The end of an era in Naval Aviation

[French G.]

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=98721&ran=67880&tref=po

 This sucks, I spent three years of my life fixing these beasts and wish I could go back for more. It is almost enough for me to want to move to Nova Scotia and fix Canuck Sea Kings. A cadillac of helos, almost gone, looks like HMX-1 will be the last hold-outs.

Flying Yesterday's Helicopters...Tomorrow. H-3s Forever!

Hmm, 7783 NEC obsolete, time to get some more schools.

[Fly320s]

On a related note, who won the contract for the new Presidential helicopter?

[matis]

On a related note, who won the contract for the new Presidential helicopter?

I don't remember the name, but it was some European company.


But look on the bright side.


If we ever find ourselves at war with Europe or China -- it will be almost bloodless and over quickly.


They'll simply stop shipping us the electronics and other equipment our military uses and it will all over in weeks.



See, every cloud has a silver lining.   :/




matis

[chaim]

Does the Coast Guard still use the Sea King?

[French G.]

Nope, the Coasties are all on Jayhawks HH-60J(s) and Dauphins HH-65(s). Good helos both of them.

I can't seem to remember on the presidential contract, I think they went with EH-101s, which is a really nice bird, joint venture of Westland, Agusta, and I think Sikorsky.

Oh well, the world has not seen the last of the H-3/S-61. Many of them still on the loose in many militaries. I see civilian ones occasionally too. Kind of like a DC-3 with rotors.

[CatsDieNow]

Lockheed Martin got the copter contract.  

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=16696&rsbci=0&fti=0&ti=0&sc=400

[French G.]

Thanks Cats for the link. Looks like I was partly right, the US101 is an EH101 variant. I can only assume that the US stands for Unscrupulous Spending. From the LMT website:

"Lockheed Martin Systems Integration - Owego is the prime contractor and systems integrator for the U.S. Navys Presidential Helicopter Replacement (VXX) program. The US101 aircraft is an American variant of AgustaWestlands successful EH101 multimission helicopter, built from components provided by more than 200 suppliers in 41 states.

For additional information, visit http://www.TeamUS101.com."

41 states? I can understand outsourcing if a company produces an of the shelf part you need, for example GE builds turbine engines. This is more wronger than building one submarine in two shipyards and then acting like it is smart business.  

 Whoever is procuring this thing could have just bought some EH-101s from Agusta/Westland and the pres would already be riding in style for a lot less money. I got the nickel tour of an EH-101 4 years ago, liberally zapped it as it stayed overnight in our hangar, really pretty aircraft. Humongous cabin area, active vibration dampning and such, should be a real smooth flier.

 Or, they could have just bought some Sikorsky S-92s. Very nice executive helo.

Pretty funny, now that the H-3 is gone the lower level VIPs such as Admirals, Vice Pres and such get to sport around in pimped out H-60s. All the head room of a Yugo. Bah!

[matis]

Lockheed Martin got the copter contract.  

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=16696&rsbci=0&fti=0&ti=0&sc=400

Well, Cats, I'm glad to have been wrong on this.



Lockheed Martin is definately American.  Yet the helo, as mentioned above is built by a British-Italian helicopter consortium, Agusta-Westland, with some American components.


Oh, well, I guess I'm behind the times.  Can't see us at war with England or Italy any time soon.


I keep thinking, however of all those electronic components the military uses that come from Japan, China, Malaysia, etc.


matis

[CatsDieNow]

LM's policy on suppliers is to use small, American businesses whenever possible.  They do pretty good at spreading the wealth and opportunities to mom and pop shops, too.   This is good for everyone and helps dispell the idea of the big, evil corporation.  As long as they can reliably make a good product and ship it on time, LM has no trouble using 5-man shops.

Usually when they go to foreign countries it is part of some offset agreement.  "We'll sell you 30 planes, but we'll give your country a supply contract for a certain set of parts used on those planes worth 100 mil or some such.  Many big manufactuers do this.  I don't think that's the case this time, though since it's a very limited production.

I'm not familiar with the helicopter or plans for this, but the proposal beat out the Sikorsky one.  There was some flak and talk of re-examining it, but I don't know how that all shook out.

[Leatherneck]

Increment one of the VH-71 contract buys one EH-101 Test Vehicle plus three VH-71 developmental helos for basic T&E. Increment two buys 23 helos destined to be "Marine One." The increment two birds will have all the bells and whistles and will reach initial operational capability in 2012.

Surprisingly, there will be a lot of international contributions in addtion to the basic work by LMSI, Augusta-Westland and Bell. The transmission, for instance will be based on Russian design--they have a lot of experience in high-power dynamic components.

For a small contract, the VH-71 program enjoys a great deal of scrutiny from Congress and the aerospace media.

TC

[Ezekiel]

End of an era?  After 40 years?  "You bet."

I thought the same when the USS Lexington (last of the Essex class carriers) was retired some 15 years ago with ~40 years in service.  Within the next decade, the first nuclear supercarriers will be gone, too, with four decades of use.  I think Enterprise will be the first...