Another issue comes in at specfication planning the MoD can't just say we will buy from company x as this is illegal unger EU compition rules it can get round this by drawing up very tight spefications. I would also sugest if the Mod had added crash survivability to the same or higher spec than the Blackhawk the winner would have to factor that in.
I do agree about Flynx. The naval version yes is following on a good piece of kit but the land version leaves alot to be desired could this have been sorted by better specifcation? And the governments desire to restrict the number of types in service to allow for bigger buys of spare parts and reductions of scale. I would also sugest there would be some ownership debates about Blackhawks replacing the Lynx and Puma even in a "Joint" helecopter command. And as AHQHI656SQN says it isn't a starter for a recce helecopter.
Minigundiplomat if JHC was to go down the route of Blackhawk which I do see the case (but not the only one ) would it be of the shelf or an update of the S-70-19? would it be fitted with RTM332 engines and UK avionics as other uk helecopters?
tucumseh as someone who has experienced the inside of the industry could Westland revive the Blackhawk lisence and build in the UK along the lines of the WAH64 and would they be able to export them?
And how long would it take to go from selection to inservice? How much money would be wasted in introducing and supporting another type in service and how much export potential would be lost?
Personally I would like to see Agusta-Westland design a helecopter in the AW149 with hgher spec than the blackhawk/NH90 and be so good that it would seriously challange sikorsky and give them a real headache in the Blackhawk replacement compition.