"BTW, I seem to recall that Seasprite was a all-round success for the RAN..."
Are you saying that because the Seasprite was US equipment ?
I would call it another case of our DoD deciding that they know better
and can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse - in this particular case, a 1960's
decaying helicopter that the US couldn't give away into a state of the art,
current platform.
I think the above is one of the best examples of where by trying to
do things on the cheap by reinventing the wheel, we screwed up big time
- $1 billion on this alone. How many new, off the shelf helos, spares, training and flying time could have been purchased with that $1 billion ?