Is this thread going off at a tangent?
Yes!
Subject heading is about what's happening at MD.
I think that was covered in the first post! Notalot.
We hear all sorts of things, like lots of 900's on order.....
MD have been claiming lots of 900s on order ..... forever ... and in truth there are those elusive 'big' orders out there.
The FBI are having 50, or was it 100, but they have not ordered them. As far as I am aware they have one and are ordering more [subject to liking what they have?] piecemeal.
We have been here before with the Border Patrol MD600N fleet. It never reached the figure claimed before they switched to buying the AS350.... they had simply not ordered that number claimed - it seems MD were counting the options to boost the numbers. You can do that if most times when the options are delivered but unluckily for MD in most instances the options are not being taken up. A result is damage to perception.
Real delivered 900 orders are stuck around 100 [c/n up to about 120 but lots of test airframes etc] and the log jam has yet to be cleared.
poor spares reports, upgrades etc......
Spares require investment and MD is very short of cash. 900s break as often as the other airframes [well maybe a bit more often] but a lack of spares means that the customer is grounded whilst they are sourced, paid for and delivered. Any problems that other manufacturers might throw money at to solve tend to remain problems because there is no money to throw at them so some faults tend to reappear.
This takes us to the upgrade.... secret territory really, who knows what is really going on! All we know the weight upgrade upon which the Netherlands Police aircraft rely [8 airframes on order] is still not getting there [yet]. I suspect it is again the lack of money that means there are insufficient tech resources. It can be done - the 135 and 109S prove that - but EC and AW have money and people.
Salvation for MDs money worries may lie in the US Army Little Bird contract... but that is 2007.... lots of days till then.
On the earlier comment about Phoenix buying AW rather than MD ... it is not that they have to buy its just that political pressure would tend to require a 'home' buy .... There is probaly a link between MD being local and the fact that the largest MD920N fleet in law enforcement is in Arizona....
The fact that this political pressure did not happen this time may well be technical ......... but is it?
Enough?