Any chance we can stick to the thread "Aussie MRH-90"?

I suspect there are lots of folks here steadfastly clinging to the past but fair go, Vietnam is long gone and (mostly) forgotten and so are the 50"s & 60's aircraft. You wanna see old aircraft, go to a museum! Look to the future - you'll only get a crick in the neck looking back.

Most of us don't have a problem if you want to re-hash sh*t from the 50's & 60's and the old days military "strategies", but start another thread rather than hijack this one! Lots of pensioners would welcome it. Some of you sound like my old Dad who could have taken out an Olympics for "Back in my day . . . . ".

Having got that away, are there any/many real NH-90 alternatives? Note that I'm asking for 21st century kit here. Know also that the ARH and MRH purchase decisions were made before Rudd/Ranga/Swan raided the money-box.

WRL,
Lessons learnt from history are well learnt lessons.
GAGS
E86

Yeah, like bows and arrows, spears, swords, horses, B47's S55's, B204/5, all good in their day but that was yesterday. That's why we aren't still training in B47's, a bl**dy good aircraft in their day.

Willys jeeps and GMC 6 X 6's were great transport too, but even if you fitted them with turbocharged 454 ci engines and glass instrument panels, they're still yesterday's kit.

Yesterday's kit that can operate in hot and high conditions where the new kit can't.

Yesterday's kit that can be maintained in the field where everything points to the new kit requiring a huge and unrealistic maintenance tail.

Yesterday's kit that's affordable, both to buy and operate and far better suited to 90% of the helicopter's usual role than the new kit.

Yesterday's kit that Australia could afford to buy in such numbers that AAVN could support far more units than it can with a handful of hugely expensive "Rolls Royces".

Yesterday's kit that would allow enough units to be operated that crews could be trained in all aspects of their job before deploying.

Yesterday's kit that actually WORKS where the modern stuff has yet to do so after how many years is it now?


Yeah, a load of rubbish all that yesterday's kit.

Yes, I hear what you are saying but sadly it sounds like yesterdays warriors still living in the past. If the B204/5 is so damned good, why are you spruiking an upgrade?

People keep quoting the maritime requirement. Will the MRH-90 fit in the hangar of the new frigates?

I'm ready to be corrected, but I understand they won't.

ARH Tiger: "A ****e maintenance contractor does not mean the aircraft are not fit for purpose..."

It means they are not fit for service.

WRL,
If you are referring to me you might like to know I am a CAR 217 qualified instructor still teaching Defence Force pilots and preparing them for MECIR civvy qualification on EC 135s.
Hardly living in the past.
GAGS
E86

Hello Men,

I have been asked by myself to post after being off the forum for a while;)

BR71Gee, I really wish you would with all of this Pooie-II garb. Arguing with you is like wrestling with a pig in the mud, pretty soon you realise that he enjoys it. Your, anorak like, want for facts would be better off directed at utilising the AAAvn contacts you boast of and finding out some facts from the current drivers / commanders. Oh yeah, I noted in the latest Army news link that there are a couple of ex Brit Apache drivers on Tiger, who also fought in AFG, they might be able to educate you, but only if you promise to listen with a closed mouth and an open mind.:oh:

Your want for Pooie-II, may well be possible under the plans for a LUH/Trg acft that the army navy have a requirement for, but I doubt it. It has been around for a very long time and the only takers are a small element of the USAF for missile sight servicing and a few to Iraq, because the technology is so old and keeps Texans in jobs. :ooh:

Maybe your youthful vigour, passion for RAAF aviation and upcoming minister meeting would be better utilised to ask the questions as to why Australian Soldiers do not have the requisite Helicoter support in theatre - eg ARH, more CH47 and maybe some S70's (by the way the designation is the S70A-9 Blackhawk, Australia's designation not mine) to carry 4 man sticks like the yanks are doing with theirs in AFG? Our current serving members need bastions, zealots and guardians, but ones who are on their side.

I am glad that you value the Australian tax payers dollars so nearly, more people should, but the old girl is gone for good and the ADF has some very capable kit. The Brits had a 5 yr delay in implementing Apache and many people (current serving, ex servicemen, AAC and other corps) were super critical of the decision. Luckily, HM Forces and HM Government saw the need for Apache in AFG and they have been serving the Squaddies very effectively and with great loyalty. No doubt Tiger will do the same if given the chance. Maybe, the ADF should have bought 35 Tigers and not 22. That would be a really good capability.

The MRH will be back flying soon enough and I look forward to seeing one in the skies, just like I look forward to seeing the UH1H in the museum. Both will be good sights. To have seen the Huey's scrapped into boot lace eyelets for the grunts would be money saving, but sad.

I don't have access to the Flight Manuals for ARH/MRH so I can't give you the figures for H&H, maybe you could use your contacts and obtain the information for yourself. However, given that the MRH and ARH have wheels, I bet they could hover and hover taxi WGE (Without Ground Effect!), get up to ETL, grow wings and fly away, without dragging the skids across the gravel.

"ARH Tiger" seems to indicate that the problems with the ARH are spares/contractual based - if that is true, maybe you could raise that with the minister? I have been to Darwin in the wet season and it is a pretty harsh environment - hot, wet and ****ty, like a jungle without the trees. I wonder how ARH is handling that? If it can work there, then she must be apples.

It has been fun in the mud with you, thank you. I hope that your contacts can provide you with information / access to the "current" serving members on ARH/MRH.

Doors Off

ahem.

Back to the original question. Are the MRH-90's back flying and if not when?

We have 'got what we got' as they say. Let's pressure those than can do something to do something.

Our guys on the "two-way rifle range" deserve the best that we can get there NOW to support them to do the mission assigned effectively.

My dear Southern Hemisphere Cousins,

Why on earth you went down a procurement strategy of aligning to the US (Kiowa, Huey, JSF, Abrams, Blackhawk, CH47 et al) to suddenly jump to not only a 'new' Eurpoean defence contractor, but one where the R&D was not complete?

Sadly, what you missed with the all shiney, new, and what appeared very cheap in comparison was the R&D that you believed that the French and Germans were doing on your behalf.

The big lesson for your country is cost v value, and sadly you have now execeeded the cost if the initial buy was Apache and more CH47 (and improved Blackhawks if you wanted a Medium capability). You certainly have not had value, and I would humbly say the exact opposite as Eurocopter (or whatever its trading name in Australia is) has (by the sounds of it) reduced value and added absolutely nothing (possibly a few VIP seats at some sports functions or a good pi$$ up at an airshow) - but nothing of military worth?

It is not rocket science - and surely someone should have acknowledged the risk (both in financial and not achieving IOC/FOC) when they signed the dotted line.

But, with an election for you guys just around the corner, just so NO! to your procurement and treasury - enough is enough. Hand the ARH and MRH back for foreign sales disposal and buy AH (digitised, but no radar) and more CH47, with an upgrade in your Blackhawk fleet (to PEDRO standard).

If not, just continue whingeing on this forum about wishing you could fly and what a pity it is - meanwhile a few thousand miles away your countrymen (and the rest of the coalition) need your support (2 Chinnies - aaah, how sweet) and if RUSI are to believed then you have a future role in stabilizing the potentially volatile SE Asia sector.

So man up, do something about it or go and sit in Darwin feeling all hot and sticky and very sorry for yourself.

TBM-Legend,

Now that RRTM have diagnosed the problem, and we have identified some good engines, the acft should be up again by the end of this month.

Been some world class thread creep, hey?

Re post # 116 by MM4.

'It is not rocket science - and surely someone should have acknowledged the risk (both in financial and not achieving IOC/FOC) when they signed the dotted line.' Hallelujah!

Taxpayers worldwide are entitled to the best affordable military preparedness being maintained with no capability gaps. This means progressive optimisation of hardware in service until it no longer provides 'adequate' capabilities. So, some of you please shed your prejudices re upgrading of existing hardware and consider these facts as examples.

The ADF Iroquois gunship capability was decommissioned mid-2004, a decision driven by Army Aviation and supported by an Air Force Chief now CDF; but Tiger is not yet operational! Better to have some capability than none, and don't dream that the Tiger would be better suited for regional archipelago fire support requirements than a Huey II Bushranger version because they have quite differing capabilities – PNG differs from Afghanistan in climatic characteristics although is comparable in the necessity for higher altitude aircraft performance. I will post an image/document downstream (maybe on another thread) just to illustrate the point so please leave that aspect aside for now.

Similarly for the RAAF B707 tanker which was decommissioned near 2 years back; the MRTT is also not yet proven and will only carry an extra 10 tonnes of fuel offload. Would it not have been far wiser to just lease a few enhanced KC-135 from the USAF instead of acquiring yet more costly unproven hardware?

MM4 more or less gets at the real issue here which is a badly broken Defence organisation. Hardware acquisition worked pretty well pre-1974 when the military managed their own procurement projects with some dedicated public servants embedded in the respective service departments. But now we have the military governed under one ministry and the procurement system controlled by another.

The central plank of defence policy is support of Australian defence industry which is now largely parented by the major arms manufacturers. The DMO/DSTO organisation is presently staffed by around 8,000 public servants and there is an incestuous murky relationship with the arms industry. This situation seems likely to worsen if DMO becomes detached as an independent corporate entity as seems favoured by the major political parties. Note that a former MinDef and an Army CDF were/are directly employed by big corporates providing Tiger, MRH90, LPD hardware.

But back to the central MRH90 theme. If the lessons of war-fighting in previous conflicts are heeded, then amphibious assault and helicopter combat air assault are arguably no longer viable (affordable) concepts of operations. Many nations now seem to be opting for modest size LPD vessels that can be cost-effectively utilised more or less as floating logistic support bases with just a small number of helos embarked and they are better suited for regional archipelago operations. The escort and operating costs for the Canberra class LPD will likely be monumental and scads of unproven MRH90, whether Fleet Air Arm or Army Aviation, will probably be very expensive to operate and maintain. They were an unnecessary purchase announced just before Election 2007 by then Prime Minister John Howard.

The world is facing protracted economic stagnation which should severely impact on defence spending. If small nation Australia continues down its present acquisition path, then I sadly predict that Army Aviation and the Fleet Air Arm will be largely neutered within about 5 years.

Putting wholly-owned Iroquois and Kiowa in reserve storage so at least some capabilities can be cost-effectively resurrected downstream would be responsible defence planning, like what has been happening in the USA for decades. If some among you prefer that not to happen, then you will likely see a lot of Army and Navy aircrew just sitting on arses in crew-rooms for much of their flying career.

Following on from Emergov

You say they have found the engine problem...are there any further details on that?
The media in Australia have been very quiet on this.

From Shephard Rotorhub:

"Farnborough 2010: Eurocopter diagnoses Australian MRH90 engine failure

July 18, 2010

Eurocopter is confident it has identified the issue that caused a ‘catastrophic’ engine failure to an Australian Defence Force (ADF) MRH90 multirole helicopter in April.

Speaking at an EADS pre-Farnborough Airshow briefing in London on 17 July, Eurocopter CEO Lutz Bertling revealed that in addition to the engine failure that resulted in the grounding of the MRH90 fleet, three other aircraft had experienced related problems.

An investigation was launched after the 20 April incident, which saw the helicopter lose one of its two Rolls-Royce Turbomeca RTM322-01/9 engines about 30 minutes north-east of Adelaide. The aircraft was able to return to Royal Australian Air Force base Edinburgh without further incident.

Bertling said the root causes of the failure had now been determined and related to pilots following the wrong procedure for a hot start. ‘We know now precisely the sequence that the engines have seen it their history – all the engines had seen an improper procedure for a hot start. In all cases the improper procedure was done in the same way and if you do so then you see damage to bearings and seals in the engine,’ Bertling said.

He added that now the sequence that leads to engine damage was known, the aircraft that had not been through the incorrect procedure had been cleared as safe to fly. ‘All engines that have seen the procedure will be removed from the aircraft and inspected – if there is an issue or not. And I need to say that of the engines that have had a wrong hot start procedure it is only a very small percentage that have had damage to them.’

Eurocopter has developed a software patch that will make it impossible for pilots to follow the sequence that led to the engine damage.

Meanwhile, Bertling confirmed that the company plans to spend EURO3.6 billion in the next five years on new products, new services and for the extension of the company’s international network. The company plans to fly one new helicopter, major upgrade or technology demonstrator every year, following the first flight of the EC-175 in 2009.

By Tony Skinner, "

Doors Off; re this bit of your post #114, and I will just ignore your insulting remarks:

'Maybe your youthful vigour, passion for RAAF aviation and upcoming minister meeting would be better utilised to ask the questions as to why Australian Soldiers do not have the requisite Helicoter support in theatre - eg ARH, more CH47 and maybe some S70's (by the way the designation is the S70A-9 Blackhawk, Australia's designation not mine) to carry 4 man sticks like the yanks are doing with theirs in AFG? Our current serving members need bastions, zealots and guardians, but ones who are on their side.'

As you should know, the Helicopter Systems Division of DMO is headed by AAvn 2 Star, Tony Fraser, with several other 1 Star assistants, both AAvn and RAN FAA. These are the guys driving the Air9000 helo fleet rationalisation program. No point in asking politicians why the ADF does not have adequate integral helo support in Afghanistan because progressive optimisation of in-service equipments (Kiowa, Iroquois, Blackhawk) was forsaken by AAvn to advance the projects which now have serious shortcomings. Simply; AAvn created their own capability gaps.

Regarding spares provisioning mentioned elsewhere concerning Blackhawk and MRH90. The RAAF Blackhawk project officer sought very comprehensive spares provisioning, but this was denied. If there is already a problem in this regard re MRH90, then that maybe rests with the HSD guys at DMO.

You mention the Americans carrying only 4 troops in their Blackhawks in Afghanistan but not the engine type, operating altitude or ISA criteria. Herewith what the Huey II can do:

In ground effect hover at 12,000 feet at 10,500 pounds max operating weight in ISA+20C.
Out of ground effect hover at 5,400 feet at 10,500 pounds max operating weight in ISA+20C.

You could fit 10 plus troops in Huey II with some available clip-in seating plus a 4 man crew and door-guns so seemingly, quite a big performance and utilisation differential.

Somebody may be able to provide performance specs for up-engined Blackhawk for comparison; also, the MH-60S to see how that works out for ship boarding party operations.

Emerg Gov, I have been biting my tongue for some time now but I can't hold back any longer.

Your repeated defence of what now can only be described as an unmitigated disaster of a project must mean that either;

(1) you actually work for the supplier, or
(2) you have a strong, yet to be revealed, reason for defending this project from necessary external scrutiny by using misinformation, or
(3) you elected that optional extra at Staff College called the "frontal lobotomy" and now believe everything you read in the shiny brochures and what your boss tells you.

The MRH 90 will never be able to do what it was purchased for despite all the nifty avionics. All that great technology such as composites and avionics and increased payload and range mean nothing if it can't be reliable and do the job. It is all just words and numbers. I have thrashed over this before but was it really necessary to reinvent the wheel and take all this developmental risk for something that was just supposed to be a battlefield truck? Ask the aircrew involved with this lump of c...p today would they like to convert tomorrow to the UH60 M/L or indeed anything that is actually proven to work and you would be knocked over in the rush out the door. Never mind the poor diggers O/S who are screaming for more helo support in theatre.

Given another 10 years and unlimited funds, yes, you could make a Citron or a Peugeot into a battlefield helicopter or even a half decent car but then it wouldn't really still be a Peugeot, Citron or an MRH would it?

The only thing I agree with that I have read on this thread so far, is that, we have this lemon now, so we will just have to get on with making it work as best we can, whilst secretly hoping that someone, somewhere higher up will find a bucket of money, admit the mistake and replace it with something that is a proven capability.

Rant out.

I don't agree with the 'unmitigated disaster' line. I think it's ill-informed and unnecessarily negative. Hurricane Katrina was an unmitigated disaster. MRH90 is just late.

I'm getting used to being described as a spin doctor, idiot or career-preserving-thruster because I don't share the negative point of view. Slouching around complaining makes you part of the problem. You'll probably end up flying or maintaining the thing anyway.

I happen to believe this will be a great capability for defence. A newer, better Blackhawk would have been easier, not better.

If it had been possible to predict the current delays, MRH90 may never have have been selected in the first place. COL Peter Simpson used to say that 'hindsight is the vision of arseholes'. Getting mad and telling everyone we're all doomed isn't going to change our situation any more than modifying 25 old Hueys.

B71,

Having just got back from theatre I can assure you that the PA for most FOBs starts at about 3500ft (KAF = approx 3300ft PA), and most ops are being conducted way above that often pushing 6000 - 7000 ft PA. With temps currently ISA +35 at most FOBs, you do the maths - I just don't think your Huey II will cut it.

Back to the thread, the reason why the MRH-90 doesn't work is because the pilots have been using the wrong engine shut-down procedures. See the latest link from the Eurocopter CEO speaking at Farnborough yesterday.

Farnborough 2010: Eurocopter diagnoses Australian MRH90 engine failure | Shephard Group

zic:cool: