Nope. You work for Boeing?
Just a helicopter guy just like you who's tired of 101 bashing from the US. If you talk to guys that have flown or worked with 101s in Iraq and Afghanistan, they were stellar. Did some really good "spec"work with V-22s and MH-47s.
Being very familiar with maritime aviation, I noticed you, as most Army pilots can claim, have "landed on ships". There is a massive difference between simply landing on ships, and operating from a ship as a base of operations for extended periods of time. Non-maritime helicopters are built to different standard and maintained differently just for starters. The fact that the CH-47 doesn't fit on the lifts is just the tip of the iceberg. Ask the US Army and Navy. They did a bunch of quals recently and neither the Navy nor the USMC is too worried about losing their jobs to the Army.
Yes, 101s were under a unified command since 2000, but my point was it made more sense to have them all under Royal Navy control. 101s were not removed from the RAF because they were not doing what they were bought to do. The RAF requirements grew to a heavy lift helicopter which, as I stated earlier, by no measure is the AW101 a heavy lift helicopter. So lets be fair and compare apples to apples shall we....... unless you want to compare the CH-47 to the new CH-53K?
Incidentally, I still didn't see the Royal Navy going after the CH-47 in any way. With all that "deck time" you say it has, wonder why Boeing never marinized it?