Yozzer,
The days of bespoke aircraft for niche jobs have long gone - maybe with the exception of Attack Helicopters. Look around at NH-90 and all its variants and roles, the new AW family of aircraft, and even the old Sea King was designed as a maritime aircraft, but by all accounts is used effectively and safely by many customers in land roles.
Although not an expert on the Merlin LEP, I think the majority of the costs were in the upgrading and modernising the aircraft, not the marinisation bits, but I do know that other nations are safely using it in a land and maritime role.
As to all SH under Air Command, I believe that this is seriously being looked at as under the new MAA rules and regulations it is believed by many that CAS is really the only person that has the qualifications and experience to be a proper Senior Duty Holder.
Unchecked
Now do not go putting silly ideas like that into the centre's mind, you will only start this whole thing off again. How many times do I have to say that although the twin TQ monster is awesome, it is not the panacea and cannot do everything and does have limitations (I know, I find it hard saying that!).
Aside from that, DE&S will most certainly not go for a split hub, and again why train Fisheads on a completely new aircraft when we can transition our own crews across with all their experience levels. At least Merlins keep it all in the same Fishead family.
If memory serves me correctly (and we do have to be honest and fair here) there is not that much extra cost to defence for the Merlin transition as we would still have to train our own crews anyway over the next 4 or 5 years. The bean counters do not care what the colour of the cloth is of the student - the bean counters are colour blind and just see 'pilot under training', do you think they care which service actually flys it at the end of the course, and what his/her specialisation is.....nah.
Last edited by MaroonMan4; 17th Feb 2012 at 17:10.