Published date: 25 April 2022

Last edited date: 25 April 2022

This notice was replaced on 25 April 2022

This notice does not contain the most up-to-date information about this procurement. The most recent notice is:

Opportunity (published 29 November 2023, last edited 30 May 2024)

Closed early engagement


Contract summary

Industry

  • Support helicopters - 35612300

  • Search and rescue helicopters - 35612500

  • Hire of helicopters with crew - 60424120

Location of contract

North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East of England, South East, South West, Scotland, Wales

Procurement reference

tender_304935/1065488

Published date

25 April 2022

Closing date

2 June 2022

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

No


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 the attachment to this notice for the full notice and question set.


More information

Previous notice about this procurement

Fleet Helicopter Support Unit (FHSU)

  • Early engagement
  • Published 25 April 2022

Attachments

Additional text

The Authority is seeking responses from companies that can provide information on their capacity and capability in respect of the above information required. If you are unable to answer a question, please respond with 'N/A' to signify that it has been reviewed. Information may be shared in relation to how the requirement was prepared and developed internally within the MOD. However, information resulting from any RFI marked 'Commercially Sensitive' by the respondent, will not be shared outside of the Authority. Note that due to the Authority's need to ensure equality of treatment for all potential bidders in any subsequent procurement, we may then decide not to use a supplier's response if that response is commercially sensitive and potentially distorts competition.

By receiving this information, the MOD is not obligated to enter into contract and future procurement actions will be at MOD discretion. The Authority will not be liable to reimburse any costs incurred by any parties who respond to this notice. The Authority does not intend to provide any formal debriefs following receipt of responses. Furthermore, a response or non-response to this notice will not preclude involvement in future procurement activities for this requirement.


About the buyer

Address

SPMAP, Abbey Wood
Bristol
BS34 8JH
England

Email

andy.davies171@mod.gov.uk