Apache Hellfire problems exaggerated by UK press
from Defence Helicopter. . </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Apache Hellfire problems exaggerated by UK press . .Headlines in UK newspapers -- the Daily Telegraph on Monday 25 March and the Daily Mail on 26 March -- saying that the British Army’s new WAH-64 Apache Longbows cannot fire their Hellfire missiles are likely to prove untrue.. .. .The reports, also carried by the Telegraph’s website and Defence Systems Daily’s web news service, cite an MoD test report leaked to the Daily Telegraph and claim that debris from the missile’s rocket motor could cause ‘catastrophic damage’, to the tail rotor or main rotor leading to the loss of the aircraft. . .. .The United States Army says it’s a non-issue for them and that they have never experienced any significant damage from such a cause. . .. .A source close to the UK Apache programme told Defence Helicopter that firing trials had revealed some ‘pitting’ of the tail surfaces resulting from particles from a plug (a weather seal) covering the exit of the rocket motor. The plug is designed to vaporise when the motor ignites, but was not behaving normally in this case. . .. .‘This is a non-issue for the US Army’, a source within the service told Defence Helicopter on Tuesday 26 March. The source went on to say that the problem had been overcome by fitting missiles with re-engineered sealing plugs. . .. .Apaches have been launching Hellfires successfully since the late 1970s at least and have fired them in combat on numerous occasions, both during Operation Just Cause in Panama in 1984 and in Desert Storm in 1991. . .. .The newspaper reports that US Army Apache crews fighting in Afghanistan have been instructed only to launch Hellfires from pylons on the right side of the aircraft so that any debris would be well clear of the tail rotor on the left side. If true, this restriction is likely to apply to older, unmodified missiles only and is a far cry from not being able to fire the weapon at all. . .. .The UK MoD bought all its Hellfires (AGM-114K laser-guided and AGM-114L Longbow radar versions) as a direct commercial sale from Lockheed Martin, so the fix will be negotiated between them. The weapons themselves are assembled by Thales Air Defence (formerly Shorts Missile Systems) in Belfast which could apply the fix already engineered in the US. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Any Rotorheads with personal experience?. . . . <small>[ 27 March 2002, 21:08: Message edited by: Heliport ]</small>