dmanton300,
No apology is necessary, just please do not believe that I intend to deceive or misrepresent any facts. While some folks wallow in opinions and blurry impressions drawn from their perusal of press releases and gazes at photos on the net, I have spent years as an engineer, studying the precise data in flight manuals and technical papers. I have facts at my disposal when I post, and I find it as frustrating as you do when these tiffs start.
I have added, cheerfully, to the heated debates in this forum, but it is most difficult when I post a fact and find folks jumping up and down with opinions that basically say "My father, helicopter, dragster, can beat your father, helicopter, dragster,etc."
The facts:
1) When I posted that the fuselage had to be redesigned to make it fit for modern military standards, everybody crapped on that. I called it substandard to modern military requirements, and that gave some blood pressure fits. Then Dangermouse posted that the new, stronger, crashworthy fuselage was flown and is now available. NOBODY ever even hinted that they were previously wrong. Nobody thanks the US taxpayer for making the EH-101 finally meet modern safety standards.
2) When I said that the VH-71 program was in jeopardy, dangermouse poohed my input, claimed all was right as rain, and was nasty as can be about my "biased" opinion. He was basically clueless, and he did not know that I have friends on the IDA group that studied how badly the program was going, billions and years behind. The US studied scrapping the program, but settled for just cutting it into 1/4 its previous size. Within weeks of my post, the stop-work on 3/4 of the program was announced. Last month, the Increment II was stopped, and it will probably be canceled. I was right, the Brit ppruners who crapped and moaned were wrong. Did anybody even admit how clueless they were?
To summarize - I have tried to post accurate facts, albeit facts that piss off those who see the Union Jack when a 101 flies by, but facts, none the less. You see them as "sour grapes and sneary derision" and that is fine, but they are ACCURATE sour grapes and ACCURATE derision.
For your latest snit, I insist - I never intended to link any 198 knot refuel capability, and I never intended, and (frankly never intend) to devise some slim half-truth to make a slimy point. I leave that to those who have blind patriotism (or jingoism) so tightly symbolized in their pet helicopter that they can't see the facts if they are laid out in front of them!