Puma 2
 

Putting Puma 2 Through its Paces | Forces TV

The inside looks amazing!

XW209 certainly looks a lot better than the last time I flew it at Odiham in February 1991.

Glad to see the RAF has at last got a safer, more capable Puma. Only 41 years overdue, too. :D

Looks like it's been given the engines it should have had 40 years ago and the flight deck 20 years ago.

Does anyone know where Tourist's thread went?

S-D

XW 209 looked pretty good when I collected it from Yeovil in 1971! That makes the tail number 43 years old but I guess the airframe is a bit like 'Trigger's brush'.

I've got to watch that episode again now, TC! :)

Never mind the technology- what Auto Glym are they using? I have never, ever seel a Puma that clean- not even the ZAs that arrived in the 80s!

CG

But at least the tailboom gets as dirty as ever, if not more so, CG.

They need to adjust the carbs a bit...

And where is the black bodge tape on the nose bay? It will never last another 43 years without black bodge tape to keep the rain out!

"An extra tank gives it three times the range and twice the payload". Not with the fifth fuselage tank I know of. A Makila is about 20% more efficient than the old Turmo but it's not going to take it that far.

I have always, from way back, complained about them not putting the large mainwheel undercarriage on at the same time as the rebuild. I have survived several pretty horrendous arrivals with this type of gear without any effect on the aircraft. I was told that it was to save money. That saving will be lost at the first rollover.

Its also looks like the same crap seats and those strip gauges must be a pain in the bum. You'd have to read the numbers to make sense of them unlike getting a feel by just glancing.

Just imagine they're beer glasses.

Oh but with the wheels up..............
 

And for no other reason than to look better, she'll be so much fun down in the weeds, if of course the UKLF system still,allows it, to fly.......:)

They do look lovely and shiny, just like the airfix kit I made of one when I was eleven (which was a long time ago). But however big the improvement, does it really make sense to spend so much on 40 something year old airframes? Couldn't we have had brand new Blackhawks for not much more?

Straight from Wiki

That's forty years and twenty days ago.

Puma 2
 

There's difference between a 40 year old design, which has improved in capability over the years (CH47, UH60), and 40 year old airframes, surely.

It'll just be a stopgap until something like Defiant comes online in a decade or so...

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/art...efiant-404763/

http://rotornation.com/wp-content/up...ky-defiant.jpg

You didn't pick a very good example.

That's fifty two years and forty six days ago. The Hercules is even older.

A large number of helicopters have been improved over their lives to such a degree that they are unrecognisable to the original, e.g. Bell 47. A helicopter, like any thing else that flies, is a delivery system. Should the airframe still be suitable for purpose then there is no reason why it should not be improved by replacing obsolete engines or equipment. e.g. Boeing B52. The Puma started by changing the cockpit structure in the late sixties and improved through the Super Puma, Super Puma Mk2 and the 225. All have basically the same fuselage; larger windows, different backside but still the same top deck and lower structure.

For the RAF its a good deal. Their aircraft have peanuts in the way of hours. A multitude of commercial examples have in excess of 25,000 and even when they are retired from their original role they carry on with other operators. (North Sea to German police) and (Offshore Australia to US Navy vertrep.)

Even the old Sikorsky S61 has had a new beginning with a deal signed for used airframes in June 2010.
Sikorsky website.

Two of them, one an ex North Sea veteran, and I mean veteran, are operating out of Akrotiri.

Puma 2
 

With the word capability, not age, in mind I think that the Chinook is a good example. The CH-47A had a maximum gross weight of 33,000 lb (15,000 kg). The current variants are rated at 54,000 lbs (24,500 kg). How much has the Puma gained in 2/3 the time without substantial modification?

When I started flying the Puma in 1971 its MAUW was 5,800 kg. The soon went to 6,000 and then 6,300 with a 40 degree bank limit. The J model with plastic blades went up to 6,500 kg.

The 332, effectively the same rotor system with enhanced engine and gearbox went up to 8,500 kg almost immediately increased to 8,600 kg. I operated the 332 L1 in the Solomon Islands at 30 degrees temperature and zero wind at an underslinging departure weight of 9,100 kg.

The 225, still much the same concept as the original Puma has started off at 9150 kg.

Nice picture wizard. I bet that took you a lot longer to find and post then I did.