MRH90 Going, going. Gone
Maybe another NH90 operator is clever enough to use this opportunity.
Last edited by henra; 11th Dec 2021 at 08:02.
The Blackhawk itself has been in service for just over 3 decades in service first of all in the RAAF before all battlefield RW assets handed over to the AAAC, in the early 1990s. The S-70B Sehawk has been in service for 3 decades with the navy ....
Does anyone see a touch of irony here? The MRH-90 meant to replace the Blackhawk and now it finds itself beinf replaced by Blackhawk airframe albeit the 21st century one Uh-60M or S-70i International Blackhawk.
Latest customer for the NH90 is the SPanish Air Force which had theirs delivered last year to replace the AS532 Cougar for CSAR.
i have read and heard from my varous sources that the Tiger debacle was partly to do with Hawker Dehaviland (?) assembling the Tiger in house and the supply chain was a little bi skewered. Laughingly the German Bundeswehr supply chain with supporting their NH90 TTH does not work as it was used to support the legacy UH-1D Huey and had not been upgraded,/tailored/thought ahead hence wher some of the fleet reliability brought into question..
Cheers
Does anyone see a touch of irony here? The MRH-90 meant to replace the Blackhawk and now it finds itself beinf replaced by Blackhawk airframe albeit the 21st century one Uh-60M or S-70i International Blackhawk.
Latest customer for the NH90 is the SPanish Air Force which had theirs delivered last year to replace the AS532 Cougar for CSAR.
i have read and heard from my varous sources that the Tiger debacle was partly to do with Hawker Dehaviland (?) assembling the Tiger in house and the supply chain was a little bi skewered. Laughingly the German Bundeswehr supply chain with supporting their NH90 TTH does not work as it was used to support the legacy UH-1D Huey and had not been upgraded,/tailored/thought ahead hence wher some of the fleet reliability brought into question..
Cheers
I heard the reason for the reliability issues was more to do with bureaucracy within RAAF/Army/USA. I don't know the specifics but no doubt someone else will and correct me as it was a quick conversation But something along the lines that the maintenance software used by the Army/RAAF is based on the CAMS=FM which is American. The Taipan maintenance doesn't mesh into that, and so spares were often not around. Routine maintenance hard to plan etc. The actual aircraft apparently is pretty good. But Army also just wanted Blackhawk from the start. This info came from an Army pilot who seemed to think it was a lot more about bloody mindedness on the part of armies full of bureaucrats and god help us if we had to fight a war type of thing and a giant waste of money scrapping them early. That would certainly be consistent with pretty much every other acquisition Australia has had over the last 20 yrs.
Recent public reports are that the RNZAF is really quite pleased with their NH90 helicopters, with good availability and that they now have the world-wide high time airframe, despite getting them a long time after some other customers.
Why is the ADF's reported experience with the NH90 so markedly different to the NZDF's?
And yes, I'm sure the NZDF would be delighted to pick up some Taipan airframes at a fire-sale price from the ADF.
Once they had performed their Kiwi Magic on them to make them reliable (enough) they could use maybe four to six to take over a lot of the flying training load. Perhaps another half-dozen to be used as spare parts donors, and maybe one or two more to be used as maintenance trainers at Blenheim.
Yep but the are still flyable with some years of life left. Maybe just fly them out to mount isa or a ayrs rock and park them there as our own mini boneyard. No buyer for the blackhawks, F-18 buyer fell through, cant see anyone wanting the taipans or tiger at a reasonable price
NZ should not be commenting on defence matters..
Last edited by Going Boeing; 11th Dec 2021 at 22:35.
TBM, do you know if they retrieved the ditched Romeo? There may be a few ASW components that are still usable after the soaking to go into one of the new ones when they are delivered. Also, they probably don’t want that technology sitting on the seabed waiting for someone to come along and retrieve.
As far as I know Davey Jones is custodian...
Yep but the are still flyable with some years of life left. Maybe just fly them out to mount isa or a ayrs rock and park them there as our own mini boneyard. No buyer for the blackhawks, F-18 buyer fell through, cant see anyone wanting the taipans or tiger at a reasonable price
Keeping the aircraft in a fairly controlled and maintained storage for future requirements seems more prudent to me than effectively giving them away or selling for 'scrap'
If you generally believe the next big war is going to happen soonish, then that war will be fought with what you own, the supply chain required to build modern hardware will lead to massive disruption to the already anemic production. Its not like WW2 where any tom dick and harry can suddenly start building spitfires.
Keeping the aircraft in a fairly controlled and maintained storage for future requirements seems more prudent to me than effectively giving them away or selling for 'scrap'
Keeping the aircraft in a fairly controlled and maintained storage for future requirements seems more prudent to me than effectively giving them away or selling for 'scrap'
Nor will you have any current operators or maintainers.
N
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Not looking down my nose at our close neighbours but I always admired how they maximised their defence dollars. If they were involved with an ASW exercise, the RNZAF P3 (the one in the worst condition) would arrive at RAAF Edinburgh a few days early and take all their analogue components to the electronic workshops and use equipment that they didn’t have at their base to calibrate all their gear. By the time the exercise started, it was the best aircraft in their fleet.
I won’t mention whose sonobuoys they used during the exercise.
I won’t mention whose sonobuoys they used during the exercise.
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Could it be that the problems might come from the local maintenance performance ? Other countries seem to be very happy.
France has been using them in Chad and Ami for a couple of years, and a lot NATO Navies do enjoy them.
France has been using them in Chad and Ami for a couple of years, and a lot NATO Navies do enjoy them.
This article gives an idea of how expensive it had become to operate & the last paragraph summed it up well.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/du...oLVMotWqn5oVrw
A final note. While it may be tempting to hang on to the MRH-90 in some kind of disaster-relief or bushfire-fighting role, that siren song must be avoided. The MRH-90 has been costing $35,000 per hour to operate. Last financial year that ballooned to $50,000 and it was probably the final straw. Even if that could be halved by stripping out military capabilities, it would still be orders of magnitude more than a civilian firefighting or emergency services helicopter. Despite the sunk cost, trying to repurpose the MRH-90 will merely extend the drain on resources. We’ve made the decision; walk away, don’t look back.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/du...oLVMotWqn5oVrw