I was at the FLynx launch in 2006 when Guiseppe Orsi said all Military AW helicopters would be built at Westland including the AW149! so how come all those lovely AW109s are being flogged to the likes of the Belgian Air Force and Suis Afrikaans from Northenr Italia or are they civvie cabs? how come no shiny/matt AW149s have not rolled out of AW's Yeovil site yet!?
I am prophesising here; the AW149 will not be bought by the MoD because:
a) even with the backing(!) of AW it STILL hasn't even reached the drawing board yet and doesn't have a launch customer! even the Algerians bought SuperLynx!
b) the MoD will not buy another Rotary Wing Battlefield Helicopter post Workstrand 13/options/PR08/PR09/etc in fact there are too many types already AH, Lynx, Merlin 3, Puma, SK4 and Chinook. Yes retire SK and Puma but there ain't a replacement around yet!.
So AW149 out of contention, Now the MoD will not be allowed to buy ANY thing built by any one other than AW BTW the Blackhawk is a very maintenance hungry SH so you Army chaps pipe down in the cheap seats we heard you whingeing about no Blackhawk and looked at it honest its ****e, the only way the septics keep it goingis that the US Army Air Corps is bigger than the RAF with pots and pots more money! The unit price cost is only achievable if you buy them in the hundreds & hundreds and also we won't get an Israeli discount. So, if you think AW are bad hello Mr Sikorsky! Its this or a Koala!
Now the the might King can hack the Medium lifty bit with the Beautiful Carson fit now paint the grey Mk 6s green and give em the right mods and they are good to go. However the Air Force SH types will not give up Pumas which now cost three times the cost to extend a similar fleet size (well they were similar till the PUs started to be trashed!) £300M compared to £100M. Puma LEP BARGAIN!. So we await FMH eh? Aint gonna happen till 2017/18 oh f**k so what can we do in the mean time? Answers on a postcard to the Right honourable Buff Hoon, Larry Grayson, present incumbent Labour sycophant Quentin Davies!
The FLynx is a compromise but we could have bought 120 A/C back in 2002 for the billion quid discussed now with data fusion and all sorts of whistles and bells. However our lords and masters, and I lay ALL this at the foot of the DEC caught a cold and mucked about with the budget till eventually we are now buying half the original A/C but a hell of a lot less capable. Oh thank you DEC ALM and maybe in future when you rock up to the party bring a requirement rather than say oih yes just what the Navy want but don't put a radar on it. Yea that happened I was there.
So stop stabbing your steely knives at AW or the IPT chaps/chapesses they only buy what he DEC says get.
SO get on to him that Customer 1 in his high up Ivory tower the ****!