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Post by richard1098 on Aug 15, 2023 17:23:44 GMT 12
Since we're all guessing or assuming here, Correct, the C-27J was indeed supposed to be the tactical battlefield airlifter that could get into lots of tight little strips that the C-130 could never consider. I'm not sure of the exact reasons why its IRCM system isn't getting certified but I suspect the FMS situation is not helping as it creates some of the most complicated environments ever imagined when you have two+ government bodies, multiple vendors, ITARs, etc. You can wind up in the situation where a manufacturer and/or third party vendor cannot get access to the information required to allow them to tailor & install the system. It can become a total nightmare unless you get 100% identical to what the US is operating. Sadly, battlefields are no longer in the C-27J's future unless all hell really does breakout and then we're going to see a lot of *very* interesting situations, solutions & innovations. my guess is that's the issue. Leonardo's own testing would have validated that the system, in its entirety, works as specified. But without detailed understanding of the inner workings of each and every component (ie access to the IP) they'd have difficulty dealing with stringent configuration management requirements. So the system might still work, but ongoing modifications will include more "let's see what happens, and make any further changes as needed." It's interesting that the DoD have said that the system can't be certified, not that it doesn't work. So in the mean time, the aircraft won't be flown into any highly contested airspace within which there is the full spectrum of threats. And since currently the ADF is not operating in any such war zone, let's spend our time and money on more pressing issues.
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Post by falcon124 on Aug 16, 2023 23:35:45 GMT 12
Speaking of FMS and large transports, I have found some public domain info on the ADF's recently announced purchase of new-build C-130Js and confirmed that they'll have radio frequency counter measures, large aircraft infrared countermeasures, missile warning systems, radar warning receivers and countermeasures dispensing systems. In other words: all the goodies you want to help give you *some* level of protection when operating in a hot environment (even if all it does is tell you it's time to leave ) with everything coming through the FMS case and integrated into the airframes by the primary vendor. No mess, no fuss, and remember: no one got fired in the ADF for buying American...
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Post by snafu on Aug 17, 2023 5:04:39 GMT 12
Since we're all guessing or assuming here, Correct, the C-27J was indeed supposed to be the tactical battlefield airlifter that could get into lots of tight little strips that the C-130 could never consider. I'm not sure of the exact reasons why its IRCM system isn't getting certified but I suspect the FMS situation is not helping as it creates some of the most complicated environments ever imagined when you have two+ government bodies, multiple vendors, ITARs, etc. You can wind up in the situation where a manufacturer and/or third party vendor cannot get access to the information required to allow them to tailor & install the system. It can become a total nightmare unless you get 100% identical to what the US is operating. Sadly, battlefields are no longer in the C-27J's future unless all hell really does breakout and then we're going to see a lot of *very* interesting situations, solutions & innovations. my guess is that's the issue. Leonardo's own testing would have validated that the system, in its entirety, works as specified. But without detailed understanding of the inner workings of each and every component (ie access to the IP) they'd have difficulty dealing with stringent configuration management requirements. So the system might still work, but ongoing modifications will include more "let's see what happens, and make any further changes as needed." It's interesting that the DoD have said that the system can't be certified, not that it doesn't work. So in the mean time, the aircraft won't be flown into any highly contested airspace within which there is the full spectrum of threats. And since currently the ADF is not operating in any such war zone, let's spend our time and money on more pressing issues. I suspect you are correct that it cannot be certified for whatever reason not that it does not work or does not do in certian areas perhaps. www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2020-09-21/spartan-proves-airborne-operations-capabilities
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 29, 2023 14:07:20 GMT 12
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Post by snafu on Sept 29, 2023 17:37:35 GMT 12
Wonder how much that actually saves over the 15 months until it officially retired? Well according to the ABC NZ fly on average of 23 hours i would think that the ADF would be something of the same. I work on 2/3 (27) of the fleet as operational at any one time as per the article $48000 per hour $1,296,000.00 per month over 15 months thats $19,440,000/00 pity they can't put the saving to buying an additional UH-60M. Airbus will most likely buy the spares holdings and cabs to ease spares holding of existing users. like to see that money go towards a mixed buy of MH-47 & MH-60M and extra funding for KC-130J www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-07/mrh90-taipan-helicopters-flying-after-jervis-bay-ditching/102201316
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Post by Mustang51 on Sept 29, 2023 20:23:52 GMT 12
Never should have been purchased
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Post by ErrolC on Sept 30, 2023 8:52:06 GMT 12
Wonder how much that actually saves over the 15 months until it officially retired? Well according to the ABC NZ fly on average of 23 hours i would think that the ADF would be something of the same. I work on 2/3 (27) of the fleet as operational at any one time as per the article $48000 per hour $1,296,000.00 per month over 15 months thats $19,440,000/00 pity they can't put the saving to buying an additional UH-60M. Airbus will most likely buy the spares holdings and cabs to ease spares holding of existing users. like to see that money go towards a mixed buy of MH-47 & MH-60M and extra funding for KC-130J www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-07/mrh90-taipan-helicopters-flying-after-jervis-bay-ditching/102201316And how much of that cost per flight hour is stuff that doesn't go away as you convert to another type? Mainly people's pay, plus however you meet your requirements while the assets purchased to do it can't. It isn't actual cash you have extra because the airframes aren't flying.
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chrisr
Squadron Leader
Posts: 102
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Post by chrisr on Sept 30, 2023 10:02:00 GMT 12
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Post by falcon124 on Sept 30, 2023 13:56:32 GMT 12
Comparing prices per hour is *very* difficult as the ADF and our pollies are VERY good at obfuscating. Those who want to kill a project include the total costs of upgrading bases, installing simulators, training and more (basically the whole kitchen sink) into the all-up price, then try to create a "cost per hour" from that. Trying to get them to give a direct cost (consumables, cost of crew & support staff and allocation for time-limited parts) is almost impossible At the time the MRH-90s were purchased, they were considered to be much better than the Blackhawks and numbers were produced to demonstrate this. Sadly, the ADF has had major issues integrating their existing maintenance & management systems with those used by Airbus which has lead to parts being flown longer than they should, unknown servicabilities on components, software patches not applied (apparently) and more. We've also tried to have maintenance performed in three different locations (only one in NZ) which has further complicated keeping them in the air. Throw in all sorts of hassles getting parts then having the parts in the right places and it's all wound up going to hell. Things get worse when you consider the MRH-90 having issues doing fast-insert/depart procedures for SAS troops (Blackhawks were great for this) and difficulties providing covering fire while soldiers are rappelling into a clearing, which all should have been considered in the procurement process, and yes, it's just not working out for the ADF Interesting that every other country flying the NH-90 and *not* trying to modify it considerably are not reporting major issues and haven't grounded their aircraft. Also interesting to consider how Australia is going to respond if "Operation Deny Christmas" occurs once again and we need rotary support (eg: HADR emergency in Oz or our neighbours). We may have the first couple of new Blackhawks in country but are they ready to help?
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Post by richard1098 on Sept 30, 2023 17:12:30 GMT 12
Comparing prices per hour is *very* difficult as the ADF and our pollies are VERY good at obfuscating. Those who want to kill a project include the total costs of upgrading bases, installing simulators, training and more (basically the whole kitchen sink) into the all-up price, then try to create a "cost per hour" from that. Trying to get them to give a direct cost (consumables, cost of crew & support staff and allocation for time-limited parts) is almost impossible At the time the MRH-90s were purchased, they were considered to be much better than the Blackhawks and numbers were produced to demonstrate this. Sadly, the ADF has had major issues integrating their existing maintenance & management systems with those used by Airbus which has lead to parts being flown longer than they should, unknown servicabilities on components, software patches not applied (apparently) and more. We've also tried to have maintenance performed in three different locations (only one in NZ) which has further complicated keeping them in the air. Throw in all sorts of hassles getting parts then having the parts in the right places and it's all wound up going to hell. Things get worse when you consider the MRH-90 having issues doing fast-insert/depart procedures for SAS troops (Blackhawks were great for this) and difficulties providing covering fire while soldiers are rappelling into a clearing, which all should have been considered in the procurement process, and yes, it's just not working out for the ADF Interesting that every other country flying the NH-90 and *not* trying to modify it considerably are not reporting major issues and haven't grounded their aircraft. Also interesting to consider how Australia is going to respond if "Operation Deny Christmas" occurs once again and we need rotary support (eg: HADR emergency in Oz or our neighbours). We may have the first couple of new Blackhawks in country but are they ready to help? Not sure what modifications you're refering to, as the ADF MRH90s were very close to those operated by the Germans. NZ's NH90s are more unique, and compared to the Swedish models and some of the NFH variants, they are absolutely vanilla. Italian operated NH90s even use different engines. It's interesting that given all the different platforms operated by the ADF, it's only the MRH90 that supposedly has been plagued by incompatibilities in logistics/support systems. All NATO operators of the NH90 are reporting low availability rates for the type, while Norway, Sweden and Belgium have all decided to walk away from the NH90 or NFH90 platforms. That's pretty unusual. At the end of the day, the ADF knew full well how the MRH90 and UH-60 compared having operated the two types in parallel for quite some time, and made their decision based on that experience. One of the pitfalls of the procurement process is that there is often no way of validating data submitted by industry to support their bid. The cost and scedule estimates for the RNZNs ANZAC frigate upgrade are a case in point.
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Post by Mustang51 on Sept 30, 2023 17:21:19 GMT 12
.....or the Pollies deciding that they could get a few more votes by manufacturing here and dangling jobs.....
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Post by richard1098 on Sept 30, 2023 17:26:51 GMT 12
.....or the Pollies deciding that they could get a few more votes by manufacturing here and dangling jobs..... Could have just as easily done that with the UH-60 as was the case for the original aircraft (S.70s procured direct from Sikorsky and locally assembled in Aus).
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Post by snafu on Oct 1, 2023 7:53:37 GMT 12
Comparing prices per hour is *very* difficult as the ADF and our pollies are VERY good at obfuscating. Those who want to kill a project include the total costs of upgrading bases, installing simulators, training and more (basically the whole kitchen sink) into the all-up price, then try to create a "cost per hour" from that. Trying to get them to give a direct cost (consumables, cost of crew & support staff and allocation for time-limited parts) is almost impossible At the time the MRH-90s were purchased, they were considered to be much better than the Blackhawks and numbers were produced to demonstrate this. Sadly, the ADF has had major issues integrating their existing maintenance & management systems with those used by Airbus which has lead to parts being flown longer than they should, unknown servicabilities on components, software patches not applied (apparently) and more. We've also tried to have maintenance performed in three different locations (only one in NZ) which has further complicated keeping them in the air. Throw in all sorts of hassles getting parts then having the parts in the right places and it's all wound up going to hell. Things get worse when you consider the MRH-90 having issues doing fast-insert/depart procedures for SAS troops (Blackhawks were great for this) and difficulties providing covering fire while soldiers are rappelling into a clearing, which all should have been considered in the procurement process, and yes, it's just not working out for the ADF Interesting that every other country flying the NH-90 and *not* trying to modify it considerably are not reporting major issues and haven't grounded their aircraft. Also interesting to consider how Australia is going to respond if "Operation Deny Christmas" occurs once again and we need rotary support (eg: HADR emergency in Oz or our neighbours). We may have the first couple of new Blackhawks in country but are they ready to help? Agree, it is very hard to get a simple figure as even the ANAO reports vary widely, but it is very interesting to say the least that from 2022 to the original out of service date of 2037 it was reported that MRH would cost an estimated $9.5 billion required to sustain them they also estimate by switching the UH-60M in the same period the acquisition and sustainment costs will save defence $2.5 billion The thing is just because the ADF is moving to the Blackhawks does not mean that the machines are infallible they too have had their fair share of accidents, no one knows if the ADF last MRH crash was mechanical or pilot error, but those numbers on sustainment were too large to ignore crash or no crash. australianaviation.com.au/2021/12/analysing-the-timing-of-defences-taipan-decision/
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Post by snafu on Oct 1, 2023 8:05:48 GMT 12
Comparing prices per hour is *very* difficult as the ADF and our pollies are VERY good at obfuscating. Those who want to kill a project include the total costs of upgrading bases, installing simulators, training and more (basically the whole kitchen sink) into the all-up price, then try to create a "cost per hour" from that. Trying to get them to give a direct cost (consumables, cost of crew & support staff and allocation for time-limited parts) is almost impossible At the time the MRH-90s were purchased, they were considered to be much better than the Blackhawks and numbers were produced to demonstrate this. Sadly, the ADF has had major issues integrating their existing maintenance & management systems with those used by Airbus which has lead to parts being flown longer than they should, unknown servicabilities on components, software patches not applied (apparently) and more. We've also tried to have maintenance performed in three different locations (only one in NZ) which has further complicated keeping them in the air. Throw in all sorts of hassles getting parts then having the parts in the right places and it's all wound up going to hell. Things get worse when you consider the MRH-90 having issues doing fast-insert/depart procedures for SAS troops (Blackhawks were great for this) and difficulties providing covering fire while soldiers are rappelling into a clearing, which all should have been considered in the procurement process, and yes, it's just not working out for the ADF Interesting that every other country flying the NH-90 and *not* trying to modify it considerably are not reporting major issues and haven't grounded their aircraft. Also interesting to consider how Australia is going to respond if "Operation Deny Christmas" occurs once again and we need rotary support (eg: HADR emergency in Oz or our neighbours). We may have the first couple of new Blackhawks in country but are they ready to help? It's interesting that given all the different platforms operated by the ADF, it's only the MRH90 that supposedly has been plagued by incompatibilities in logistics/support systems. It is interesting that only Euro aircraft are having difficulty within the ADF, do not forget ARH Tiger is getting replace with Apache think it is an Airbus defence problem personally think it's an economies of scale problem as there are only 471 helicopters made compared to over 5000 for Blackhawk.
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Post by richard1098 on Oct 1, 2023 15:49:28 GMT 12
It's interesting that given all the different platforms operated by the ADF, it's only the MRH90 that supposedly has been plagued by incompatibilities in logistics/support systems. It is interesting that only Euro aircraft are having difficulty within the ADF, do not forget ARH Tiger is getting replace with Apache think it is an Airbus defence problem personally think it's an economies of scale problem as there are only 471 helicopters made compared to over 5000 for Blackhawk. Same with Tiger; there can’t be many more than 100 actually flying.
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Post by falcon124 on Oct 2, 2023 17:14:26 GMT 12
Not sure what modifications you're refering to, as the ADF MRH90s were very close to those operated by the Germans. Sorry, I should have been clearer: Oz hasn't modified our NH-90s to make the MRH-90 but I'd heard that at least one of the operators (Norway?) had made some major modifications to their airframes which was a contributing factor to issues being experienced. Unfortunately I don't have an article that supports this information All NATO operators of the NH90 are reporting low availability rates for the type, while Norway, Sweden and Belgium have all decided to walk away from the NH90 or NFH90 platforms. That's pretty unusual. No argument there and yes, it is indicative of issues across the board when 4 of 14 operators are dumping the type. At least the others who are switching to other types aren't grounding them and sending them back to base on trucks as the ADF did with the other MRH-90s that were involved in the exercise As has been noted, it seems that Airbus Industries' way of working doesn't align with how the ADF operates/maintains their assets as ARH Tiger joins MRH-90 on the "nope" pile.
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chrisr
Squadron Leader
Posts: 102
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Post by chrisr on Oct 3, 2023 20:02:50 GMT 12
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Post by kiwiruna on Oct 7, 2023 10:31:22 GMT 12
It's official, according to the War Zone Australian Defence Minister,Richard Marles, announced on Sept 29th "the helicopters will never again fly in Australian service"
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Post by gibbo on Dec 21, 2023 15:13:14 GMT 12
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Post by ErrolC on Dec 21, 2023 18:28:54 GMT 12
This would be spares/used parts from an operator that hasn't been tracking component use correctly...?
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