The Australian federal government will be retiring its entire fleet of European-made Taipan helicopters 15 years earlier than planned in favour of U.S.-made Black Hawks and Seahawk helicopters. “The performance of the MRH90 Taipan has been an ongoing and well-documented concern for defence and there has been a significant effort at great expense to try to remediate those issues,” Defence Minister Peter Dutton said in a statement. Dutton said the UH60 Black Hawk is the most widely used helicopter model in the world and has been in service for the U.S. Army for over a decade. The government will be looking to bring in up to 40 Black Hawks to replace the outgoing fleet of 41 Taipans. “There are about 1000 of those in operation around the world. Obviously, the Americans use it very heavily,” Dutton told 9 News. “For the interoperability with the U.S. and Australia, which is increasingly …