Have a question that has interested me for quite awhile and is related to the issue raised by SAS. Well,it may be related-our friends from the UK can contribute.
Some time ago Sikorsky/UTC purchased a piece of Westland,and part of the overall agreement was that Westland would own the sales rights for the S-70 to the Persian Gulf Countries. There was an extended marketing flight demonstration in the area put on by Westland,with some small participation by a few SA personnel. Westland prepared a Westland version of the S-70,with RR engines, a Smiths ( as I recall) AFCS/autopilot, and a suite of UK avionics etc. When they presented this version of the S-70 to the Saudi Government ,it was priced higher than the Saudi’s expected, and the Saudi Government then applied for the standard US Army version,which at the time was $10-11M ( US ). ( The Westland aircraft price wassome $5-7M higher as I recall ). And that is what they bought.
I always thought that all of these changes were Westland’s idea, thus it was their fault that the rather large sale was lost. But after reading what has been written here re the CH-47 UK versions, it has made me wonder if similar “ additional UK requirements “ via the MOD and not Westland were the source of the difficulty??
NB: I did have a chance to fly the RR engines in the S-70 that we sold/rtransferred to Westland,with RR test pilot Ken Robertson. The the engine/airframe interface they had done was absolutely perfect, (both thoroughly and rigorously tested). At least they were able to get those engines in the UK AH-64.
Last edited by JohnDixson; 28th Oct 2019 at 01:24.
Reason: Incorrect auto-correct and additionalthoughts