Fantastic pictures. Shes really taking shape, the close ups on the bridge area are great. Shaping up to be awesome looking ships, I am so glad Australia went with the BPE/JCI design. I think they will be the nicest looking ships in the RAN.
Funny, I was under the impression that the MRH-90's being acquired were roughly comparable to the lift capacity of the Sea King's they were replacing. The MRH-90 being a lighter aircraft overall, but due to the use of composites$ has a lighter airframe enabling it to carry ~4,500 kg of stores or cargo, while the Sea King can carry somewhere in the same area of 3,600 kg of cargo. Granted, the Sea King can carry a max of ~28 passengers to ~20 on the MRH-90 IIRC, still, roughly equivalent.
The Sea King other role is rescue, and if you are the 21st in the water almost anywhere in the Pacific or Indian oceans, you will want those Sea Kings back
What? I don't know what Sea Kings you guys are thinking of but those on the way out in the RAN are medium sized helicopters. The MRH-90 can lift more fuel and/or cargo. So it can fly more and further than any Sea King. The only thing the Sea King has that MRH-90 doesn't is a radar. Since the MRH-90 has a FLIR and digital cockpit and navigation system it can do more than in terms of finding things in the dark than the Sea King even without a radar.The Sea King other role is rescue, and if you are the 21st in the water almost anywhere in the Pacific or Indian oceans, you will want those Sea Kings back
They are old though, and the only other aircraft with that capacity is from Russia.
The MRH-90 can carry a 4.6 tonne mix of fuel and cargo. Usually only 2.5 tonnes is set aside for cargo and the rest for fuel. Sea King can carry a 3 tonne mix of fuel and cargo.
I might have been thinking of the Royal Navy's Royal Marine Commando supporting Sea Kings, but RAN's are the same fuselage length and the Royal Navy's Sea Kings have seating for 27x pax...
Yeah the Commando Sea Kings are very different to the RANs. The RAN Sea Kings are standard ASW birds with the dipping sonar removed. So you sill have an observer (SENSO) position right opposite the right side door. Still I don't know how they fit "28 fully equipped troops" into a Sea King Commando. They must'n have seats and all be piled in on each other. There is not much room. Also with such a load on board there would be no weight remaining for fuel so range would be all of 15 minutes... If you applied the same methodology to the MRH-90 it could carry up to 40 fully equipped troops.
Plus the two Blackhawks at High Range (night SAS insertion ex.) or was that more than 15 years ago?
According to the "RN fact sheet" they have seating for 27x, but it doesn't really specify who the seating is for. It is quite possible they are cheating and including pilots, etc.
I am pretty sure ADF has lost a total of 5x Blackhawks since they entered service in the late 80s.
27 in a SeaKing? Looking at how fat some of the diggers are, then I have a doubt.
A platoon of Bantu tribesman all geared up might get in with a pinch RN.27 in a SeaKing? Looking at how fat some of the diggers are, then I have a doubt.
- but 27 fully geared diggers?
I'd like to see that!
A Sqn, 5 Avn Regt is now flying/converting to MRH-90 so the only Black Hawk operators are B Sqn, 5 Avn Regt and 171 Sqn, 6 Avn Regt each with 10 airframes. Plus of course training at the School of Aviation, Oakey.
I don't think the Army would add the six ex Navy MRH-90s to the existing squadrons if they become available thanks to the FNACS program. The number of helicopters in each squadron is designed to match the lift requirement of an infantry company group. While the troop lift capability per squadron will grow from Black Hawk to MRH-90 so to is the size of the infantry company thanks to the Infantry 2012 program and all the new direct fire weapons being issued to the infantry company. They will probably just be used as part of the general pool to push down flight hours per airframe per year to increase platform service life.
Aren't the British still trying to develop something along those lines for the Daring class? possibly using the Mk8 turret?
10 aircraft per squadron was adopted from the American TO&E for the helicopter companies, there being three companies in a battalion (our regiment), with two in HQ and one in maintenance.
Not quite along those lines. MONARC was an attempt to fit the turret of the Pzh2000 SP gun to a ship. As I understand it, the difficulty of adapting the turret was eventually deemed to be too great to be worthwhile. What the UK is working on is an attempt to fit the ordnance of the AS90 SP gun into a 4.5" naval gun turret. The turret/ship interface is therefore not a problem, but there are other problems to solve, relating to ammunition handling & fitting the larger gun into the existing turret.