Why is it that posters on PPRUNE are perfectly gullible when it comes to negative or scandalous gossip, and hardened and cynical when people post positive information? It does my head in.
When someone says MRH90 will be OK, people reply "no it won't, Black Hawk is the only answer". When someone posts "Tiger may never be deployed" everyone nods wisely, and waits eagerly for the next bit of unsubstantiated errant crap to be anonymously posted.
Maybe it's because the issues are never simple enough to be described adequately on a thread like this, and the only guys who actually know anything about the subject are generally not willing to comment. So, we are stuck with people who know someone who quit 10 years ago, people working as contractors and people who flew in Air Force 30 years ago discussing their own feelings that everything might be all screwed up.
I must make the following points:
1. The entire ARH program is designed to end with the aircraft in a deployable state. There is nothing, and I mean nothing to suggest that it may never be deployable. Ditto for MRH90.
2. There is no underlying scandal brewing about costs of ownership and sustainability. The very reason we are getting rid of our current fleet of ageing legacy platforms, some of which were designed in the 1950s, is to reduce cost of ownership. Huey II will cost us more than an equivalent buy of MRH90.
3. Huey is not suitable as an airmobile or air gunnery platform. The only reason they got away with it in Vietnam is because of the thick jungle. Let's not forget the US Army lost almost 10,000 helos in that conflict, and designed the Black Hawk (starting in 1968) as a direct result of the lessons learned.
4. Every pilot and aircrewman in AAAvn is getting all the night flying they need. Those who fall uncurrent for whatever reason are given all the training they require before we ask them to step out on a dark night.
5. We do all sorts of training in theatre. We always have. The assertion that we are somehow putting our people at risk because we don't have enough Chinooks is absurd, vexatious and based on ignorance.
5. The assertion that MRH90 is not "fully militarised for war" is equally absurd and based on nothing other than inference from foolish and ill-informed posts on this thread.
Finally, I am stunned and ashamed of all of you for suggesting that our fighting men and women in some way don't deserve the Rolls Royce solution.
Bushranger 71, why not use your 9 Sqn contacts and go visit or just phone any Avn unit. Talk to the people who are actually going to war - there are lots, and ask them how they feel about the prospect of, in 2020, flying a 65 year old acft with lashed up avionics and no EWSP on ops. Ask them if they feel the need to smell the enemy. Then get back to us.