40 deg south
Well-Known Member
No dispute that the NZ NH90s were waaay behind schedule, but did they actually exceed the initial budget? I wasn't aware of that, but happy to be corrected.This the reason why I am not keen on our lot going the Airbus A400M way to replace our ancient P3s, Hercs and our B757s. TBH I would far rather them go Boeing and Embrear KC390, along with the Kawasaki C2. Same with new RNZN ships have them built in South Korea. I think we had a slightly easier ride with our NH90 acquisition but it was still very late and well over budget.
I think NZ's somewhat easier experience is because we were a couple of years later in the development cycle and bought straight from the Merignane assembly line, rather than setting up a tiny in-country assembly operation.
The US vs. Euro equipment debate misses the point. The real difference is in buying mature in-service products vs. products that are still in development. RNZAF provides a good example - the NH90s were late and needed multiple upgrades after delivery. But NZ also bought the AW109 training/utility helicopter from Italy, which came in on time and on budget. The difference - it was a design that has first flown in the 70s, and the bugs had been ironed out in the process of building hundreds and hundreds of airframes.
Or take Canada's debacle with Sikorsky - they bought a paper aircraft from the US rather than an in-service one from the UK, and the resulting shambles makes Australia's Seasprite purchase look good.
Because of the scale of the US military and their preference for evolving/developing in-service platforms, US industry often can offer products that have been more comprehensively 'de-bugged' over long production runs. To me, that is the key difference rather than some kind of fundamental difference between the US and Europe.