Check this out:
Mark Collins - Cyclone Maritime Chopper Still a Long Way From Prime Time
[1] I’ve followed this forum as a guest for several years and I decided at long last today to throw my oar in. I’ve had and continue to have considerable first hand knowledge of the MH (Cyclone) Project (for quite a few tears now) and have always followed posts to sites like this one on the subject with great interest. Most of what appears often seems to me to be uninformed or, at least, ill-informed opinion.
Your recent post about the aircraft being in storage and your opinion of unfolding troubles are, however, accurate.
The helicopter that Sikorsky “delivered” to Shearwater last year has not been accepted by Canada for a multitude of very serious reasons. It is indeed in storage at Shearwater, remains unflyable, and also remains under Sikorsky title unusable to Canada for any purpose other than as a static display aircraft.
The MH procurement is indeed currently in serious trouble. The Cyclone does not/cannot meet many of the key minimum performance requirements of the original contract and. for these and other reasons, cannot be certified as being airworthy for anything more than daytime, fair weather, over land operations at best…. in other words, unsuitable both for flight training and the operational roles for which it was acquired.
[2]…
Without getting too technical:
The “drivetrain” (engines and main gear box) are inadequate. New engines and a new MGB are currently in development but will not be ready in time for the amended late delivery date of June 2012. There is no guarantee that the engines and MGB under development will meet the original requirement.
Airframe vibration and flutter grossly exceed the contract standard… there is no easy fix for this.
There are a number of outstanding issues related to the airworthiness of the Fly-by-Wire flight control system. Procedural “work-arounds” may end up being the only way to deal with some but there are still matters of robustness and lack of maturity that remain basic safety concerns.
There remain unresolved landing gear and blade fold concerns that impact ship compatibility.
There are more “issues” but those are some of the big ones (and, they are certainly not nits) that need to be overcome on an aircraft that was supposed to have been delivered ready for duty 3.3 years ago.
[3] There are still a few remaining Mission System integration matters to be resolved, but except for one of them potentially, I believe that none can be classified as show stoppers and so I felt that they were not worth highlighting. They are mainly software-related and those troubles are invariably curable over time.
Hi Rathawk - is this an authorized forum for you to release this information? Your profile clearly states that you are a Colonel in the RCAF