MGD,
You know the age old argument about putting all of your eggs in one basket and then dropping it? What we have at the moment is the correct mix of helos in terms of size to task. At the risk of getting back towards the thread (after your crewman-off with Wizard) the junglies would get a viable cab, after a lot of hard work by the light blue.
True it does suffer in the high DAs but it still adds to the party. Better than the seaking mk4, but then most things are. Do the RN understand enough about what it can and can't do? Not judging by some of the wild ideas being chucked about on this forum. Would it be a good use of taxpayer dollar to modify it for ship use? Not when there are 8-12 unused RN Mk1s in the system, which we may well sell on at cut price if the funding for ASAC dries up. Will it cost a lot to marinise, and then train and maintain the aircrew and maintainers over the long term - almost certainly.
What about this for a DS solution? Junglies get the 8-12 ready marinised Mk1s from Fleet and slim down a bit. This is based on one carrier/Ocean at sea at any one time. If and when ASAC is funded, the RAF cough up the 6 Danish Mk3a and they get marinised. This is based on the small number of ASAC in a typical CAG (2-3?) We maintain AFG Ops as is and don't have to pay for a whole fleet to be marinised and re-trained. Austere solutions for austere times.....
The question is - can we afford it?
Last edited by high spirits; 21st Jan 2011 at 07:37.