They look vaguely similar.
What synergies?
Yes the C-2 does have that opportunity, if foreign militaries will buy it. It has to sell first. Boeing couldn't afford to keep the C-17 line open indefinitely and it had to close at some point, so no they didn't make a huge mistake.
Hah. Unconscious bias on my part or is that advancing age.
They also did the Lunar Lander and the wonderful Widgeon seaplane. The 2nd aircraft I flew in after a DH Tiger Moth.
Yep, Grumman made some impressive aircraft, such as the TBF Avenger, Hellcat, Bearcat, Tigercat & F-14 Tomcat. The Goose was my third aircraft after Tiger Moth, then Cessna float plane.Hah. Unconscious bias on my part or is that advancing age.
They also did the Lunar Lander and the wonderful Widgeon seaplane. The 2nd aircraft I flew in after a DH Tiger Moth.
Actually I should have said lunar lander not rover. I don’t know which company actually made the rover. Maybe they should make a come back with earth rovers given the interest in electric cars.Hah. Unconscious bias on my part or is that advancing age.
They also did the Lunar Lander and the wonderful Widgeon seaplane. The 2nd aircraft I flew in after a DH Tiger Moth.
It was even worse than that, the pollies of the time stuffed defence up big time with total incompetence. Even though a large number of war only service men indicated the would like to continue to serve, the pollies took miles to long to establish the terms of service and then made them as miserable as possible and not even equal between services, so the end result was mutinee's in the navy and strikes in the air force, plus a lot of potential future servicemen simply left at the first opportunity. the handling of the defence forces by the government was a total shambles, which took the defence forces over a decade to recover from. there had been no planning by the government in regard to how to transition from a wartime force to a peacetime force at all.
I would have been happy with the originally planned 22 F16's as they where the block 15 version and these ones were the same as a F16 C/D in regard to the fuselage and the engine with the strengthening and larger tailplane for maneuverability and the later F100-PW-220 with DEEC ( digital electronic engine control ) The only thing that made our later block 15's an A/B' was the electronics which would have been changed at a mid life update. the aircraft were built several years after the first C/D's and I assume that this was because that the US did not want the Pakistan air force to have some of the technology in the C/D's. ( Even then Pakistan had close ties to China ) so they were built with A/B avionic but actually on the C/D production line. My change would have been to get all 28 into service.
Boeing is a commercial company. When it stopped production it had IIRC 10 unsold C-17s on the line, which is a pretty big commitment. Starting to build even more would have been very, very risky: it was brave to commit to the number of unsold aircraft they built, let alone more. Yes, they sold 'em all, but it took a while. There weren't air forces fighting to buy them.
Where was it stated that the B757 replacements are meant to undertake all outsize freight movements? I must have missed that quite important point and if so then that actually means we did in fact miss out by not acquiring the proven C17 when we had the chance to.
Ha, the last several budgets has posted billion dollar surpluses for Nz, our debt management is actually lower than some countries in the OECD as a result.GDP growth for Nz was refered to as a 'rockstar economy' our unemployment sits at 3.9 % too. We have wasted billions a year on social policies, Kiwibuild Housing and first term Tertiary education just two of many that has sucked up money and not had a positive result. The money's there for defence, govt just doesn't want to prioritise it.
@RegR have you been reading what I and some others, such as Mr C have been posting about what has been stated in the FAMC RFI? We've actually read the document, plus the attachments to it, and some of us have copies of it as well which we keep referring to. You will also note reading our past posts, that Mr C and myself have been quite scathing of the failure of the Key govt to buy the two C-17A white tails. that was a colossal blunder on their part, because the decision was made purely on flawed political ideological reasons.
It's nothing to do with the old mantra of replacing a Herc with a Herc. It's about what's the best platform to meet NZ's tactical air lift capability requirements and at present the C-130J meets those requirements. I agree 8 would be a good number, but given the history of NZ acquisitions and the current govts attitude towards defence, it would be a very remote outside chance at the best. I wouldn't even bet Winston's starboard dangler on it. Having a two tier military transport fleet comprised of aircraft with ramps is ideal, because one component is tactical, whilst the other is strategic, hence a C-130J and A400M / C-2 fleet makes sense.
Helen Clark didn't cut defence for the reasons you stated, she did what she did for pure mid - far left wing ideological reasons and the fact that she was / is anti US and anti Australia. I looked at at the Slovak price and it does appear to be very expensive indeed, so there are other factors in that contract that are not normally included in such arrangements, or the amount quoted is a misprint. Bear in mind that the amount quoted is not the final value and is generally the upper limit.
Given that those Turbofan engines the C2 uses have a commonality among commercial aircraft that could be convenient for us too.More so than the turboprop ones A400 M uses.
Not only that, but the C-2 is not built using new ground breaking technologies, but current MOTS and COTS technologies, so in that area it is less riskier. The real risk with it from a NZ pov, is it's lack of foreign buyers and low production numbers.