Mil 17s

[jones243]

Can any one comfirm the arrival at Boscombe of the two Mil 17s that the MOD have bought,Seems a strange purchase seeing as we are stripping crews from SAR because we havent got enough rotary pilots ??? :hmm:

[cobaltfrog]

And the two are connected how exactly?????????

[In Support of Ops]

Jones243, do you really think this is a good place to discuss this? Please remove the thread.

[Jackonicko]

More over-sensitive secrecy.

And more stable door bolting.....

The spotter sites are full of this, but I've been asked to edit this post, so let's leave it at that.

[chopper2004]

Seem to recall in a Shephard Press Defence Helicopter article or two between 2004 and last year there was mention of RAF and USAF sending some crews to train on MI-17 .

Maybe the MI-17 are used for test and evaluation purposes for the TPS Rotary Wing Courses for there's a part of the course of evaluating and giving presentation other types of a/c outside. They call it preview course or something like that.

[jones243]

Thanks for that Jackonicko,No doubt photos will be apearing on other forums soon.If I thought that it was a great State secret I wouldnt of started the thread,Its been in the public domain that they were due for weeks. :mad::mad: :ugh:

[barnstormer1968]

I think this is a total outrage...
The UK government never shows any consideration for its population. After all I bet these aircraft will never come to my house low level, even though I will be here waiting, with my bino's ready:E

I guess I'll just have to stick with visiting the helicopter museum in Weston Super Mare to get my fix of ex soviet whirly things!

Barnstormer1968

[Jackonicko]

Just for you, Captain T, I've removed my journo speculation.
:ok:

[HaveQuick2]

"Mil 17s
Can any one comfirm the arrival at Boscombe of the two Mil 17s that the MOD have bought,Seems a strange purchase seeing as we are stripping crews from SAR because we havent got enough rotary pilots ??? http://static.pprune.org/forums/images/smilies/yeees.gif"


I don't see what these 2 stories have to do with each other either (apart from "helicopter" I suppose).

[Gainesy]

Insert Hip replacement banter here>

[tonker]

If i were a young lad in the desert, thirsty tired and low on ammo i would be rather happy to see these turn up as opposed to nothing.

Cheap reliable and versatile. More suited to those conditions i supsect than a NH90 etc. Having now said this they will probably used for target practice!

[Gainesy]

Agreed, however if Qinetiq get their hands on them, they'll probably be assessed as unflyable deathtraps and stuck in a hangar to moulder away gently.

[leopold bloom]

The Navy Net: Rum Ration Forums RN Branches The Fleet Air Arm Rumour of MI-17 x 2 delivered to Boscombe Down (http://rumration.co.uk/cpgn2/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=259324):confused:

[Mr Grim]

Navy probably keenly interested in them - they could make an interesting backdrop to a cocktail party.

[XV277]

As Jacko says, reports on these have been turning up on the spotter sites for a few weeks - along with the 4 new Dauphins and the DA42 Twin Stars that have appeared on the military register in recent weeks.

The arrival of one Mil at Boscombe was reported this week.

And one of the aviation rags was reporting (with photos) on UK operation of Hips a year ago (and the nature of those operations)

[Faithless]

Sorry Guys Im going to spill the beans....

They are being used to train pilots we stole from Mars. yes Life has been found on Mars and these Aliens have been bought to BD in two Hips.

Once they have mastered the art of being Human they will then move onto flying the Hips.

Once trained they will then back fill the spare front seats we have.

Sssssshhhhhhh don't tell anybody else :cool:

[ianp]

"The spotter sites are full of this,"

I know I am being a bit slow but which spotter sites?

[mr fish]

i heard a while back that the us coastguard wanted rid of their dauphins as they were 'underpowered', are the ones mentioned uprated?

[101BOY]

Were the US Coastguard cabs N3 variants? N3's have plenty of power in my experience.

[HaveQuick2]

"Were the US Coastguard cabs N3 variants? N3's have plenty of power in my experience."


The 4 new UK ones are N3 variants.

[microlight AV8R]

Replacing A109s 'acquired' circa 1982 per chance?

Curious to know the role for them.

[The Helpful Stacker]

Replacing A109s 'acquired' circa 1982 per chance?


Those useful ones used by them?

[XV277]

"The spotter sites are full of this,"

I know I am being a bit slow but which spotter sites?

UK Airshow Review - UK Airshow Review Message Board (http://forums.airshows.co.uk/cgi-bin/ukarboard/ikonboard.cgi)

Look for a post in the 'Aviation Waffle' Thread called 'When serials surprise' and another called something like 'Today at Boscombe'

[MaroonMan4]

Guys,

This is old news - ask the TPs at Boscombe and they will tell you! QinetiQ is tryin g its hardest to keep up with the likes of Robenexport (recently won large contract in Saudia Arabia) etc and therefore wants to have a good look at the 'technology' involved which is resulting in these contracts going the Russian way.

Tie this in with ETPS requiring a different platform than a western design aircraft to allow its students to learn from and critique then I am sure that no one is surprised to find out that this is a purely a commercial venture.

Nothing to see here....move along

[ianp]

Thanks XV :ok:

[mick2088]

So why the DA42 then? I doubt this is for Afghanistan. Put it this way, you can't operate UAVs over British airspace yet.

[Green Flash]

Tie this in with ETPS requiring a different platform than a western design aircraft to allow its students to learn from

I suppose that partially explains the ETPS Gripen.

[ranger703]

"Put it this way, you can't operate UAVs over British airspace yet. "


The one's I've seen and worked with must have been figments of my imagination then!

[Ian Corrigible]

i heard a while back that the us coastguard wanted rid of their dauphins as they were 'underpowered', are the ones mentioned uprated?

The USCG has retrofitted its entire fleet with new donks (Arriel 2C2): +30% power over the old HH-65A, and +13% over the vanilla AS365N3. Enough of an improvement that the service is now using the platform for armed use of force ops in the Caribbean and the D.C. region (160+ kts even with a .50Cal sticking out of the cabin :E).

I/C

[mick2088]

Ranger703... Sorry, I meant generally. Certain areas of the UK yes, but not anywhere. Hence why I thought that a manned platform like the DA42 might not be as restricted as using a UAV would.

[leader12uk]

The DA42's are registered to DO SYSTEMS LTD.

If you do search for it you will come up with the following

http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/Green,_Maritime_Surveillance.pdf

[CirrusF]

The DA42Ms are on the mil register also as ZA179 and ZA180. I'd guess they are for Iraq. Possibly to free up some of the Defenders for Afghanistan.

Some pics of them here:
UK Airshow Review - iB::Topic::When Serials Surprise... (http://forums.airshows.co.uk/cgi-bin/ukarboard/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=1;t=52476;st=40)
Pics obviously taken pre-conversion to the spec described in the RUSI article.

I reckon they'd be pretty useful in ISTAR role. You could have line of sight video transmission to guys on ground, and also via satellite uplink back to ops. Dirt cheap too (militarily speaking) - you could buy dozens of them and give every ground patrol permanent overhead video cover.

[herbaceous]

Christ guys, I dont even fly anymore and work in the City and even I know what they are there for!
But very interesting all the different ideas and reasons, some very valid!
Surely its obvious.... Putin is buying Westlands!

[CirrusF]

DA42 might not be as restricted as using a UAV would.


Diamond recently signed a deal with General Atomics to convert DA42s to UAVs. The manned DA42Ms can fly for over thirteen hours without refuelling, but that is a bit of a marathon for the pilot. Hence the interest in unmanned versions. Presumably with some extra internal tankage you could increase the autonomy even further.

[mick2088]

When I meant restricted, I didn't mean by capability. I meant that there would not be the kind of restrictions using the DA42 that would be found operating a UAV over British airspace (eg. a UAV cannot currently operated over the whole of UK airspace but only certain restricted areas) if they have been acquired for some reason to be used over the UK rather than in Afghanistan or Iraq. It's a pity that there doesn't seem to be any recent photos yet of the post-configuration since they went over to the military register that would give a better idea of what they might be used for.

[CirrusF]

I'd agree that there are occasions where a "manned UAV" is a lot better than a UAV. The accident rates for UAVs are still higher than for manned aircraft, which offsets their cost-savings. I'm not entirely convinced by the advantage of a DA42 UAV. As you say, there are airspace restrictions on UAVs in most countries, so whereas you could just fly a manned DA42M to theatre, and once in theatre would have more diversion options as you could go to any airfield you like. Getting a UAV DA42 to theatre would be logistically more difficult, then you would be much more restricted in where you could divert the aircraft too partly because of airspace restrictions and partly because (presumably) you would need a pilot on the ground at the diversion to handle the landing (I doubt that could be done remotely).

Also, I'm not convinced that the DA42 is necessarily a good platform for conversion to UAV. Those long, low wings would be a bit vulnerable when trying to land one remotely in a cross-wind (even with a pilot controlling it locally), and detecting then handling an engine failure remotely would be a challenge. However, the surveillance and observation flights I've done mostly involve really chucking the aircraft about to stay in the right location and I can imagine it would be difficult to convert a DA42 to fly (say) low-level steep turns automatically. It would only be worth converting DA42 to UAV if you really had an operational requirement for very long endurance flights, all of which were conducted at mid-level (F150-F180).

[Winch-control]

aah so M17 back on track. Hot n High? Doesn't look a ch47? Good job no UK aircrew already trained on them....

[chopper2004]

Winch control

Defence Helicopter article in one of their 2004 issues said that RAF crews had been sent to Gremenchko Academy out East (sorry please forgive my poor spelling of that facility) to train on MI-8/17 along with USAF crews :)