Question from Stitchbitch:
Why not 'westernise' helicopters such as the Mi-17 and Mi-26, which have proven hot'n'high capabilities and are dirt cheap and get them in as a stop gap until we can afford some wonderous 'wasteland' plastic cabs? Instant capabilities hole(s) fixed.
Answered by PlasticCabDriver:
by the time you have established a [Blackhawk] Mi-17/26 IPT, set up supply contracts, paid QinetiQ vast sums of money to certify them iaw Def Stan blah blah blah, modified them to meet UK requirements for avionics, comms etc, had QinetiQ recertify it after the mods have been modded, written the RTS, set up an OCU, found a simulator somwehere, trained the QHIs in the [US] Former Soviet Union, trained the engineers in the [US] Former Soviet Union etc etc, they won't actually be that cheap, or that quick.
