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RAF announces Puma Replacement plan

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RAF announces Puma Replacement plan

Old 28th Feb 2021, 17:56
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no RAF helicopter has ever had a credible replacement date - such a waste of ink and hot air. Tail wheel and high TR is a must - have we not at least learnt that much!!!
Lost count of the number of dates we were given for Wessex/Puma replacement back in the day
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Old 1st Mar 2021, 09:55
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Originally Posted by 9BIT
The Belgians have got some hardly used NH-90s in storage. I reckon we could get a good price.
Not as yet the NH90 TTH still operational as can see by this CSAR /PRV exercise in the week



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Old 1st Mar 2021, 10:14
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AW149 Farnborough 2014 and 2016

First time I came across the AW149 was Farnborough Air Show 2014 (my pics below ) and as it happened on the Monday, the Italian MoD / Armaments Directorate had approved the AW149.










Two years alter Farnborough Airshow 2016, I attended the Leoanrdo brief on the AW149 (my photos). They had announced AUW increase for the a/c and as such also cleared it to integrate Russian gun/rocket system to attract say Eastern European countries. Anyhow they brought 2 x a/c with them.













Say for example we pick it in 2025-2030 timeline so it be decade plus in existence. I believe the Egyptian military are a recent customer of the type (probably supplied via US Army like their SAR AW139).

Cheers
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Old 1st Mar 2021, 18:53
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Originally Posted by JulieAndrews
Tail wheel and high TR is a must - have we not at least learnt that much!!!
Shouldn’t they just buy Blackhawks? Or is that too obvious and/or political?
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Old 1st Mar 2021, 20:14
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☝🏽 The obvious choice would be Blackhawk. Watch Leonardo dangle a carrot and say they’ll build any 149 order at Yeovil.

LZ

Last edited by Hot_LZ; 2nd Mar 2021 at 12:18.
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Old 1st Mar 2021, 21:38
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Maybe Blackhawk powered by something like RTM322?

Oh hang on....I’ve just had a flashback.
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Old 2nd Mar 2021, 07:57
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Shy - better get Michael Heseltine on the phone
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Old 2nd Mar 2021, 10:48
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From a crewman's perspective, none of the types that have transverse seating are suitable for the crewman to move around the cabin. On the Blackhawk for instance from their seat they cannot reach the doors and have to rely on the troops to close it. RAF Crewman have always had room to move from Whirlwind to Wessex to Puma to Chinook and then Merlin. We have always been able to use the cabin with minimum of fuss from troops to freight to casevac, or mixture of all. Small low cabins are pointless no matter how many fancy digital screens at the pointy end for the pilots, if you cannot achieve the task for the Army, which is why we have them in the first place.
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Old 2nd Mar 2021, 11:01
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Danger

Originally Posted by [email protected]
Shy - better get Michael Heseltine on the phone
And polish the mace while 😬🤠 you at it
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Old 2nd Mar 2021, 14:41
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If they intend to keep the capability 225/725 is the only choice. If they downsize then surely 149 is the choice.
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Old 2nd Mar 2021, 15:22
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Originally Posted by huge72
From a crewman's perspective, none of the types that have transverse seating are suitable for the crewman to move around the cabin. On the Blackhawk for instance from their seat they cannot reach the doors and have to rely on the troops to close it. RAF Crewman have always had room to move from Whirlwind to Wessex to Puma to Chinook and then Merlin. We have always been able to use the cabin with minimum of fuss from troops to freight to casevac, or mixture of all. Small low cabins are pointless no matter how many fancy digital screens at the pointy end for the pilots, if you cannot achieve the task for the Army, which is why we have them in the first place.
Some have said similar to you regarding rear crew training with the Airbus H145 Valley re DHFS/Ascent etc
cheers
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Old 2nd Mar 2021, 17:07
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Originally Posted by Mee3
If they intend to keep the capability 225/725 is the only choice. If they downsize then surely 149 is the choice.
Something like that. Is there a hot n high H225/725 because an off the shelf H225 is optimised for those long crew change flights over the ocean and we'd be back where we were several decades ago?
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Old 2nd Mar 2021, 19:30
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H175M

With the musings on H225M/H215M any thoughts on Airbus offering H175M?? AFAIK only two government operators, albeit prapublic Royal Thai Police Aviation Division (VIP??) and Hong Kong Government Service - (Special Duties Unit and SAR/EMS support). I am not awaree of any mil developments planned...

https://www.janes.com/defence-news/n...acement-for-uk

Cabin space probably a tad more with headroom, then AW149 ....I suppose thats about it.

cheers





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Old 3rd Mar 2021, 10:17
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Good time to resurrect the Westland Westminster. A couple of PT6`s and job done.
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Old 31st Mar 2021, 09:07
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Sikorsky and Boeing

Supposedly L-M Sikorsky may be offering UH-60M / S-70i



Hmmm let’s throw Boeing into the mixed bag with Mh-139 according to their musings

https://www.janes.com/defence-news/n...-later-in-2021

cheers

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Old 31st Mar 2021, 09:46
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UH-60M on an FMS basis would be a great MOTS purchase. FMS keeps the price very competitive. I have no idea if the RAF would go Euro after Brexit.
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Old 31st Mar 2021, 11:27
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Looking at the photos of the AW149, as posted above. Very nice.

However, having flown both analogue and more modern glass screen cockpits, I can’t help thinking how much could be put out of action in that cockpit by just one bullet, especially bearing in mind that a Data Aquisition Unit has to process all the information displayed.

As much as I like modern displays, I’ve suffered an inflight loss of a DAU, which resulted in the loss of ALL aircraft systems information, including engine temperatures, pressures, rpm, torque, electrics, hydraulics, rotor rpm, fuel contents, the lot.

Sometimes I’d prefer analogue, rather than having all the eggs in one basket.
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Old 31st Mar 2021, 13:01
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Crab and Shy: your posts brings back memories of flying the Rolls UH-60 with their RTM-322 installed and after the engine/airframe integration testing had been accomplished. Flew with Rolls test pilot Ken Robertson, and was impressed with both the performance of that engine, and the rigor with which they had tested same. Wouldn’t it be ironic to see something resurrect that idea this far down the road. BTW, there is some decent coverage of the Heseltine Affair in the Alan Bristow biography, but not the whole story, aircraft configuration-wise, as to why that ship wasn’t bought by the Saudi government. A missed opportunity for both companies.
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Old 31st Mar 2021, 23:08
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[


Thats a pretty strange architecture if failure of one DAU causes all systems to fail.... what about redundancy??? In the aircraft I fly at least two, in some cases even three “DAU’s” would have to fail before I loose all information.... the screens auto-reconfigure if a screen fails... etc etc..

Originally Posted by ShyTorque
Looking at the photos of the AW149, as posted above. Very nice.

However, having flown both analogue and more modern glass screen cockpits, I can’t help thinking how much could be put out of action in that cockpit by just one bullet, especially bearing in mind that a Data Aquisition Unit has to process all the information displayed.

As much as I like modern displays, I’ve suffered an inflight loss of a DAU, which resulted in the loss of ALL aircraft systems information, including engine temperatures, pressures, rpm, torque, electrics, hydraulics, rotor rpm, fuel contents, the lot.

Sometimes I’d prefer analogue, rather than having all the eggs in one basket.
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Old 1st Apr 2021, 13:40
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Originally Posted by ShyTorque
Looking at the photos of the AW149, as posted above. Very nice.

However, having flown both analogue and more modern glass screen cockpits, I can’t help thinking how much could be put out of action in that cockpit by just one bullet, especially bearing in mind that a Data Aquisition Unit has to process all the information displayed.

As much as I like modern displays, I’ve suffered an inflight loss of a DAU, which resulted in the loss of ALL aircraft systems information, including engine temperatures, pressures, rpm, torque, electrics, hydraulics, rotor rpm, fuel contents, the lot.

Sometimes I’d prefer analogue, rather than having all the eggs in one basket.
As someone said below, pretty rubbish architecture if there's a single point of failure across the entire cockpit . However, I'd be more disappointed about the loss of ballistic protection given by all those steam gauges in front of you - I've yet to see an MFD marketed as bullet proof!
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