If you're after army opinions, I've noticed the ARRSE forums have grown in size recently. Might be worth cross posting the thread there.

Yes, and the quality shrunk proportionately. :rolleyes:

the root operational problem of the Puma Mk I ergo there is not enough cabin volume to do the best job. There may be extra engine power but no extra cabin volume to utilise it!

Dundiggin - I am not sure where you are getting your ideas from but presently and for the past 5 years the puma has weighted out WAY before it has bulked out. You are quite incorrect in thinking a bigger cabin will help things.

I can only assume you are not in the loop with regard to current and previous Puma ops.

HG

"I can only assume you are not in the loop with regard to current and previous Puma ops."

You didnt want to say that :E
....because he does know quite a bit about the Puma :ok:
....a few thousand more hours then you do.

And how many hours do I have just out of curiosity :)

Hours only count for so much, there are instructors at Shawbury that dont have a clue about what is happening in the RAF and they have 10,000+ hrs. My point still stands, the Puma weights out before it bulks out.

HG

Tigermate & HG......
 

Tiger Mate - thanks for the backing matey! :ok: But I don't want this to develop into a p@ssing contest with HG. What I do know is that on the operational occasions when 'weight wasn't necessarily an issue' :rolleyes: - volume certainly was and I don't give a tuppeny toss about 'how many' or 'how often'. When operational effectiveness/success was an issue and we were prepared to throw the rule book out of the window in order to achieve the task we threw the 'weight issue' out as much as we possibly dared but could do nothing with the 'volume' issue. Not a happy state to be in and only shere providence prevented disasters occurring on more than one occasion. So when the 'sh@ts' in the fan', a bigger cabin could have prevented the Puma crews from baring their arses for the big one! (so to speak!).
So to re-iterate my point; spending money on this relatively unnecessary modification would have been better spent by including an increase in cabin volume to make the whole effort more operationally effective.

Dundiggin, I think you miss the point again. There was a square root of f*ck all chance of an increase in cabin volume ever happening, even if not a penny of the £300m was spent on new engines/glass cockpits/comms etc. Even if somebody with the right amount of authority had said "hang on chaps, we've done the sums again and we don't actually need to do the whole anticipators thing anymore, why don't we spend the £300m on an increase in cabin volume, that would really improve the effectiveness of Puma ops", they would have been shown the door very quickly because an increase in cabin volume would be a pure capability enhancement, and that was utterly verboten. If the £300m was not spent on the Puma 2 programme, it would have been spent on another outreach group for Upper Voltan Transexual Pygmies and most definitely not on putting fuselage plugs in.

As I said before, boffins with Tefal heads said that the safety analyses concluded that operation of Puma without anticipator was unsafe past 2012. To stag her on for another 10 years meant finding a way to put anticipators on. The Makila modification was the cheapest (and I underline that very deliberately) way of doing that, everything else (glass cockpits etc) is simply part of that mod, as it would have been more expensive to to do it any other way.

Of course we would all prefer Super Pumas/Blackhawks etc, but it was never going to happen, so enjoy the Puma 2 as its as good as you're going to get.

obnoxiof@wit......
 

Many thanks for that matey.............but it still wrankles big time ......

Afghanistan is one of the most, if not the most hostile of aviation environments on the planet - fact. Puma 1 would have been able to carry a fraction of the 16/12/10/whatever troop capacity in high summer and therefore not be an asset to Op HERRICK and hence highly vulnerable to getting cut completely.

Puma 2 may still struggle to bulk out before it hits MAUW in Afghanistan but nevertheless should still get close to max-capacity on most occasions. As such that represents a useful asset. It may not be the gold-plated Rolls Royce solution but it still counts as a capability upgrade in my books, if not exactly the best value for money.

So before then it's OK?

Glad I got my three tours in before it becomes unsafe.

(But the Boscombe Down Appraisal I read in 1979 did say it should never enter squadron service until it was fitted with them).

Not really, but the cost of doing the mod outweighed the risk if the Puma was only going to last a few more years until 2012, but if you wanted it to go on until 2022, the the risk outweighed the cost, so ALARP could not be shown unless you did it (or words to that effect)(it was a Cost Benefit Analysis but thats as much as I can remember so please don't ask for any more details!)

Matey, I think that was sarcasm........... Aberdeen must be getting to you!

"Afghanistan is one of the most, if not the most hostile of aviation environments on the planet - fact. Puma 1 would have been able to carry a fraction of the 16/12/10/whatever troop capacity in high summer and therefore not be an asset to Op HERRICK."

Lynx anyone? :E

HG

p.s. I'm half joking

JT, you're not wrong, it's been above freezing for a few days now so I must be getting heatstroke!

The Puma was a replacement for the Whirlwind in fact.

Maybe we should have bought the "Westland Wardrobe"?

lsh
:E

This is all academic anyway boys and girls as the whole project is about to get binned. Shame, but a post SDSR reality :ugh:

Yes, then some other crewmen could have stood up in it... :E

One bark for yes.... :ouch:

;)

I say old chap!

lsh

'This is all academic anyway boys and girls as the whole project is about to get binned. Shame, but a post SDSR reality'

Of course, someone from Odiham knowing the intimate details of a Puma programme!