace crewed platforms completely, but rather free them up for the most critical jobs. 'Operators could go make a cup of coffee' For example, the first task it has been designed for is anti-submarine warfare in conjunction with Navy ships and helicopters out in the North Sea. This would see o ne or more Proteus drones equipped with 'sonobuoys' – highly sensitive sonar devices that listen for propeller and engine sounds underwater – drop the devices into the water to triangulate an enemy's position. The drones, potentially working with a crewed Merlin, would be capable of processing the data themselves and transmitting it back to a nearby Navy vessel. Onboard software allows them to avoid no-fly zones and oil rigs, identify commercial vessels or fishing boats, and recognise their Navy 'mothership'. They will be able to fly continuously for about 10 hours, according to Leonardo. Rather than remotely controlling them with a joystick, however, forces personnel will instead give the drones instructions – potentially using just a tablet computer – with the machine then plotting its own course and carrying out the tasks independently. This can be tricky work in harsh weather. Among other things, the robot will need to master tasks such as landing on a vessel that is pitching and heaving on the waves. The idea is to reduce the number of hours sailors spend on monotonous, time-consuming tasks. Normally, flying a Merlin helicopter from an aircraft carrier or frigate to drop sonobuoys in a nearby section of ocean can take a human crew several hours – much of which is spent uneventfully cruising over water. In future, it means someone could give Proteus a task and then leave to make themselves a cup of coffee without having to worry about constantly supervising the machine. 'We're designing it to be as autonomous as possible, so the operator really only has to intervene when they really need to,' says Phil Bartlett, head of future programmes at Leonardo UK, a subsidiary of the Italian defence giant. Bartlett's team is the company's equivalent of Q-branch, set up in 2022 to lead the Proteus programme and investigate emerging rotary wing technologies. Their demonstrator is being put together in record time under a new type of government contract designed to speed up innovation. Designs were only finalised in 2023, with the demonstrator drone now almost complete and flight tests due to commence within months. Faster development This is practically warp speed when compared to conventional military programmes. 'If you think about where we've come from, to go from a design to build in not even two years – that's a massive change to how we normally do things,' says Rob Girling, the experimental operations manager. 'These 20-year development programmes, you just can't have them any more. By the time you've finished things are already obsolete. So we've got to move quicker.' Their team is adding to a rich seam of history in Yeovil. The factory – previously known as Westland Helicopters – opened in 1915 under the Petters family and went on to make Sopwith 1½ Strutters and de Havilland 4 and 9 bombers in the First World War. During the Second World War, it was one of several factories to produce Spitfire and Seafire fighters. But since then, Yeovil has emerged as 'the home of British helicopters' producing syndicated designs such as the Dragonfly, the Sea King and the Apache as well as collaborations such as the Puma, Gazelle and Lynx. In the near future, Colman hopes the site – which employs some 3,000 workers – will make Proteus drones along with crewed AW149 battlefield helicopters. Leonardo has put forward the AW149 for the Ministry of Defence's new medium helicopter contract and is now the last bidder standing after Airbus and Sikorsky withdrew. In comparison, Proteus is for now confined to a four-year, £60m demonstrator contract awarded to Leonardo in 2022. But if successful, the aircraft could become part of a new generation of 'attritable' – low-cost and reusable – drones that the Ministry of Defence wants to rush into service, providing desperately needed ballast to Britain's armed forces at a time when Europe is rushing to re-arm. 'You're going to have more exquisite, expensive platforms that you need to protect,' explains Andy Bennett, programme manager at Leonardo. 'Then you'll have attritable platforms, which may be equipped with expensive sensor suites, and at the bottom you'll have your 'disposable' stuff. That's the model the armed forces are shifting towards. 'Proteus will sit somewhere in the attritable space, maybe towards the higher end depending on the payload it's carrying.' As has been shown by the Ukraine conflict, the lack of human occupants in drones is likely to change the way war is waged in future, Bennett says. 'You can take more risks if you're happy to sacrifice the platform, potentially in a high-risk combat environment.' Humanitarian as well as military application Leonardo is aiming to produce Proteus for a 'fraction of the cost' of a manned helicopter. But it also aims to broaden demand for the aircraft by expanding into markets beyond the military, thanks to the ability of the modular mission bay to carry all kinds of payloads. 'On the military side, there's anti-submarine warfare, sonobuoy dispensing, sonobuoy dunking, reconnaissance,' says Girling. 'But you could also expand into different markets, so carrying water to tackle forest fires, for example, or famine relief, deliveries for postal companies; it could be lots of different things.' It is still early days, however. Proteus has only carried out missions for the Royal Navy in a virtual world so far. Upstairs from Bennett's workshop, a team of software engineers run simulations using a 'digital twin' of the aircraft to test its ability to plan missions and carry them out – at least theoretically. On computer screens, they watch an imaginary Proteus drone take off from a virtual Type 23 frigate to drop sonobuoys in the ocean. The simulation is set off the coast of Norway and uses real shipping movements to make the exercise as realistic as possible. Even the bobbing of boats on the water is recreated, along with imaginary winds. If it works, Proteus should mean human crew members will be put at risk far less often. Yet despite the machine's sophistication, Colman believes human pilots will be around for a long time yet. 'I spent my life in the RAF with the pilot and myself sitting in the cockpit, flying around with dozens of troops in the back, in and out of benign and dangerous situations,' he explains. 'When I started, the autopilot was nowhere near as good as it is now, and today we could probably fly airliners without pilots but we choose not to. 'I can't imagine flying troops around without having pilots in the cockpit either. I certainly can't see a moment where we would put 25 people in the back of the aircraft and say, 'I'm going to sit this one out', you know?' It is a question that may seem abstract for now. But as Proteus shows, an army of British drones may be closer than we think.
