£60 Million, that will be £20 million for the Merlin and £10 million for Westlands to say it can be flown by the RN and £30 Million for the onboard Pies.


Glad everyone is safe, and best wishes for a full and speedy return to fitness and flying.

When I was on 700M squadron the right-off cost for RN24 was £39.5m or so the C126 form from the Supply (or is that logistics) people said. £1.5m for a Hawk though!

Obviously a bit of cost inflation going on by the BBC.

Either that or the fine PRO at Culdrose has succeeded in blowing it yet again.

I feel sorry for the lads who will be walking around the airfield for 3 weeks picking up MMMF fibres (very carefully). Obviously the cab rolled over.

Best wishes to the crew
 

Good to see they all survived, best wishes to them all. Here's wishing them a speedy return to flying.

Little bird tells me it threww a tail rotor blade on short finals:eek:

Not a good day for the Mighty Merlin
 

Appears to be rather a mess in the BBC picture - do we know if the aircraft rolled when it met with the ground?

Glad all concerned lived to tell the tell - indicates the strength of the airframe.

Best to let the boys from VL do their job before we all try and guess the cause although T/R failure does seem on everyone's lips - another Italian design!

Let's hope we see the Mighty Merlin flying soon!!

Glad to hear that everyone's safe.

Ditto the above sentiments.

Merlin Crash
 

ZH 844, a/c didn't roll on impact due to low hover height, as he was awaiting departure clearance. Very big relief to see the guys got out eventually, and a speedy recovery to those taken to Treliske. Thoughts are with families of all, and had a couple of light beverages in honour of the crews, Good work fellas :o )

Sod the cost, boys got out, can always buy another.

240 and below - I am told that a member of the crew had to be cut out - do you know which crew member?

At least this example had a EAS installed so that will give some data to aid the investigation.

:ugh:

ZH844 - RHS pilot had to be cut out. That pilot is "recovering" according to this mornings local news.

The three backseaters got out v quick, and were in the bar by 1700.

Glad to see the guys were OK

RF

Can anyone PM me with names if known?

Cheers

Rod Flow
What took them so long? In Cyprus the Lightning jock was standing in the bar, in a puddle of water, blanket over his shoulders and about 200 aircrew hanging on every word.

Not out of interest per ce but to ensure they could not be on the BOI. Then the Docs got him and whisked him off to hospital.

PN

We are talking RN hospitality here. The bar wasn't open til then!

RF

In the hover the half hub broke, separating one tail rotor blade, completely, quickly followed by two others, the aircraft did a 180 and crashed. The pilot went to shut down the engines, but realised it was a waste of time as they were in front of him!
Non-handler being patched up in hospital, the instrument panel banged up his leg, and the mission panel took out his shoulder.:ouch: Ground crew and rear crew very lucky to escape uninjured.
Was it the mayor of Nagasaki who said, "What the F*** was that?"

Interesting isn't it.

Quite a lot of money each.

One in the Sound of Raasay, one at Culdrose.

Some early aircraft, excluding the PP a/c, will never actually be mission capable.

Contract cost? Contract value? Not the same thing methinks...

When I worked at Westlands in the late eighties/early nineties they were retailing at £50m for a copy - still thats inflation for you:{ During its development it lost a couple of aircraft - I think it had a rather anoying habit of applying its rotor brake whilst in flight....My memory is a little vague but I seem to recall a crew of one prototype aircraft had to bail put, but sadly a second (I believe Italian) crew lost there lives due to this or a similar fault.
Still at the time I was involved with it a good aircraft, with a lot of potential, something I am sure the crews at Culdrose and Benson would go along with.

RichiePAO - your memory is almost right (unless mine is wrong). Italian crew that died were in PP2 when the rotor brake thing happened, at low level I believe. The crew that bailed out were in PP4 when the tail rotor pitch control rod broke near the bottom of the fin (up at about 15000'), forcing the tail rotor to max pitch (weight of rod hanging on hyd actuator). That one was over Somerset, a large area of Somerset by the time it stopped.

They do appear to be having more than their fair share of problems, and I have to agree with the lack of value for money comment. RN 1 springs to mind as never going to get to 'mission capable' status.

Having worked on several variants of the big bus, I too think it had potential, maybe it was just poorly executed (I don't mean by the actual workers, the ones I worked alongside were excellent, professional guys and gals), which is a real shame.

Glad to hear they all got out, even though not immediately.
Sounds like a concerning failure for the rest of the crews though.

A quick update. Post fleet check of I understand 42 aircraft; they all have the same fault. Ooooops!:ooh: