Fleet Helicopter Support Unit (FHSU)

Tender description

Description/ Requirement: The Authority is issuing this RFI to understand the availability, capability, and competitiveness of solutions for the provision of the below indicative requirement. The anticipated contract length is approximately 5 years with a potential option to extend. Indicative Requirement - Fleet Helicopter Support Unit (FHSU) - The user requires a contracted crewed capability that can provide a medium-lift maritime Support Helicopter (SH) capability to support tasking by day and night and in all weather conditions within the Flag Officer Sea Training (FOST) South Coast Exercise Areas (SCXAs) and wider UK Flight Information Region (FIR). In addition to the principal task of transporting personnel and/or freight to, from and between ships at sea in the SCXAs for FOST, a further two requirements are under consideration for inclusion within the future FHSU contract: Provision of land-based maritime airborne Search and Rescue (SAR) service for Maritime Counter Terrorism (MCT) Force Generation training. This would encompass supporting up to six (6) UK based exercises per year, each of up to one (1) week duration in two calendar blocks occurring in Spring and Autumn each year and requiring up to 24hrs flying per exercise. This requires an assured ability to search for and recover individual persons from the sea at night, with an additional emphasis on being able to deliver them rapidly to specialist medical care in a timely manner. A further emerging requirement may be to transport personnel and/or freight to the Queen Elizabeth Class (QEC) carrier and other UK based RN shipping based around an initial utilisation of circa 100hrs/yr. Both these additional requirements are to be confirmed by Final Business Case (FBC). Please see attachment to this notice for the full notice and question set. Note also Clarification Question No. 1 and answer in second attachment. Clarification Questions Nos.2 to 16 are in the third to sixth attachments.