Mr.
Nick Lappos
The ignorance is yours. The contract that is awarded includes a 20 year guaranteed maintenance cost. I really don't know what drives you, but its clear this is not a discussion, it is your forum for your polemics.
English is not my mother tongue but I think you didn't get it right or I didn't make myself understood.
Lets see again, with the phrase broken in two parts:
From an ignorant it would be acceptable such claim,/
From you it is not.
Can you grasp now that I didn't call ignorant to anyone ?
In the other thread (very difficult when one has two threads with the same subject) you said
Many on the selection board are long time experienced pilots, several with engineering degrees, and in my opinion, all of them working to buy the best helicopter available.
It's your choice who you believe, but Sgt. Phil Moffitt seems to have cornered the naysayers market.
Again you forget that in other bids in other countries, many very experienced people with engineering degrees, long time experienced pilots included, made a completely different decision.
I am a former European Air Force Pilot and in my former country the S92 came second as in other countries. In fact, in my former country, the Air Force wanted to consider the S92 but for the TACTICAL missions as a substitute to the PUMAS that are being phased out, not the MARITIME. But things did turn that way and the NH90 was selected.
With the same type of reasoning, to pretend that the Canadian choice is the best one, is to ignore all the other choices that have been made so far by Air Forces more likely to see "combat action" then the Canadian Forces and where the S92 come second or third...
That myth was created to the embarassment of the good people who were trying to make a rational choice. This procurement was a tough one for the guys who had the decision, they faced adverts from one side that insisted that they just drop the competition and pick them. Those ads created the myth of the watered down requirements.
The requirements were changed and I know where they were changed because I saw both documents. Sometimes a single line can make huge differences.
As always Mr.
Donut King is very unfortunate with his comments
Re; maintenance cost/ support.
Anyone here operating, say, Eurocopter products??
What in hell has Eurocopter to do with the Agusta/Westland EH101 ?
The version for the Canadian Forces would be built in the BELL Maribel plant, with engines built in Quebec and so on up to 75% I believe.
Nobody is complaining about customer support from Agusta/Westland. On top of that, Mr.
Donut King for security reasons, defence hardware require huge amounts of spare parts stocked in the premises of the operating party. My personal experience in countries that follow adequate security procedures, three full years of "normal operation" spares were stocked at any given time with quite a few more in case of conflict, specially the most vulnerable ones. In times of "conflict" the amount of spares can easily grow to the equivalent of 5 years of "normal" operation.
Military operations don't follow the commercial logic or type of management where the customer wants the factory to store the spare parts for them. In my former country (which at the time had one of the largest European helicopter fleets) I saw piles of boxes with brand new engines, main rotors, tail rotors, fuel tanks and everything else. When an engine had a problem it was replaced with a new one and the old sent for overall in the maintenance headquarters. Nobody was
EVER in a rush to get any kind of spares... and at the time it was AEROSPATIALE that now is part of EUROCOPTER.
Of course if there are no spare parts stored anywhere, because the operating party decided to take unacceptable risks, then cannibalizing ones to put the others flying is the rule. (remember the PC3's a few years back?)
So, even if Eurocopter had anything to do with Agusta/Westland which it hasn't, the situation wouldn't apply in this case. If any military force wants to rely on the stocks of the manufacturer for its own maintenance, then it DESERVES to have a few helicopters grounded for lack of spares because those are unacceptable risks and having a few grounded might well be an incentive to correct the situation by storing the correct and due amount of spares.
Today there are no distances in the world. We can get anything put anywhere in 24/48 hours.
That "down the road" can be anywhere in the planet.
Your lack of real arguments is pushing you to try to mix things up eh?
I didn't see the GLOBAL TV program about this. Did anyone see it and post a few details ?