What if the AAC picked the AH-1W instead of the WAH-64D?

[chopper2004]

Morning , sorry afternoon all....here is a magic question going back 21 years ago - what if we picked the four bladed variant of the Bell AH-1W Super Cobra instead of procuring the WAH-64D for the AAC attack helicopter procurement

Any thoughts?

Cheers

[diginagain]

21 years ago the decision had already been made. You'll need to go back at least another 10 years to the time when influence might have been brought to bear....

[tucumseh]

The procurement strategy was indeed the biggest issue. The aircraft was almost incidental. Boeing had screwed up and let us down so often, particularly on QC failures, but Government and senior staffs were in thrall to them and would do anything to avoid criticism.

It is a good question though - how would Bell have behaved/coped. Would they have tried to flog us obsolescent avionics? That was spotted by the Directorate's Sea King PM, because Apache was meant to be completely "off the shelf", so was set up as a commercial job with no technical specialists to spot this attempt at, what could be construed as, fraud.

What if Bell had been contracted to build all 67? Would they, like Westland, have told MoD to **** off when asked to halve the production rate, put cabs in storage instead of delivering to the Army, and take the hit for the delay when the press found out? (Forced by the conscious delay in the ISD when placing a PFI simulator contract. A simple A5 memo and it would have been in service years earlier. On the same day, SK7 and Apache had to decide on PFI'ing their Trainer. SK went the other way and delivered on time. Had they obeyed orders it would have been at least 5 years late).

Too many ifs. The Army got a decent aircraft, eventually. Be thankful they didn't "do a Chinook Mk3".

[tornadoken]

In our part of the world, only Turkey took Super Cobras: the Arms that took anti-armour rotors took the Agusta, or Eurocopter, or (MDC) Boeing products.

AAC's replacement for TOW/Lynx was a protracted procurement...confused by issues not related to any simple measure of compliance with a Requirement.

1983: BAOR is equipped with TOW/Lynx AH.1. Tactics evolve.
1985: Westland is essentially bankrupt. In no position to take on a new anti-armour project - at all, let alone in parallel with a Heavy and a Medium Lift transport - both subject of budgeted RAF Requirements. Army Air Corps settles for Lynx AH.7, most to be sourced by mod. of AH.1, and buys time (deployed from 1988). Industrial politics - "the Westland Affair" - centre on Merlin, Blackhawk, Chinook. Ownership of Westlands settles with GKN (10/88: 22%; 4/94: 100%).

Berlin Wall comes down; 21/11/90: End of the Cold War; all theatre nukes out from BAOR, 6/92, from RAFG mid-1995. New paradigm. AAC starts the Requirements process for (to be Hellfire/Apache Longbow). 1994 Bidders are:
AH-1W CobraVenom, by GEC (Yes, really!);
Denel Rooivalk, by Marshall Aerospace;
EC665 Tigre, by BAe.;
MDC AH-64A, by GKN-Westland and Short;
A129 Mangusta, by Agusta (a Euro JV, Joint European Helicopter, for this as TONAL, 38% WHL, had lapsed in 1990).

AH-64A was deployed in US Army, 1/85. WAH-64 was awarded 7/95, like no other Apache and would be stated to be operational, 6/2005. The reasons for creating this distinct device (Short workshare, French/Brit. engine...) all seemed good to honourable gentlemen at the time...but we have not repeated that since: Off the Shelf now means...just that (see MFTS).

[chopper2004]

@tornadokan

You also forget the unlikely ones - Boeing Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche and Kamov KA-50 were also contenders or offered as contenders,

Did not think our Chinook featured in the Westland scandal at time, but yes those two airframes especially the WS-70 was

cheers

[Thelma Viaduct]

Can dual mode brimstone be launched from Apache?

[SunderlandMatt]

Not yet....