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Post by corsair67 on Mar 7, 2010 20:43:08 GMT 12
You're kidding aren't you? You've just made comment about the fact that someone has quit the forum because they couldn't stand the heat in the kitchen, and now you're about to do the same thing? Chill out people.
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Post by beagle on Mar 7, 2010 20:49:17 GMT 12
So does anyone think the RAF EH101 would be too big for us
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Post by beagle on Mar 7, 2010 20:50:48 GMT 12
oops, wheres everyone gone, not all quit the site I hope. We all need everyones different opinions and knowledge. comon guys, we are a team !!!!!!
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Post by phil82 on Mar 7, 2010 20:51:17 GMT 12
You're kidding aren't you? You've just made comment about the fact that someone has quit the forum because they couldn't stand the heat in the kitchen, and now you're about to do the same thing? Chill out people. Kidding? Not at all, and my comment was on entirely different set of circumstances.
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Post by corsair67 on Mar 7, 2010 20:51:52 GMT 12
Nice work, Beags. ;D
I always thought the NH-90 and EH-101 were of a similar size, but obviously that isn't right.
Just had a look at the' highly reliable' Wikipedia site, and according to that, the EH-101 is about only slightly bigger then the NH-90, and can carry 24 seated troops, compared to the NH-90s 20.
As you mentioned earlier, Beags, there seems to have been a number of tail rotor issues which have cast a shadow over the type's intro to service.
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Post by beagle on Mar 7, 2010 20:57:22 GMT 12
a third engine makes it into the 15 ton class as oppossed to the 10 ton ... I think
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Post by corsair67 on Mar 7, 2010 21:00:12 GMT 12
You can never have too many engines! The max takeoff weight of the EH-101 is about 5000kg more. I reckon they look nicer than the NH-90 - so that has to count for something, doesn't it?
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Post by beagle on Mar 7, 2010 21:03:47 GMT 12
actually I just just checked wikipedia and it is now called the AW101 and reading on the ramp can take 3000kg so we should be putting that ramp on our NH-90s and maybe grabbing the seats out of it. I wonder after reading about the seating problem the germans have been having, should we, which we could do with kiwi knowhow, is modify the good trusty herk webbing seats. I have seen some big army boys sit on them .
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Post by beagle on Mar 7, 2010 21:13:00 GMT 12
I just looked at the image of it on wikipedia again and looking on the tailboom it has that strake that we were putting on the Iroquois in the 90's. do we still have that mod as from memory there was some contention regarding it.
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Post by beagle on Mar 7, 2010 21:15:20 GMT 12
Hi mike, hows those P3's going. getting enough rations lately. Actually I should ring Mr Mapps and remind him how many KG's of ration go on a P3 mission. A few filled rolls and milk powder might save a few dollars and weight .
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Post by corsair67 on Mar 7, 2010 21:27:40 GMT 12
That's a bit extravagant! Have you seen the cost of filled rolls and powdered milk lately???
Did the RNZAF look at the EH/AW-101 when it was looking for the UH-1H replacement?
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Post by beagle on Mar 7, 2010 21:31:59 GMT 12
maybe, you would have to ask a few people like Ron Thacker or Patch Neilson. I suppose it would have been on an original list of the top 6. Others would have been the Aw139 which has now been revised and fully militarised into the AW149
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Post by beagle on Mar 7, 2010 21:42:16 GMT 12
That's a bit extravagant! Have you seen the cost of filled rolls and powdered milk lately??? yes they are both up there. Maybe 5 Sqn should start a small garden in front of their building to grow some healthy greens etc. Just read the other day that over 1000 police failed their annual fitness test. I remember a few " bigger" guys getting winched up the ladder... hehehe, not winched but a bit of an effort. and no this is not an all out attack on 5Sqn aircrew. just some sunday nite banter
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Post by corsair67 on Mar 7, 2010 21:51:26 GMT 12
And they could divert water from their Orion 'birdbath' onto the gardens, thereby saving the environment too.
Can we all hold hands and sing Kumbayah now? ;D
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 7, 2010 21:53:02 GMT 12
Beagle,did you know the RNZAF had at least 50 full time gardeners during the war, growing veges for the bigger stations.
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Post by beagle on Mar 7, 2010 21:57:50 GMT 12
they should bring it back and use dole bludgers
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Post by nhdriver on Mar 8, 2010 5:14:03 GMT 12
Hello from 60N25E. We have been operating 22 months with NH90 and all I have to say is that maybe you should have bit more faith also. It´s definately not perfect yet, but with a bit more maturity it´s doing just fine. Afterall there wasn`t any actual showstoppers in German report, was there.
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Post by caromeg on Mar 8, 2010 6:34:05 GMT 12
When the Army upgraded from the Enfield to the SLR there was huge grumbling and moaning. When it upgraded to the M16 there was more (some valid), When the Plastic Steyr turned up it was the end of the world, yet Army shooting score went through the roof with the Steyr. Yes it had problems but so did the M16, SLR and Enfield .303. I would (and have) take the steyr over most weapons available for operations. My point is, lets wait until the jury is out on this. Migrating to the NH90 will mean loss of capability. The Huey can do things that you just wont risk such a capable and expensive platform. But conversely the NH90 will be able to do different things and some same stuff a lot better. The issues are not so much with the platform, but the user requirement definition. If there are any problems with this project, they reside here. I know for sure that the Army will bleat and moan, but they didn't really engage with Air on user requirement definition. Air and Army are like two ships passing in the night sometimes and our Army is particularly poor at understanding aviation. As a maritime nation I do think the NH 90 with its extra range will have far greater SAR capabilities than the Huey. Its never gone down well seeing a single engine helo a fair distance of the coast doing a hoist. From a pure military perspective, I think the NH90 will show up some of our silver bullet thinking of trying to get the most effects out of a single platform. If the RNZAF contracted out its flight training and kept the Huey's with all the maintenance cost that goes with them, we would actually cover all the bases that we need to. There is nothing wrong with the UH-1H apart from its age and our fleet is particularly well maintained. A mixed fleet of A109, UH-1H and NH90 would crack it and provide a capability in the region worth noting. One of the main reasons to keep the UH-1h (IMHO) is that its agricultural and in the tropics, something as simple as the Huey is more reliable. Especially with RNZAF maintainers.
Which raises another point. If you think about it the RNZAF maintenance capability (including industry) have saved the tax payer billions. If we had to replace airframes at the rate our allies did, especially in the 1970s and 1980s we would be onto our third fleet of C-130s and second fleet of P-3s, Huey's recycled 4 or 5 times. I take my hat off to them and prefer to fly teeny weeny blue line airline over any other for this reason.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 8, 2010 10:04:00 GMT 12
Welcome to the forum nhdriver. It is great to have someone who is actually flying the type offer an opinion.
As Hawkeye points out virtually all new military equipment goes through a period of ironing out bugs, and even the most challenging of them can usually be resolved. Does anyone recall the problems we had with the Aermacchi MB339CB when it entered service with the RNZAF? But after a period of sorting the fleet out they settled down to become an awesome asset for the RNZAF, and one we all regret the loss of.
It has been stated before from people within the RNZAF that the Iroquois won't be instantly phased out and a certain number will likely be retained for a period to work alongside the new helicopters.
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Post by skyhawkdon on Mar 8, 2010 11:44:15 GMT 12
Looking back on two projects which I was intimately involved with during my time at Ohakea - the Kahu update and the introduction of the Macchi I can make a couple of observations.
1.There will always be "problems" introducing a new piece of kit into service. While the new kit is still under warranty then the RNZAF is limited in what it can say and do to fix the problems themselves. You are very dependant on the contractor and their sub contractors to put right the issues in this time. With both Kahu and the Macchi we had prime contractors who became increasingly reluctant to spend any more money on fixing the problems found during testing and the initial introductions to service. For them there was a diminishing return in spending any more time or money on our contract. They moved on to other contracts and we were left very much alone. The only time they became interested again was if they were paid to come back and fix things. During the warranty period we couldn't open any boxes ourselves and have a look at the problem causing the faults. It wasn't until the warranty period expired and we started opening up boxes that we started to really find what we had bought ourselves (in the case of the Macchi a whole lot of trouble!).
2. Things always tend to be bigger issues than they really are. For Kahu we thought we had a real problem with the avionics overheating causing lots of faults and it was doom and gloom when the contractor's solution was to just raise the specs/tolerances of the avionics so it was now within the temps we were experiencing (yes that was their engineering solution!). However as the system matured it actually became incredibly reliable. The bathtub curve does exist! The Macchi was similar. In the end we just accepted what we had and made the most of it and it settled down. The engine was still a problem and always would be, but the avionics "problems" became much more manageable once we had control over what we could repair ourselves.
This is an area of concern I have with the current projects. My understanding is we will do virtually no in-house repairs of components in NZ. Everything will just get sent overseas. That is a worry. We will loose our ability to grow our in-house knowledge on the systems as a result. The Avionics trade will become nothing more than glorified black box changars. That is a mistake in an Air Force as small as ours and so far from OEM support.
With Kahu we had "extended ILM" capability, which was almost component level repair for the Avionics right from the start. If we hadn't had that we would have been in deep shite later on when we were left flying an orphan system that no one else flew or maintained. If you don't include the delivery of a full ILM capability in your original purchase contract then it will be a very expensie capability to aquire later. It may cost a little more in the up front project costs but it will pay for itself in spades over the life of the equipment in service. Unfortunately such things, like buying sufficient spares up front are easy things to cut out of a contract to stay within a budget. "We can buy that later". Famous last words for a small Air Force with very limited budgets!
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