Originally Posted by
SASless
Gee...golly....gosh.....imagine that.....Froggy saying buy French! Why ever would he say that you wonder?
As if on your side of the pond that would not be the case. Common, "buy American" has always been THE thing. You are aware of the Buy American Act, are you? We do not have that. We actually believe in free market, without whispering "as long as it gives
us an advantage".
But when the CEO of the largest helicopter manufacturer isn't pleased with the current situation with some governments, you call him names? In the US, there would be rallies for him. Senators would invite him to DC; "Save the US helicopter industry".
BTW, I do not know, how much of the Tiger and NH90 problems are actually problems caused by the customers itself, but I bet there are quite a few and if these governments were capable of admitting that, both helicopters would be quite different and much better. Many software and other projects fail, because the customer is just not capable of handling them. It is easier to blame the supplier. Especially the military isn't know for efficient procurement project management. I bet a lot of beer, that the cause for the spare parts problems lies in the contract the initial customer wanted. You don't want enough spares, you don't get them.
Additionally politics is interfering with their ideas. Ask the big defence manufactures how much money they could save, had they not to have facilities all over the place because every Senator wants to have something in their state.
I do not say, that Airbus is easy to deal with. But everybody knows, getting parts from them can be quite challenging, therefore one has to plan accordingly (Apparently Airbus does a much better job in the US). And still the B3e is selling like hot cake (for a helicopter that is) and people actually operate them AND make money.
Parts that lie on a shelf cost money. Neither the manufacturer nor the customers wants them to lie around. The customer wants the manufacturer to have them available all the time and the manufacturer wants the customer not to break things and plan ahead that they get the part when they need it. There is no common ground here that makes everybody happy.