best of luck to the future King Stallion drivers out there. The Big Iron is a very good helicopter and hopefully the BIGGEST Iron will be even better.....time will tell.
OFF TOPIC-
Thanks for the R/W Navy Acq history review. I was there for most of it as well...
A couple of comments.
I didn't see any mention of the word "competition" in your post, so....
REPEAT - When was the last time the Navy actually competed a helicopter program?
Rant / ON
All I am looking for is that DoD get the same competitive benefit as you and I get when we buy something. Competition is the single driving force for growth in any free market economy, and DoD is ignoring that benefit. It actually has to occur however to get the benefit and not in name only.
Its something every taxpayer should demand. When competition exists its the only way the purchaser can be assured of getting the best product at the best price, and the economy grows........ Econ 101 right.
Rant / OFF
I'll suggest to you that the industry, and the limits that physics / aerodynamics impose on helicopter performance have been reached, and any improvements are developed in marginal expansion of capability at significant cost differential.
Near as I can tell the helicopter industry is thriving and growing rapidly due to the commercial sector, and I contend it will not take 30yrs to develop a next gen. technology (aka: V-22). Check out the next HeliExpo and you can see where commercial helicopter development has actually surpassed military, technology-wise. If there was true competition in DoD you'd likely see significant and timely development in "vertical aviation" rather than the "marginal expansion of capability" that you observe. Competition would also push Industry to spend their OWN R&D instead of waiting for a DoD program to sponsor them like FVL/JMR. S-97 is being pushed without a gov't sponsor right now, but will never be fully developed unless it has the chance to compete for a program.
Is there some pressing need to have a "new" helicopter?
Other than this is a forum that supports R/W aviation, so we kind of view helicopters as a useful tool across a much wider variety of missions than traditional F/W aircraft. For example; I don't hear survivors calling for assistance from a bunch of strike fighters following a disaster. I'd suggest we'll never know if we keep recycling the same helicopters and not allowing industry to demonstrate what they have developed. By your logic we should still be flying WWII fighters instead of F-18s, F-22s, and F-35s.....
That's acq programs for real, versus theoretical / best case.
Lastly, we need to quit making excuses for a broken, lazy system and fix it. Acquisition exists for the warfighter and the taxpayer, not the other way around, and if "acq programs for real...." means they cannot manage a competitive environment and acquire the best product AT the best price, then we have our answer, don't we?
