Royal New Zealand Air Force
- Thread starter Lucasnz
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Given the delays and overruns created by home-grown upgrades (K2/C-130LEP) and procurement of un-proven aircraft (NH-90) would there not be a certain amount of reluctance to strike out on our own and create another bespoke platform?
The above projects certainly strike a contrast to the COTS/MOTS purchases of the T-6/A-109/SH-2G(I) which were successfully accomplished in a much shorter timeframe.
I would not suggest a new bespoked design, but rather some additions or changes, were necessary to meet the RNZAF requirements. there is a lot of time available to refine any tweaks before a RFT is issued or prefered supplier is named. I still think that the P8 is the front runner, as the only negative appears to be it's poor airfield performance, which can be managed. In reference to the T6C/SH-2G purchases it must be remembered that the T6 is relatively simple aircraft, refined from the PC9 and the SH2G's we got had been built many years ago and had a lot of time to iron out any problems. One of the problem area's was never fixed and simply deleted.
There appears to been lessons learned from previous acquisitions, both by NZDF and the ADF, with the current NZG being risk adverse when it comes to defence acquisitions. They have apparently learned the lesson that something mature and MOTS / COTS is less costly both fiscally and temporally, meaning that mature MOTS / COTS have a greater probability of being delivered both within budget and on time. This is especially pertinent with aviation acquisitions. The current NZG also appear to have learned the lesson that cheap is not always best in the long term because it is a false economy, in that the platform numbers, maintenance and sustainment costs tend to balloon out as the platforms age and such costs become disproportionate vis a vis another platform, or a higher quantity of platforms, that had higher up front costs but in the long term would have been cheaper to sustain and maintain.
While I do not have full information in regard to the K2 upgrade, the C130LEP delays were nothing to do with it being a bespoked up grade, these were caused by the contractor going bankrupt and SAFE not wanting to do the work, this forced the MOD to set up it,s own rebuild from scratch at Woodbourne. The major time taken was simply fatigue/corrosion remediation work and had nothing to do with the upgrade work. My contact with Ohakea said that the NH90 caused no more problems than was expected when introducing a new type.and we must remember that the T6C some of which first arrived in 2014 has only this year gained "full operational status". Progress almost always involves some risk and not to take some managed risk usually means no progress is made. The reason that this country is growing is because businesses, farmers etc have taken risks to achieve this growth. A small side fact is that in the last 8 years the Australian economy has grown 21% and NZ's 32%. The pilots love the T6C as it gives them the ability to properly carry out proper military type maneuvers, which the airtrainer never could.
The SH2G(I) acquisition was a lucky break for us, because if the RAN had stuck with the acquisition then we would have either had to undertake an expensive MLU of our 5 x SH2G(NZ) and still have the problem of not enough airframes. Or we would have had to replace the 5 x SH2G(NZ) with another type at considerable expense; somewhere in the region of what the NH90 acquisition cost us.
Jealous, I am. Wonder if they were up for a special reason. Battle of Britain day is next Thursday.
could be a practice run for BB day,so those in the area keep a good lookout on thursday.
Ngati you will just have to move here then you won't be jealous any more. LOL
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Cobber, I was born here in Christchurch and bought up in Southland, so I am a diehard Mainlander
I am a loyal Canterbury supporter and most definitely not one eyed. I wear my eyepatches over both eyes. :hahaI was trying to find some consistent pricing for the possible Herk replacements but found that most quoted prices were either inconsistent or out of date. I did however come up with the following ballpark comparison between the contenders. I would stress that this is based on flyaway cost and not total program costs. For the cost of 5 C130J's you will get
3 to 3.5 A400m's
3.5 to 4 Kawasaki C2's
6 KC390's
I think the Airforce would prefer the bigger 2 types as the RFI appears to be written with this in mind. Treasury would probably go for the KC390 and if some political deal is made the C130 cannot be discounted.
3 to 3.5 A400m's
3.5 to 4 Kawasaki C2's
6 KC390's
I think the Airforce would prefer the bigger 2 types as the RFI appears to be written with this in mind. Treasury would probably go for the KC390 and if some political deal is made the C130 cannot be discounted.
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So it would be interesting to know how much money has been allocated for the replacement of the C130 and how far this would go with each option
The flyaway cost for the C130J is US$67.3 million http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-130408-079.pdf
The flyaway cost for the A400M is €152.4 million Projet de loi de finances pour 2014 : D?fense : ?quipement des forces et excellence technologique des industries de d?fense
The flyaway cost for the Kawasaki C2 is 20 billion yen http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...-force-unveils-c-2-next-generation-transport-
The flyaway cost for the Embraer KC390 is US$50 million
EMBRAER KC-390 Medium-Range Transport Aircraft | Military-Today.com
These costs I have had to dig around for and are from my spreadsheet. The C130J and A400M costs come from official govt sources. The other two are not so reliable.
If those figures are taken as given, then:
5 C-130J
1.94 A400
1.75 Kawasaki C2
6.8 KC390
How current are these figures, A recent USAF order at the end of 2015 for 43 aircraft was quoted at US5.3 billion and that was said to be a 10 % saving due to the size of the order. As the USAF has had the aircraft in service for a number of years you would think that while it may include spares there would not be any setup costs involved. Other figures found generally put the C130 at around US100+ and the KC390 in the US80 to 95 mark but as I said there was significant variation. One web site I looked at (sorry I forgot to take the address) showed US military aircraft produced year by year and the cost per unit. this showed significant rises in cost recently.
The C130J figures were taken from US DOD Budget documents so when you open the link it will have the year somewhere. The A400M figures are from French Senate documents dated around 2013. The C2 data is from a Japanese newspaper so the date will be in the storyline. The KC390 timeline is anyone's guess.
kiwipatriot69
Active Member
Of course its not just capability and price, but which of the current contenders will offer us the best support in the long run, and through life cost of running them. Even China has their Y20 transport doing air shows and up for foriegn sales now.
I don't think that the airforce would be looking at a Chinese or Russian type but you never know as the government may see a significant international political advantage in going in this direction. I think the choice will boil down to whether the airforce wants to cover both roles with one type, which I think would likely be either the A400 or the C2.If they split the roles then I think that the KC390 would be the leading contender for the C130 replacement. Unless dictated by cost the RFI indicated to me that they were not to interested in an airliner type as the 757 replacement, so I would be looking at either the A400 or the C2 in this role. With possibly one election be for the C130 replacement choice and two before the strategic choice the whole thing could yet change dramatically.