Originally Posted by
typerated
NZ getting good use of theirs
SWEDEN'S VIEW OF THE NH90 POS
Sweden joins a growing number of dissatisfied users of the European made NH90 helicopters. NH90 first flew in 1995 and entered service in 2007. The manufacturer is a consortium of French, German, Dutch and Italian firms that promised to fix all the problems and eventually did, mostly. But some problems have proved intractable. Sweden pointed out that its 18 NH90s cost over $24,000 an hour to operate while its American made UH-60s cost only $4,500 an hour. Moreover the Swedish NH90s had a low readiness rate, about half that of the UH-60. Sweden had similar experience to other NH90 users and, unlike the naval versions of the UH-60, the naval version of NH90 had even more problems. In desperation Sweden ordered 16 UH-60s to fill in until the NH90 is fixed. Getting the NH90 to be comparable in performance to the older UH-60 appears to be perpetual problem.