"It might be great - eventually, however, it's not ready to be in service yet. (and yes, I have flown it)"
May I start by saying I feel your posts on this thread have been nothing less than partisan.
To continue:
1. Are you a qualified test pilot, air engineer or IPT wallah who has sat through hours of meetings, sometimes furstrated and sometimes angry - I have and am the former.
2. Have you ever flown in a grey Merlin on operational sorties in a war zone where it provided the only accurate and comprehensive surface picture available to the allies in the NAG during Telic - I know loads who have?
3. Were you intimitaely involved in the first accident enquiry process or have even bothered to read the openly available report - in service that is?
4. Have you flown the Merlin for 1500 miles across deserts and mountains at 10,000 ft at 130 kts , carried out in excess of 500 Merlin deck landings and operated it with cockpit temps >+60 deg C.
5. Have you then gone flying in a Sea King and realised what a old defunct girl she is ?
6. Have you flown any other aircraft that can operate in icing conditions throughout its flight envelope?
If not you are probably one of those nice Chinook drivers who will never accept there is another aircraft more suited to the roles it was given. And having been in a Chinook Mk 3 I tell you the NAO were right.
On the Merlin Mk3 I will concede only 3 things - did the RAF need to buy it when they did and why, once they bought it, did they not learn any Mk1 lessons at all and ignore it till it came into service.
I don't suppose you will stop your considerable whining on this thread but I suppose you could be a Lynx driver - bad luck!
