Originally Posted by
Jack Carson
Since 1979 more than 6000 variants of the UH-60/SH-60/MH-60 and S-70s have entered service around the world. Even Sweden procured H-60s after selecting the NH-90 under the NSHP program. By comparison NH Industries have delivered only 500 aircraft since 2007.
Just an observation here and I am not in anyway being biased, a couple of questions spring to mind:
1) NH90 is a little more complex then S-70/H-60 airframe as the latter started from early 70s design manufacture evolving into 21st century. Also was the marketing strategy aimed at en masse production for the NH90?
2) It’s not a comparison but an observation: the AW139 production after 18 years (just over 2 decades if you count concept / R&D) reached 1000 airframes in sept 2019 with the 1000th airframe handed over to the Italian Guardia di Finanze (GdF). I know because I was invited to the event at Verigiate. Thats a Civil helo (and some mil customers with AW139M)
Amd just looking at numbers realistically could we ever produce en masse something like 100000 UH-1 in todays modern Hugh tech world? I believe was record number of Hueys produced making it biggest number since WW2)? Small civilian airframes like Robinson R22/44/66 then yes.
3) Speaking of Hueys am led to believe that some issues with the German NH90 were the logistics and support framework which had not evolve fRom the UH-1D (which NH90 primarily replaced in Bundeswehr) . In short the mindset was still there. The Oz problem is similar …
cheers