F/Lynx all systems go at AW

[Modern Elmo]

wg13, how and why did the cabin get smaller?

Here's something I found from Google. I bet Mr. Beedall is a PPruner.

From Richard Beedall's Navy Matters:

http://frn.beedall.com/scmr.htm

... The industrial (and political) requirement that SCMR and SABR aircraft must be manufactured in the UK made an interesting turn in May 2004 when it was announced that GKN was negotiating the sale of its stake in AgustaWestland to Finmeccanica for £1.06 billion, making the company entirely Italian owned. Completion of the deal occurred in October 2004. The sale price included £35 million to be held in escrow and repaid by GKN to Finmeccanica if the helicopter business was not awarded by the MOD the anticipated Future Lynx contract for SCMR/BLUH by May 2008. It was being reported that a full order for the required Royal Navy aircraft fleet could be worth up to £400M (part of a near £1 billion order when Army requirements are included) to AgustaWestland, as well as help protect jobs at the company's Yeovil plant.

Without FLynx work the old Westland Yeovil plant was expected to inevitably be closed, Finmeccanica consolidating any outstanding EH.101 Merlin work at the Vergiate plant in Italy. While any EADS offer in relation to NH90 might have involved the Yeovil plant building the NH90's, EADS was far from keen about this approach because it already had three NH-90 assembly lines in Europe and plenty of spare capacity for a large (perhaps as many as 100 helicopters) UK order. EADS believed that it would be able to offer a high enough UK content or offsets in its NH90 proposal for the industrial aspects to be acceptable to the UK government. ...