£194M to "improve thier performance at night and poor visibility..can't see the logic in WHL statement somehow.
Does the aircraft "performance" change in the dark? Does the aircraft / engines know it / they are flying in the dark?
"Their performance"..surely not the pilots performance..they are now fully operational..will they fly any better than they do now?
"Declared fully operational by the MOD"..mmmm, hardly a vote of confidence if MTADS is required to improve current performance. Define fully operational please....nowhere with Thermal Cross- over please! Clearly, the aircraft is currently constrained.
Any improvement in pilotage FLIR, et-al better aquisition range must be coherent with an improvement in weapon range. Poor visibility by inference probably means rain / drizzle, diminishing MMW radar and active EO performance. No good to be able to fly an AH to a tactical location, if it cannot stand off and attack with its primary weapons? Or are we suggesting getting in close and dirty? If so...NVG, max 30mm and mucho fuel please and ditch the Longbow system and CRV7.
When most of the AH64 D operators are going II / NVG (US and Israel in particular-lessons learnt Iraq and West Bank)..the UK are again throwing money at jobs in East Yeovil, with little thought
Take the £194M..go COTS (spank SMART procurement..if it was that smart the aircraft would have MTADS now!..Arrowhead has been around for sometime) and buy GEN 4 NVG and a colour moving map..oh and a Pizza attachment to the wire cutters
Incoming!!!!