Merged: Seasprites cancelled finally
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Merged: Seasprites cancelled finally
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...55-421,00.html
...Sorry, old link. seems I broke the news before the news did..
...Sorry, old link. seems I broke the news before the news did..
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Here's the announcement from the Minister for Defence...
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
014/2008
SEASPRITE HELICOPTERS TO BE CANCELLED
In late 2007 the Rudd Labor Government initiated a review of the Seasprite helicopter project, in line with the promises made prior to the election.
After careful consideration of all the issues involved, the Government has decided that it intends to cancel the project. Discussions will be commenced immediately with the contractor in relation to the legal and financial arrangements to facilitate this.
The Government will announce the details of arrangements with the contractor once mutual agreement on these matters has been reached, subject to any confidentiality issues.
Minister for Defence Joel Fitzgibbon said the decision was not one taken easily, but the Government was left with little option.
“Today’s announcement demonstrates our determination to make tough decisions whenever required for the security of the nation and the safety and capability of our Defence Force,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
“The decision taken by the Rudd Labor Government is one that should have been taken by the Leader of the Opposition, Brendan Nelson, when he had the opportunity last year, but his Government decided to put its own political interests ahead of the national interest. Consequently, the responsibility of cleaning up the mess they created falls to us,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
To ensure the Navy maintains an effective naval aviation capability, the Government has decided on two measures. First, our interim approach will focus on improving the operational availability of the current Seahawk fleet. Second, the Government will investigate the planned replacement of the Seahawk during its White Paper deliberations.
“The new Government will continue to work through the long list of Defence capability nightmares it has inherited from the former government. We are determined to ensure that the Defence Force receives the capability it needs, and Australian taxpayers receive value for their money,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
Media contacts:
Christian Taubenschlag (Joel Fitzgibbon): 02 6277 7800 or 0438 595 567
THE HON JOEL FITZGIBBON MP
Minister for Defence
www.defence.gov.au
014/2008
SEASPRITE HELICOPTERS TO BE CANCELLED
In late 2007 the Rudd Labor Government initiated a review of the Seasprite helicopter project, in line with the promises made prior to the election.
After careful consideration of all the issues involved, the Government has decided that it intends to cancel the project. Discussions will be commenced immediately with the contractor in relation to the legal and financial arrangements to facilitate this.
The Government will announce the details of arrangements with the contractor once mutual agreement on these matters has been reached, subject to any confidentiality issues.
Minister for Defence Joel Fitzgibbon said the decision was not one taken easily, but the Government was left with little option.
“Today’s announcement demonstrates our determination to make tough decisions whenever required for the security of the nation and the safety and capability of our Defence Force,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
“The decision taken by the Rudd Labor Government is one that should have been taken by the Leader of the Opposition, Brendan Nelson, when he had the opportunity last year, but his Government decided to put its own political interests ahead of the national interest. Consequently, the responsibility of cleaning up the mess they created falls to us,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
To ensure the Navy maintains an effective naval aviation capability, the Government has decided on two measures. First, our interim approach will focus on improving the operational availability of the current Seahawk fleet. Second, the Government will investigate the planned replacement of the Seahawk during its White Paper deliberations.
“The new Government will continue to work through the long list of Defence capability nightmares it has inherited from the former government. We are determined to ensure that the Defence Force receives the capability it needs, and Australian taxpayers receive value for their money,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
Media contacts:
Christian Taubenschlag (Joel Fitzgibbon): 02 6277 7800 or 0438 595 567
THE HON JOEL FITZGIBBON MP
Minister for Defence
www.defence.gov.au
Last edited by ChickenLips; 4th Mar 2008 at 23:40. Reason: fixed link to article
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I know the aircraft was a bit of a nightmare and the project ill conceived, blah blah, but spare a thought for all those hard working guys and girls who have been maintaining them all these years, trained up on an aircraft type that is no longer. More to the point, stuck in Nowra while all their colleagues get to go to sea and deploy.
My condolences to the CO 815, he's now got a very tough job to do, also to those very motivated young pilots and observers, who have an even longer wait for an OFT.
Maybe a good decision, but it comes at a big people cost.
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Seasprite gorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnn
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23323052-2,00.html
The Federal Government is cancelling the troubled $1 billion Seasprite helicopter project, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has announced.
The Labor Government began a review of the Seasprite helicopter project late last year and, after careful consideration, had little option but to cancel the project, Mr Fitzgibbon said.
"Today’s announcement demonstrates our determination to make tough decisions whenever required for the security of the nation and the safety and capability of our defence force,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
The Government would instead improve the current Seahawk fleet and investigate replacing the ageing aircraft later.
"We are determined to ensure that the defence force receives the capability it needs, and Australian taxpayers receive value for their money,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
The Government would have discussions with the contractor over legal and financial issues and announce the details when they were agreed.
The Federal Government is cancelling the troubled $1 billion Seasprite helicopter project, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has announced.
The Labor Government began a review of the Seasprite helicopter project late last year and, after careful consideration, had little option but to cancel the project, Mr Fitzgibbon said.
"Today’s announcement demonstrates our determination to make tough decisions whenever required for the security of the nation and the safety and capability of our defence force,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
The Government would instead improve the current Seahawk fleet and investigate replacing the ageing aircraft later.
"We are determined to ensure that the defence force receives the capability it needs, and Australian taxpayers receive value for their money,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
The Government would have discussions with the contractor over legal and financial issues and announce the details when they were agreed.
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i honestly thought they would have gone on with the project, as the Egyptian and NZ forces are flying them in a similar config, from what i have heard the only issue left was getting the software to take a readings for the digital ASI from an analog signal...and our pilots refused to fly them. after that, they were complete. i feel for the guys at kaman and raytheon, as they will be out of a job now, 805 sqn will be disbanded and the 30 staff left will be redeployed. so its not really an issue with them.
one of the sprites was flying last week for a few hrs.
one of the sprites was flying last week for a few hrs.
Last edited by Ultralights; 5th Mar 2008 at 03:48.
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Pretty sure NZ don't have the same config, theirs has much less stuff shoehorned into it.
Ours was supposed to have a lot of systems the same as the Seahawk (once the Seahawk was upgraded).
One good thing about it, it provided great cover when I was working on the Seahawk upgrade, nobody really wrote nasty stories about us being late/expensive 'cos the Sprite was so much worse off.
Ours was supposed to have a lot of systems the same as the Seahawk (once the Seahawk was upgraded).
One good thing about it, it provided great cover when I was working on the Seahawk upgrade, nobody really wrote nasty stories about us being late/expensive 'cos the Sprite was so much worse off.
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Seahawk vs ANZAC- certainly will fit, but only one of them instead of 2 in the Adelaide class FFGs. The RAST never worked with Seasprite anyway....
Interestingly enough- the greek (I think) seahawks can carry penguin, so maybe we can fit it to ours and re-coup all the money spent on missiles already!
Interestingly enough- the greek (I think) seahawks can carry penguin, so maybe we can fit it to ours and re-coup all the money spent on missiles already!
Great stuff, another total cluster f
for the Australian taxpayer to bear the cost burden of.
We might as well as just set freakin fire to a huge pile of money, literally!!!. What size pile does $1 Billion in cash, lets say in hundreds make?????
I will repeat below my post to another thread--
for the Australian taxpayer to bear the cost burden of.We might as well as just set freakin fire to a huge pile of money, literally!!!. What size pile does $1 Billion in cash, lets say in hundreds make?????
I will repeat below my post to another thread--
I would like to make a few comments regarding past defence procurement projects, especially Collins and SeaSprite.
As far as Collins goes there was certainly many problems in the initial planning and acquisition phases.
Australia was meant to purchase a submarine design that was already in service not a brand new design.
The engineering achievements in the Collins design are in fact quite remarkable. Designing and building a new submarine is the equivalent of building a stealthy and highly sophisticated platform such as the B-2 bomber.
These submarines have now matured into one of the world's most sophisticated vessels and are more than a match for many of the latest nuclear hunter killer types.
The LAMESTREAM media as usual has failed to mention any of this to the Australian public who are under the impression to this day that we got some giant lemons and the whole project is a disaster.
As far as the problems with the Sea Sprite go, it is my understanding most of it has been software integration issues that stem from the fact that Australia has made some very large demands on what the crew of two has to do.
A similar problem occurred years ago with the acquisition of the Sea Hawks due to the fact the three-man crew, or I should say the two men manning the tactical systems could in fact actually achieve 80 per cent of the capability of an Orion with a crew of 8-10 down the back of the aircraft !!
The U.S. Navy has the anti submarine and anti-surface warfare helicopters basically gather information and transmit it back to their ships where most of the processing in order to prosecute an attack etc is done and orders relayed back to the helicopter.
Australia instead decided to have it all down on board the helicopter with the resulting staggering software development and integration issues that cause massive cost overruns and time delays.
Once again it is the same old story mentioned in other posts where Australia has unique requirements, or at least we think we do, that nobody else in the world has and as a result we end up b*stardizing the platform and the systems, whether it be an aeroplane or helicopter or whatever and we then end up paying far too much for far too few platforms.
In other words we, the taxpayer do not get real value for money.
Thankfully with the C-17s the only difference was the paint job.
Another example is that for the relatively small production runs of say aircraft or helicopters that Australia has had over the past decades we would have been far better off as far as being able to afford more platforms for a given cost if we did not insist on setting up local production lines to actually build the aircraft at massive cost all to create a few hundred local jobs that end out being lost when the line closes in a few years anyway.
The politicians and defence bureaucrats never learn from the mistakes of the past. We certainly did not need to build 33 Hawk trainers here in Australia, these were also b*stardised in many unnecessary ways in order to have them emulate more closely the FA 18s in ways that were not required from a tactical training viewpoint.
What we DO NEED in this country is the ability to fully maintain all these aircraft and upgrade their avionics systems and weapons systems as and when necessary with little or no foreign assistance.
We do not build airliners in this country, for example Boeing 737s just because the local airlines need say a 100-150 of them and yet we insist on doing this with virtually every helicopter and aircraft type the military acquires.
I know many defence analysts who are far more in the know than I am agree completely with the above statements. Several of them have discussed them with me.
As far as Collins goes there was certainly many problems in the initial planning and acquisition phases.
Australia was meant to purchase a submarine design that was already in service not a brand new design.
The engineering achievements in the Collins design are in fact quite remarkable. Designing and building a new submarine is the equivalent of building a stealthy and highly sophisticated platform such as the B-2 bomber.
These submarines have now matured into one of the world's most sophisticated vessels and are more than a match for many of the latest nuclear hunter killer types.
The LAMESTREAM media as usual has failed to mention any of this to the Australian public who are under the impression to this day that we got some giant lemons and the whole project is a disaster.
As far as the problems with the Sea Sprite go, it is my understanding most of it has been software integration issues that stem from the fact that Australia has made some very large demands on what the crew of two has to do.
A similar problem occurred years ago with the acquisition of the Sea Hawks due to the fact the three-man crew, or I should say the two men manning the tactical systems could in fact actually achieve 80 per cent of the capability of an Orion with a crew of 8-10 down the back of the aircraft !!
The U.S. Navy has the anti submarine and anti-surface warfare helicopters basically gather information and transmit it back to their ships where most of the processing in order to prosecute an attack etc is done and orders relayed back to the helicopter.
Australia instead decided to have it all down on board the helicopter with the resulting staggering software development and integration issues that cause massive cost overruns and time delays.
Once again it is the same old story mentioned in other posts where Australia has unique requirements, or at least we think we do, that nobody else in the world has and as a result we end up b*stardizing the platform and the systems, whether it be an aeroplane or helicopter or whatever and we then end up paying far too much for far too few platforms.
In other words we, the taxpayer do not get real value for money.
Thankfully with the C-17s the only difference was the paint job.
Another example is that for the relatively small production runs of say aircraft or helicopters that Australia has had over the past decades we would have been far better off as far as being able to afford more platforms for a given cost if we did not insist on setting up local production lines to actually build the aircraft at massive cost all to create a few hundred local jobs that end out being lost when the line closes in a few years anyway.
The politicians and defence bureaucrats never learn from the mistakes of the past. We certainly did not need to build 33 Hawk trainers here in Australia, these were also b*stardised in many unnecessary ways in order to have them emulate more closely the FA 18s in ways that were not required from a tactical training viewpoint.
What we DO NEED in this country is the ability to fully maintain all these aircraft and upgrade their avionics systems and weapons systems as and when necessary with little or no foreign assistance.
We do not build airliners in this country, for example Boeing 737s just because the local airlines need say a 100-150 of them and yet we insist on doing this with virtually every helicopter and aircraft type the military acquires.
I know many defence analysts who are far more in the know than I am agree completely with the above statements. Several of them have discussed them with me.
I'm of the opinion that the quality of the engineers in the Navy (with a few notable exceptions) is rather poor.
We had the debacle with the Manoora and another ship that were bought "second hand", then the Westralia fire which was caused in my opinion by criminal negligence and stupidity on the part of the Navy, and now this little mess. Then of course we had the selection of the PC9's as a training aircraft and the H&K (?) with its rotten safety catch, as an infantry weapon.
The decisions always seem to be made by the self interested,, either politicians, in the case of blowhard Beazley and the PC9, or by serving officers looking forward to a nice few years posting in San Diego or St. Louis as a "Project Manager".
As a result, we seem to buy overseas when we should be buying at home (The PC9), and buying at home what we should have bought off the shelf overseas (The Seasprite)).
And of course we always seem to have "unique" requirements that require a lot of very senior officers to do lots and lots of lovely overseas travel to explain to our bemused suppliers how things are down under.
We had the debacle with the Manoora and another ship that were bought "second hand", then the Westralia fire which was caused in my opinion by criminal negligence and stupidity on the part of the Navy, and now this little mess. Then of course we had the selection of the PC9's as a training aircraft and the H&K (?) with its rotten safety catch, as an infantry weapon.
The decisions always seem to be made by the self interested,, either politicians, in the case of blowhard Beazley and the PC9, or by serving officers looking forward to a nice few years posting in San Diego or St. Louis as a "Project Manager".
As a result, we seem to buy overseas when we should be buying at home (The PC9), and buying at home what we should have bought off the shelf overseas (The Seasprite)).
And of course we always seem to have "unique" requirements that require a lot of very senior officers to do lots and lots of lovely overseas travel to explain to our bemused suppliers how things are down under.
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Poor old 805 Squadron, once again thrown on the heap!!! The FAA had really copped a beating 20 odd years ago (with the decommissioning at the time of 724 SQN, 805 SQN, 816 SQN and 851 SQN) and most people thought it was gooone. Over the years it has tried to pull itself together and get a little bit of punch back. The seasprite was with the recommissioning of 805 squadron the FAA's first aircraft to operate an airborne missile since the retirement of the A-4G's. Now we have to try and intergrate the Penguin' AGM-119 anti-ship missile onto the seahawk. Apparently there are problems there. Or maybe the navy can store them with their main obsolete missile, the SM1!!! The SM1 is no longer in use with the US Navy and they have pulled most the launchers off their oliver hazzard perry class FFG's and their primary SM is the SM3. Not many spares available for the RAN!!! Maybe 805 squadron hangar can become a storage unit for obsolete helos and missiles
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Big comment ." I'm of the opinion that the quality of the engineers in the Navy (with a few notable exceptions) is rather poor."
Are you sure you really wanted to say that......
Having flown this beast, all I can say is that the project is finally over and I agree with that decision entirely. At best we can now get on with life and sort out the direction for the future rather than dwell on the past.
Although, looking into the rear view mirror to look at the train smash behind may prevent it happening again.
Rant withheld...............
Are you sure you really wanted to say that......
Having flown this beast, all I can say is that the project is finally over and I agree with that decision entirely. At best we can now get on with life and sort out the direction for the future rather than dwell on the past.
Although, looking into the rear view mirror to look at the train smash behind may prevent it happening again.
Rant withheld...............
How's this for spin!
Australia Government Seeks Discussion With Kaman to Conclude Super Seasprite Program
(Bloomfield, Conn., March 4, 2008) -- Kaman Corp. (Nasdaq: KAMN) said that it has been notified by the recently elected government of the Commonwealth of Australia that it wishes to initiate a negotiation with Kaman to end the Super Seasprite program on mutually agreed terms.
Responding to this overture, Neal J. Keating, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Kaman Corp., said, "We have received a communication from the Commonwealth that we are reviewing at this time with the expectation that we will enter a constructive process with the Commonwealth in order to arrive at a mutually agreeable conclusion to the Seasprite program. Although we have created a highly capable aircraft for the Royal Australian Navy and continue to fulfill our obligations to the Commonwealth under our contract, we appreciate the thoughtful approach and time invested by the current Government in addressing our program and we will work with them toward arriving at a satisfactory arrangement."
Source : Kaman Corp.
Sunfish
I thought that the cause of the fire was attributed to an incorrect type of fuel hose being fitted by a civilian contractor. I recall that the contractor accepted partial responsibility. The civilianisation of maintenance in the ADF is resulting in less experienced engineers doing the supervision and thus potential problems such as this don't get picked up. Contractors will always carry out the maintenance to a price - don't get me started on Qantas sending their aircraft overseas for maintenance.
(Bloomfield, Conn., March 4, 2008) -- Kaman Corp. (Nasdaq: KAMN) said that it has been notified by the recently elected government of the Commonwealth of Australia that it wishes to initiate a negotiation with Kaman to end the Super Seasprite program on mutually agreed terms.
Responding to this overture, Neal J. Keating, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Kaman Corp., said, "We have received a communication from the Commonwealth that we are reviewing at this time with the expectation that we will enter a constructive process with the Commonwealth in order to arrive at a mutually agreeable conclusion to the Seasprite program. Although we have created a highly capable aircraft for the Royal Australian Navy and continue to fulfill our obligations to the Commonwealth under our contract, we appreciate the thoughtful approach and time invested by the current Government in addressing our program and we will work with them toward arriving at a satisfactory arrangement."
Source : Kaman Corp.
Sunfish
then the Westralia fire which was caused in my opinion by criminal negligence and stupidity on the part of the Navy
Going Boeing, in regard to the Westralia, any marine engineer, military or not, would have instantly spotted an accident waiting to happen when they saw flexible hoses fitted to a Sulzer diesel.
The pressure pulses produced by the Sulzer injection system are severe, and the standard Sulzer lines to the injectors are double wall steel with a pressure gauge fitted to the interstitial cavity.
When pressure shows in that cavity, you know the inner pipe has fatigued, and you then have a limited time to replace the assembly as a unit, and of course they are not cheap.
Agony: I added the rider "with a few notable exceptions" to cover the good guys, but there has to be some rubbish in there somewhere. BTW, Sister in Laws brother is/was WEO, and a good and competent guy, and is now heavily involved in a rather large naval project, which I hope to God produces a better result that the Seasprite.
The pressure pulses produced by the Sulzer injection system are severe, and the standard Sulzer lines to the injectors are double wall steel with a pressure gauge fitted to the interstitial cavity.
When pressure shows in that cavity, you know the inner pipe has fatigued, and you then have a limited time to replace the assembly as a unit, and of course they are not cheap.
Agony: I added the rider "with a few notable exceptions" to cover the good guys, but there has to be some rubbish in there somewhere. BTW, Sister in Laws brother is/was WEO, and a good and competent guy, and is now heavily involved in a rather large naval project, which I hope to God produces a better result that the Seasprite.
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having worked, and still working within the navy system, on the seahawks, and having just completed phase 1 of seaking mods, i dont doubt the ability of the navy engineers, they are just as skilled as any, what is the killer in the navy is the navy system itself, its impossible to do a job to the best of your ability, and the navy paperwork and support is so incredibly frustrating and works against you, that to actually get the job done, corners have to be cut. the navy demand such a job in a set timeframe, yet cannot supply accurate drawings, (as they didnt purchase the rights to the engineering drawings when they bought the type) they refuse to spend any money on required tooling, or for correct part stocks for that matter. its the equivalent of the navy asking you to run a marathon in world record time, then proceeding to chop off both your legs, and wondering why you didnt meet their expectations.