UK to purchase 14 new Chinook helicopters

The black hawk purchase was considered probably 15 years ago now when we really needed them in Afghanistan. They would have cost peanuts compared to wildcat but obviously no benefit to industry. We basically could have cleared out all of our gazelles, lynx and pumas in one go and they would have been good for 25 years. It doesn’t make sense to go with them now though I think the government will go for the aw149 if they are made in the uk

He had plenty of time in office to release the choppers that were in storage and desperately needed by the guys in Helmand and he never did that either..

The SF eight that were not airworthy because of an avionics cock-up you mean? That was a mess from the start, but was certainly not a quick fix by any means. So, release them from storage so that they could fly into mountains? Still, I suppose you could always blame the pilots!

They did that with Mull of Kintyre. Scandalous.

Disgraceful by any standards….no wonder the MOD has such a great reputation! I’m inclined to support the Mekon and advocate a complete clean sweep for that bunch!

Indeed Daniele. We visited the site a few years back, where it went down. Sad spot. You can see the Antrim coast there on a clear day

That one still has a lot of spooky question marks over it.

Your last sentence is probably the daftest Iv’e seen you come up with. A young man died because there were no helicopters to pick him up. Another friend of mine was also in Helmand and the constant complaint was about Blair and Brown, who dragged us in, weren’t willing to put up the money for more helicopters and better armour on the ground.

Thank-you Geoffrey, I am quite sure that HM government could have done much more than they did. Not taking us into a war that we were ill-prepared for, and was probably illegal, might have been a good idea. I was one of the 250.000 protesters on the North Bank that made that very point to the government. I also returned my Labour Party membership card!
But that is by the by; your claim about not releasing the chinook helicopters in storage was answered by me…they were unflyable. They had been in storage in the US and had aroused some interest from the US Army. However, they found unacceptable levels of corrosion…they were subsequently shipped to the UK where they sat in storage. They were not airworthy and therefore could not be released for combat duties without significant reworking….this was eventually done! Try not to confuse your obvious dislike of me with the facts,,,,,it doesn’t help.

I don’t dislike you . I don’t know you . I do apologise though for getting angry at what I perceived to be a flippant remark. I picked a word..storage.. whereas I should have picked up on the broader issue of the lack of funding given to the people on the ground at the time.
My own experience leaves me remembering a young man dead because he couldn’t be picked up and another who is still with us but had years of dealing with PTSD. I.m not sure he is over it even now.
Thank you for your stand. Rightly or wrongly I do hold Blair and Brown responsible for their actions and to achieve what. Never again. What a waste.

No worries…I understand your anger. Unfortunately, that is the nature of warfare…the wasting of young lives! Even the Americans took heavy casualties and they, supposedly, had the best of everything!

I think for balance, on the helicopter issue Brown and Blair, like other Tory ones since, do have a case to answer. The SABR “Support Amphibious Battlefield Rotorcraft” programme to replace Sea King HC4 in the CHF and the Puma in the RAF SHF was shelved by Brown when Chancellor, and I’d read at that time that 3 billion had been removed from the rotary craft budget.

On the plus side we did purchase 6 Danish Merlin not yet taken by them in rapid time.

On the wider helicopter front Geoffrey is right that we were woefully short and underequipped in Afghanistan.

Like I often say, not taking sides at all, both Conservative and Labour have been bad defence wise since 1995 FLF.

It is all the more frustrating when you consider the incredible importance of helicopters to the success of the Falklands task force. The sight of all those Wessex using the downdraught of their rotors to blow the life rafts ashore was so poignant.

Vanishing into the black smoke!! Will never forget seeing that and the lift raft coming ashore with that lad with his leg hanging off.

Someone else with a case to answer making the decision to leave the men aboard with air attack a possibility surely??

I live in Gloucestershire and the Chinook is a regular, at least one a day, used to get a regular Merlin as well….but that stopped some time back. They always fly over GCHQ….whether there is any significance to that, I don’t know?
As for BN…I heard a story that she hit the sea in appalling weather but managed to keep airborne. I guess the occupants will be eternally grateful to her!

“They always fly over GCHQ”

Interesting… probably just as a waypoint? No idea.
When I was living in London the Chinooks would always fly down the Thames in the same way.

Yes, I guess the ‘Doughnut’ is hard to miss…I expect the Russians think so as well. I think that most choppers (other than the Met) use the Tames as a transit route…safety considerations I think? Sometime back (a Battle of Britain anniversary I think) I was having lunch on the terrace of a restaurant on the North Bank, when a Spitfire appeared with a Typhoon hanging off its tail. I mean that literally….it was right up the Spitfires arse! The attitude of the Typhoon was so nose up the pilot could have barely seen the Spit. Must have been on the limits of a potential stall….some flying. A great spectacle but one with obvious dangers, hence the route up the Thames! By the way, I have also seen an Atlas flying at low level over GCHQ….!!!!!

For me the highlight was seeing 8 Apache helicopters fly over where l live. Awesome!!! Also fairly regular Chinook helicopters fly over here. Every now and again we have Typhoon jets too.

*East Anglia area

No wonder then with Wattisham and STANTA.

Yes true, was a very impressive view though.. Usually have one or two flying over this way each week!

they pick up the Thames at Sunbury (up until there they have followed the M3 from Odiham), fly up to Canary Wharf and then veer off northwards. Rational is if they have to ditch, they can do it safely in the water! I used to work in the City and would always marvel at the stream of Chinook, Merlin, Apache and Lynx flying west-east. Sometimes they would land at HAC on City Road – I saw the osprey too when they were being trialled for SAS. Never forget the site of 2xOsprey, 2xApache and 2xChinook in formation.

The old Chinook were totally rebuilt – new avionics and major airframe work – they were virtually new. That was only about 10 years ago

Was that project Julias…Julian?

That name sounds familiar, might well be.

no idea but damn impressive. Scared the shit out of everybody – they thought a war had started

So, now I know. That makes total sense.

Yes, the Osprey’s over London caused quite a stir.

Back in 80s there used to be long leg chinook flights from Aberdeen to Sumburgh in Shetland ….quick refuel … and onto the platforms to the north. About 500 km each way…long way in an immersion suit. Chinook disaster in 86 put and end to those flights. Mechanical failure of gearbox but nothing to do with Boeing.

Yes, a took a number of flights out of Sumburgh airport …usually in a Puma. The immersion suits were ghastly, and so was Dan Dare!

Dan dare….blast from the past. If I recall it was a Dan Dare aircraft skeleton that was in the water off the end of the runway at Sumburgh…always a sobering sight.

I wish that I could say that they were the good old days….unfortunately I cant. A work colleague of mine was killed in the 81 Wessex crash. They were still doing basket transfers then as well. Fortunately I spent most of those years in the Middle and Far East.

Yep. Knew a couple of people on the chinooks as well which had just left the platforms and was almost back at Sumburgh. Scary days when a certain big operator…let’s call them Pectan…. had an aviation engineering team who thought they knew best and directed modifications to gear box to improve fuel consumption……..xxxnkers.

Will say ..worked for some dodgy Operators…the above being one of them and worked for a couple of great Operators from an integrity and risk management perspective. Hess in UK and Asia were fantastic. Believed in their simplistic yet robust IMS.

I agree, but what an inglorious fate…from warrior horse to seaside donkey!

Agreed…wouldn’t hurt would it?

Hope it’s on the cards.

You are right for the size of the fleet, small means costly, it’s the problem of such assets.

The problem is, you dont include the US, they include you, it’s not the same thing.

The A330MRTT in US is the perfect reason of why its not viable for european industries to work with the US.

I think I’m too frenchie to accept that.
I prefer to pay more for a french or european stuff than US.
Except some real specific needs, where the reasonnable is out of limit. (Like the cat traps / Hawkeye & co)

At least until they are more open to a real workshare on projects.

That is a big problem the UK have. We have great kit in many areas, but as HMG won’t reduce commitments it gets worn out faster as fewer assets take the load.

Now I’m against the UK stepping back from world affairs, and we’ve debated that enough so not going there. I’m happy our forces are used as opposed to sitting shiny on base never used but numbers are an issue. I read we have worked the C17’s hard.

And now we cut Hercs too putting the same stress on Atlas with the SF mission.

When we first leased the C17, it had an annual flying hour limit. But as we were involved in OPs in both Iraq and Afghan, we tripled the annual flying rate. This kicked off a massive penalty clause, i.e. overflying agreed hours. So for five odd years we ended up pay the penalty surcharge, before someone was brave enough to raise it up the chain and make the MoD finally buy them. As the airframes had clocked up so many hours and so quickly Boeing didn’t want them back! Thankfully we bought a few extra.

In a perverse way, cutting the Hercs does make sense. In that we only have to concentrate on two cargo aircraft (not including A330). This is good for training, maintenance but more importantly costs. However, it does mean both the C17 and A400M will have to take up the slack. Which as you mention will decrease the maintenance period thus pushing up costs on these airframes.

I will bet my pension on it and say that Airbus will never, ever involve itself in a programme like A400M again. Certainly not with a ‘commercial approach’. If it was cost-plus maybe. But not at risk to the company. And Hermes, stop knocking the A400M. There are enough knockers out there already. It’s a fantastic piece of kit and your country in particular should be proud for preserving with the programme when everyone else was having doubt or wanting to play footsie with the Russians or just outsource our aerospace capability to the Americans.

SR as you allayed to earlier, you have a lot of insider information on the A400M and the workings of Airbus. BAe definitely won’t go down this rabbit hole on its own, especially after Airbus got its fingers burnt. So a multi-country collaboration is I think the only way to go, when the requirement to replace the C17 comes around.

Having stood on a sand dune in Wales and watched the A400m land on the beach in front of me was an epic occasion. I to believe the A400M is undervalued, but then it has big shoes to fill. In time after the teething issues are ironed out. The A400M will be a much loved aircraft.

I am still surprised that Boeing shut the production line of the C17, especially as there is still demand for them. There is nothing else currently on the market that can do its role of combining strategic and tactical airlift in one aireframe. The A400M comes close, but the C17 is a in a different league. I know Russia are looking at a building a replacement for the Ukrainian An124. The IL76 is sort of comparable to the C17, certainly much cheaper. But I don’t believe any Western Airforce would seriously contemplate one due to its safety record. There definitely will be a need for a replacement for the C17, have to wait and see I guess?

C-17 is a brilliant aircraft. The C-17/A400M/Voyager combo is the perfect airlift/AAR mix. The RAF is lucky. When we seriously looked at certifying the An-70 for use by the West we rapidly came to the conclusion it was a non-starter. They are not bad aeroplanes, but the design and maintenance philosophies are just totally different. Boeing did approach Airbus with a view to jointly market the C-17 and A400M, more as a political ploy to kill the C-130J and the Marietta plant. Airbus never even considered it as we knew that if we were ever to sell A400M to the US, we’d probably need LM on our side. Personally I think C-5/C-17 will fly on forever, B-52-like. We shall see…

What ? I dont said anything about the A400M.
It was hard to him to birth but today it’s a good cargo.
But, it’s a tactical cargo, we have a need for a heavy lift in the class between the C17 and the C5.

That’s why I talk about the A800M litterally.
A strategic plane with a 80-100tons capability with a good range is something we need.

It was so important at a time that the refit of the A380 to a cargo like the C5 was on the table, despite the huge cost…

Apologies Hermes

I don’t think the conversion to A380 was a serious consideration from what i have read, just wishful thinking on internet forums
First the A380 is limited by the few airports that can accomodate it.
Secondly the A380 has no front or rear ramps for loading.
Lastly from what i have read, the floor between the 2 decks is an integral part of the airplane’s structure so you cannot just remove if to maximize internal cargo space.
I seriously doubt Airbus is considering developing a heavy lift military cargo, just like the development of a heavy lift helicopter never went past CGI concepts. The market is just not there if the US is not a client.
If Airbus develops any future cargo it will most likely be a smaller cargo segment like an A200 to replace Transall C160 or Lockheed C130, which will interest more potential customers than an “A600M” or “A800M”
My 2 cents

A200M is already on the way.
The “A800M” is a need, not a project.

Unless they can match the price of Blackhawk, I doubt the AW149 will win. As the US Army has so many and is still buying them. It would be far cheaper to tag on to the next US Army buy. Sadly, I think cost will be the deciding factor.

Not so fast on the draw DaveyB…….politics may well be the deciding factor. The economic boost to aircraft manufacturing in the West Country and the offset spending ploughed back into the local economy, might be too big for Boris to ignore. AW149 is the obvious answer for the political scenario post-covid! Don’t forget the number of Conservative MPs now in traditional Liberal territory. I won’t bet my pension on it, but I will attempt to eat my waxed Orvis hat if Leonardo doesn’t win this one!

cost or putting money in tax payers pockets, Blackhawk is 10 years from out of service date…..

True, but the MoD was a quick and cheap interim solution. They are hedging their bets and waiting to see who wins the US Army future medium lift program. But then they’ll probably wait a couple of years to make sure any teething issues are sorted out.

If the Army/Airforce have a say, Blackhawk will be favorite. Due to the wider world use and surplus of spares. Plus they have a window dedicated for a gunner leaving the side door unobstructed.

Personally, I hope the AW wins for the reasons I mentioned above. But nothing would surprise me!

The next generation of Spear missiles could be added at a later date no doubt?

Weapons
Outrigger pylons can carry seven, 12 or 19-tube 70mm and 81mm rocket launchers, air-to-air missiles, and air-to-ground missiles.

“The AW149 helicopter can accommodate 18 troops or 12 fully equipped soldiers.”

The helicopter can be fitted with a 20mm machine gun pod or a 12.7mm machine gun pod with three tubes for 70mm rockets.

The cabin can be fitted with window-mounted 7.62mm general-purpose machine guns. The helicopter is equipped with defensive aids subsystems.

Some stuff are build to respond of the needs, not to being a commercial success.
60t is too much to be tactical, not enough to be efficient as strategic.