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Old 14th Apr 2023, 12:42
  #6797 (permalink)  
tucumseh
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: uk
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Originally Posted by SLXOwft
I'd like to know what those who made the decisions were drinking when they decided Mildcat HMA2 would:
  1. have neither dipping sonar (too heavy and would take up too much room apparently) and no tactical data link (to save money - export version has it) - any one know if they are getting the Bowman/Link 16 retrofit or is that AH1 only?
  2. Lacking these is the equipment of choice for the T23s that have no towed array sonar.
There was certainly a requirement post-Falklands for what became known as 'Sonics Lynx', but it was ill-defined. There were a lot of ASW requirements being bandied about and endorsed at the time, but we could never get an answer on whether a dipping sonar was planned. If it was, we thought it would arise out of the Project Merryman trials around 1984/5. (From memory, a fly-off between HELRAS, Cormorant, and an updated 195 which was already in SK and Wx). I do remember HELRAS wouldn't deploy properly, and then had a battery fire and failed in Merlin.

At that time, the FAA was getting 108 Merlins, which was a substantial uplift in ASW. (All fitted for and with). So Lynx tended to take the hit when programmes were being chopped. Its 360 degree radar was a good example, with full development completed around 1989, then suddenly cancelled; and then a rush to sort out long standing problems when GW1 kicked off. The tipping point was cutting the 3>8 conversions from 84 to 48. At that point, around 1993/4, MoD(PE) had a clear-out of all the tasks that had been drifting for over a decade without a decision. In 1992 the RAF's Director of Flight Safety called Chinook the 'Cinderella' of the RAF. I always thought Lynx was the FAA equivalent. Oddly, in MoD(PE) it was the opposite. Chinook and Lynx teams were mob-handed, while other bigger programmes were one-man shows.

Regarding BOWMAN, Lynx HAS8 was one of 13 types planned and funded. But only one (Sea King HC4) realised that there were technical and contractual pre-requisites that BOWMAN wouldn't deliver (as it hadn't thought of them), and was the only design to incorporate an upgrade path. MoD dealt with this in its usual way, by ignoring that one aircraft was done and dusted (too embarrassing), refusing to learn lessons, and 're-setting' in 1998 by starting a bunfight as to who should set up an entire Integrated Project Team to do what one guy had done in his spare time, as a minor task. No doubt there were similar machinations after that!
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