How can the comms comment be true?
No one who oversaw this programme could be that daft - surely?
No one who oversaw this programme could be that daft - surely?
old news really.
we were talking on here about 18 months ago about probs with Tigers - 18 months ago it was RAN that was jumping up and down about Tigers development and cert issues
RAAF have been unhappy for a while and the throw away line has been that Army are making up cert as they go. Some of tis might be "Service" issues. but RAN doesn't have a dog in the fight except for the fact that these things won't get off the deck of the phatships unless they comply with Navy reqs
Trackmaster
Member
The Navy is certainly getting ready for the Tigers.
They are practising deck handling with a full-size mockup on the dummy LHD deck on the hard-stand at Nowra.
The machine is painted grey with Navy titles... cheeky. There is a shot on the adf-serials site.
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There is a photo of the "Sea Tiger" in this week's Navy News as well. Navy has a tradition of painting things up as Navy that aren't really Navy. Back in the 70s RAN trainees at the RAAF paint school painted up a Sabre in Navy titles. Looked pretty good too.
What about the HIND? Australia does have possession of two HIND helicopters up at Tindal. They were purchased as part of the Sandline Affair but the PNG didn't want them entering the country so they have decayed away in the NT for 20 years. They still belong to Sandline after a legal dispute the PNG lost but they haven't been able to dispose of them in compliance with Australian defence export law. They tried to sell them to Nepal in '03. One imagines in a real emergency they could be used?
There is two issues, neither to do with the airframe. One issue on short range comms is due to the comms project (that post-dated AIR87) being told not to worry about Tiger. The second issue is on other comms; this was a result of one service changing some code in the main station that impacted multiple frames across the other two services. Problem was noone told the other two.
Never head of the RAN having an issue; ARH has steered away from the RAN after issues with FOCFT in 2010 in Sydney harbour. The focus will be back on LHDs soon (from a certification view).gf0012-aust said:
Interesting; the certification was set in 2006 and is still being referenced. Some stuff has changed to bring it up to modern specifications and certifications, but the Army (which for the TAA side reports to AF anyhow) isn't making it up.gf0012-aust said:
Not a chance. They are buggered and a government department down south has already put out the feelers to find an agency to dispose of them. Plus a Mi-24 would be behind any Western frame.Abraham Gubler said:
Apaches fume. So do Super Hornet, C-17 - even Black Hawk and Kiowa. The ARH is different to the latter due to the cockpit style; but I'd rather risk an ARH than a Super Hornet or F-22. Anyhow, Apache would bring other issues to the table....ADMk2 said:
Theres also an ex-USArmy Cobra in the aviation museum in Darwin, recommision that and the B-52 and we would have some very serious close air support capability.
Yep, like great logistical support, great interoperability and tremendous capability and a price not dissimilar to that which Eurocopter has ended up stinging us for.
But hey it can do "recon" better apparently...
Trackmaster
Member
And IIRC, we had Cobras on order at one stage. Again, IIRC, they were cancelled by the Fraser Government.
The AH-1G Cobras were ordered for VietNam alongside the first 12 Australian owned Kiowas. Kiowas had been leant by the US Army beforehand and were later mass produced by CAC in Australia but these ones were built by Bell for Australia. The Cobras would have been delivered around 1972 but were cancelled by the then new Whitlam Government because they were going to pull out of VietNam. The Kiowas were for the Army but the Cobras would have been part of the RAAF. Apparently No. 8 Squadron was going to be reformed for the new attack and escort helicopter role.
If you have a defence email I can explain more....
before that - Army got pasted in a few meetings chaired by RAN and attended by RAAF
the problem re cert is for LHD's.
no fix - no fly off the skimmer - Navy was blunt
Not quite; and I doubt that the price would have been what we are at now. We'd have also missed out on a fair chunk of 'stuff' that goes towards making the helicopters a capability.
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Whilst I appreciate a cryptic answer as much as anyone and I know that a platform is only a part of an overall capability, I really wonder exactly what "stuff" we'd have missed if we'd chosen the short-listed AH-64D instead of the short-listed Tiger ARH for AIR-87...
I mean it's not as if we've ever heard reports of Boeing submitting a "real" through life costing 84% higher than it actually bid, unlike that which happened with Tiger, now is it?
AFAIK the entire ARH Tiger capability to be provided by the contractor includes the following:
16 x operational aircraft
5 x attrition reserve and training aircraft
1 x instrumented aircraft and associated ground based test equipment
ground based mission management
ground based communications
operational support equipment
operational maintenance support equipment
electronic warfare self protection support capability
support and test equipment, and technical information to sustain the capability through its full life cycle
operational maintenance of attrition and training aircraft
deeper maintenance support for all aircraft
comprehensive training system offering a full flight mission simulator, mission trainers and a number of maintenance training devices
software support facility which provides an autonomous capability to develop the system
I'm not sure which of these Boeing, Bell or AgustaWestland couldn't have provided in their tenders to AIR 87.
Does the ARH still have a sea state 5 requirement? Seems a bit extreme.
Well maybe Lord Humungous can wheel them out of their hangar and convert them into ‘technicals’ Libyan Free Army style one day.
Forget easy and cheap lets build a tower at the range, line up some high res cameras nearby filming the tower, cover said tower in mirrors (so it can’t be easily seen), put a HIND on top of the tower and turn over the engines just to get an IR signature… And then let’s see which AAM has the best low altitude fusing: ASRAAM or AIM-9X.
They're more than buggered - they'll have to pay for someone to take them.
They were never maintained and age has wearied them.
The best hope is for a movie set to buy them for a one off.
pretty sure its also just a Mil24 and a Mil8 troopy....
Without going into the specifics included in the tenders I know for sure that training, extra aircraft, ground equipment for aircrew and some engineering would have been impacted - some quite heavily.
Anecdotally with some background in the S-70 world and peers in the M1 world I'd guess that Australian AH-64s would have required different parts with the subsequent increase in TLS; although we could argue 84%. I'd also point out that the AH-64 fleet would have been smaller than the S-70 fleet - and when it came time to get parts out of the States it could be quite challenging (for obvious reasons about fleet size).
I'd also argue that the long term growth potential of ARH is much better than AH-64 - including that recce capability. I note that some concern has come into the public arena over the long term sustainability of the AH.1 fleet in the UK when the US go to AH-64E - how true that is I don't know but would have some impact on us. I also note that the ARH is smaller and lighter than the AH-64, with benifits from a cost and footprint perspective.