My dear Southern Hemisphere Cousins,
Why on earth you went down a procurement strategy of aligning to the US (Kiowa, Huey, JSF, Abrams, Blackhawk, CH47 et al) to suddenly jump to not only a 'new' Eurpoean defence contractor, but one where the R&D was not complete?
Sadly, what you missed with the all shiney, new, and what appeared very cheap in comparison was the R&D that you believed that the French and Germans were doing on your behalf.
The big lesson for your country is cost v value, and sadly you have now execeeded the cost if the initial buy was Apache and more CH47 (and improved Blackhawks if you wanted a Medium capability). You certainly have not had value, and I would humbly say the exact opposite as Eurocopter (or whatever its trading name in Australia is) has (by the sounds of it) reduced value and added absolutely nothing (possibly a few VIP seats at some sports functions or a good pi$$ up at an airshow) - but nothing of military worth?
It is not rocket science - and surely someone should have acknowledged the risk (both in financial and not achieving IOC/FOC) when they signed the dotted line.
But, with an election for you guys just around the corner, just so NO! to your procurement and treasury - enough is enough. Hand the ARH and MRH back for foreign sales disposal and buy AH (digitised, but no radar) and more CH47, with an upgrade in your Blackhawk fleet (to PEDRO standard).
If not, just continue whingeing on this forum about wishing you could fly and what a pity it is - meanwhile a few thousand miles away your countrymen (and the rest of the coalition) need your support (2 Chinnies - aaah, how sweet) and if RUSI are to believed then you have a future role in stabilizing the potentially volatile SE Asia sector.
So man up, do something about it or go and sit in Darwin feeling all hot and sticky and very sorry for yourself.
Last edited by MaroonMan4; 18th Jul 2010 at 15:54.