Increased Heli Lift for Afghanistan

[Mr-AEO]

Some time ago the press ran a couple of articles regarding the use of Russian helicopters by the UK Military to help sort out our medium/heavy lift shortfall. Security Solutions were touted as being a potential supplier
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/11/uhelicopter.xml (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/11/uhelicopter.xml) then it seemed the deal was off
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/18/nwar118.xml

So, what's going on now? As I understand it we still have a shortfall and I can't imagine that this sort of option would have been totally dropped, or has it?

[Roland Pulfrew]

And is this the right place to be discussing it?:rolleyes:

[FrogPrince]

IIRC, the Mi-26 under contract to the Dutch last year had an old and bold ex-Soviet aircrew who had fought the dushman during the previous unpleasantness.

I would think there might be some releasability issues surrounding the J2 brief to civilian aircrew. (At least I'd get to practice my Russian ! :ok:)

[Magic Mushroom]

There are plenty of contractors, some with quite capable types such as the Mi17 and Mi26.

However, the skill sets of the crews (for instance, would they be able to coordinate with UK forces properly as they approached a 'hot DZ'?) and defensive aids standards would all be issues here.

If we needed helos for a 'rear area' then they could probably do a credible job. But there are no such places in either Iraq or Afghanistan right now.

[Oldlae]

There is a thread on this in Rotorheads under "Gordon Brown repairing foreign helicopters."

[Mr-AEO]

And is this the right place to be discussing it?

Why not? The 2 articles were in the PD after all, why be so retentive about it? Anyways, as Oldlae says this is being discussed in the Rotorhead forum (link http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=320607 (http://here) for those interested), thanks Oldlae, the new proposal looks interesting!

[Roland Pulfrew]

Why not? The 2 articles were in the PD after all, why be so retentive about it?

Not disputing that there are public domain articles.

Why be retentive? I recently had a very interesting discussion with a "research" firm that specialises in open source intelligence. Their attitude, with examples, was that by studying public domain information it doesn't take long before you start to build up what might be a classified picture. The more open source you can get on a subject the greater the likelihood that you can piece together the classified picture. OS Int is a growing field, commercial, industrial, military - lots of money to be made.................. if you are good at it.

[Mr-AEO]

So they basically sit their running Google?:} Appreciate the theory, just didn't think that the issue was that sensitive, not as if I'm talking about DAS blindspots or anything.

[Max Contingency]

The following is all public domain information:

NATO has funded and let a contract for helicopter lift (cargo only) across the Afghanistan area of operations. The winning contractor was Mesopotamia Group. The contract start date was 1 Feb 08. There have been some delays in achieving full operational capability. The Southern Region (which is predominately where the British are) will benefit the most from this contract. The Southern Region will have 5 x Mi-17 and one small fixed wing AN-28 aircraft.

[BN Boy]

Mr AEO: "So they basically sit their running Google? Appreciate the theory, just didn' t think that the issue was that sensitive, not as if I'm talking about DAS blindspots or anything. "


Idiot.