As damned useful as helicopters are a recent story from the MoD highlighted just how difficult it is to keep them safely flying.
While specialist support crews in theatre conduct the day-to-day maintenance on the hi-tech helicopter, the aircraft also has a legion of engineering experts poised for action in the UK. Based at Attack Helicopter HQ in Wattisham, a highly-skilled group of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) craftsmen work alongside civilian contractors to run a Depth Support Unit (DSU) – an organisation charged with keeping the Apache fleet fit for flight.
Whenever an aircraft clocks up 600 flying hours it is booked into the state-of-the-art service centre to be stripped down to its bare frame and meticulously cleaned and inspected for wear and tear or damage. Parts are then repaired or replaced before the helicopter is rebuilt and sent back into service.
Warrant Officer Class 1 Christian Rouse, the man responsible for overseeing the movements of every Apache on behalf of the Joint Helicopter Force, said:
“Afghanistan is the priority and they’re flying a lot of hours out there. It’s always busy, there’s always another op on. They go out for seven to eight weeks then come back here and go into depth service. Then about 60 to 65 days later they’ll go back to the regiment.”
Up to ten Apaches at a time can be housed in DSU’s enormous hangar, where they will move sequentially along a pulse line of nine stands, spending roughly nine days at each
So an Apache can only fly for 600 hours before being completely stripped down, 6 weeks in theatre followed by about 9 weeks in maintenance and transport. This highlights exactly why you need quantity to sustain an enduring operation because you simply cannot compromise on safety.
Instead of seeking extra speed or payload, perhaps the next focus for helicopter designers should be maintability in theatre. Numbers of personnel in theatre are politically capped, would depth maintenance make more sense if it was carried out in theatre, are we compensating for a lack of personnel by shipping the airframes back and forth?
The article also mentions waiting for spares, what, waiting for bloody spares. These are war winning machines and waiting for spares is a phrase that should never appear on a whiteboard in the workshop.
The people carrying out this maintenance, military and civilian, do a fantastic and under reported job but the MoD should not make their lives harder by under resourced spares packages.
Of course, we could make sure the spanner bashers are maintaining helicopters instead of air bumming 
Now we know why the pallet count on RAF planes in and out of A-stan is so low? Just joking, a good job!
But if you put the littoral task force somewhere out there, what happens after their first six weeks (add some salt water). Surely the hangars aren’t the equivalent of the facility described – or is it that some helos are designed to be less of a ballerina than others?
The latter.
Maritime helos (Lynx and Merlin) for one have special coatings and lubricants to withstand the harsh salt water environment found flying over sea or lashed down on deck of a frigate.
Certain rubbers to insulate windows for example, may also be different (tougher) compared to contemporary army and air force helicopters.
Same goes for sensitive blade (radio) aerials; all depends on type and role.
Rotor blades is another issue, as navy helicopter blades have to cut through the sandpaper like salty sea air. This is somewhat offset by the tough(er) blades of AAC/RAF helos treated to deal with the dusty yet rough sandy air found over Iraq and Afghanistan – special tape has been developed to provide an extra protective layer.
But fact of the matter is that helicopters remain complicated, maintenance intensive and thus expensive aircraft to operate.
But in my humble opinion they are worth every penny.
Given most western helicopters where not designed for continuous use is hostile environments such as Ddesert of Mountains I am not surprised at the high maintenance load. I agree in future much like the protection martimen platforms get, land based platforms will have to be designed to withstand these harsher environemnts as standard.
Mind you having been down south and seen Chinooks etc in deep maintenance I am very impressed with the work done and the people who do it. They have been messed about continuosly over the past couple of decades with reorganisations and rebranding etc but retain their professional attitude and pride in their work.
Lord Jim, is that really the case
We always seem to pay for equipment that is supposedly able to operate in all environments but equally always, have to pay again when we have the bloody cheek to actually operate in those environments
On Apache, I would also add the UK paid extra for a number of things including the ability to operate in a maritime environment
Is anyone actually happy with the situation that sees an aircraft we paid more than £20m apiece only able to operate for 6 weeks before having a strip down and complete overhaul?
RE “Is anyone actually happy…”
From price to value: from (the very few) sources I have understood that Apache is scoring better in CAS than any other platform sent to A-stan from here.
I am surprised how few evaluations I have seen (could be that I have just not looked in the right places?).
“Is anyone actually happy with the situation that sees an aircraft we paid more than £20m apiece only able to operate for 6 weeks before having a strip down and complete overhaul?”
How long were you expecting the Third World War to last?
600 Hours is more than my Car goes without a service, and my car goes on relativly well maintained roads, admitadly its a T Reg Skoda driven by a lunatic, but the point stands.
How long do commerical jets go without an overhaul?
I know the engines are pulled near constantly because my partners dad used to build transport cases for them.
Is 600 Hours a short period of time?
The Argentines Invaded the Falklands on 02/04/82
Royal Marine Commandos counter invaded on 21/05/82
The Argentines Surrender was on 15/06/82
Between our landing and their surrender, there were 25 days.
25 days, each of 24 hours (give or take).
25*24=600
I’ve just done a bit more maths, abnd I dont like his numbers, he reckens they are in theatre for 8 weeks and clock up 600 flight hours. Thats 75 hours a week, or 10 hours a day.
Possible, but that means every Apache is taken out twice every day for full length flights. If we’ve kept that up for 5 years and plan another 5 they wont make 2020.
TD
Apache can operate in the most extreme environments, which is what we paid for.
What it cant do, is operate for long periods of time, which is something we didnt ever pay for. Almost none of our equipment is designed to fight anything more than a short sharp shock war.
Simply because anything designed to fight a long term war has the combat prowess of a Predator UAV.
Dom, its not 600 hours between a service, its 600 hours between a major rebuild. The forward maintenance facility will do something after every flight but your number crunching makes interesting reading, perhaps Paul G will be able to add some more, its what he used to do I think
I do think that the next major advance in equipment design has to be a dramatic reduction in maintenance requirements
Good point, DJ “equipment is designed to fight anything more than a short sharp shock war.”
- I was always wondering about the huge discrepancy in the numbers of divisions between NATO and the Warsaw pact
- then I read on their (the latter’s) doctrine and the divisions were meant to be in the front line only for three days, and then swapped out
- even such a fairly recent piece as the Apache was designed as a tank-killer for these shorts & sharps
I have not seen any stats on the Zulu (remanufactured Cobra) where field maintainability has been high up in the design priorities (of course not, as they are starting to roll out and into service)
Perhaps my Car was a bad example.
How about an F1 car?
Engines last three races, which with warm ups, testing and the like is, 12 hours, 24 hours? And even then, they only last that long because the rules say they have to, I’m sure at one point ferrari was buring out an engine for every race.
(I’m not really a fan of F1)
“I do think that the next major advance in equipment design has to be a dramatic reduction in maintenance requirements”
It definatly matters, even from a None Operational perspective, if you halve maintenance costs, you can (more or less) double numbers.
However, theres always a trade off.
The B2 Spririt is a maintenance pig, but Radar thinks the entire fleet flying in formation is as big as a single Eurofighter.
Although the Eurofighter requires considerably less work than the Tornado for each flight hour, and far outperforms it in the field.
Do you want performance or endurance?
For Afghanistan, endurance matters.
In the Falklands, didnt matter what fight the helicopters had left in them, The Fleet was days away from failing.
Instead of seeking extra speed or payload, perhaps the next focus for helicopter designers should be maintability in theatre.
Not just for designers – for force planners as well. This is a point I made earlier with regard to the airlift fleet. Thing is, it’s tricky to look at an airframe and predict what its availability is going to be.
But this kind of story does make one think things like ‘I wonder how a fixed-wing COIN turboprop would perform in comparison?’ Fixed-wings are less maintenance-hungry in general, or so they say. Maybe you’d rather see an Apache overhead than a Bronco; but would you rather have an 80% chance of seeing an Apache or a 98% chance of seeing a Bronco?
Dominic’s point about maintenance costs is also a good one.
I tend to think of aircraft more as collections of spare parts flying around in concert than as a whole discrete unit.
I wonder how old the oldest piece of metal is in the Nimrod fleet? Or I wonder how often the oldest pattern piece has been replaced?
Picking up DominicJ’s point, presumably Afghanistan is chewing the Apache’s at a ferocious rate, and given that MoD seems to be increasingly cutting capability rather than giving them a mid-life upgrade (T1 Typhoon for example) how long will be before we have scrap the Apache’s because we cannot afford to extend their service lives?
Tubby: that’s not an easy question to answer without fairly detailed knowledge of Apache maintenance and lifespan requirements – and without knowing how many are out there, which we don’t. 6
00 hours in 3 months is a big chunk of lifespan; civi helicopters start getting old and tired around the 3000-hour mark.
Back in 2007 there were already noises about the maintenance load:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1568987/Half-of-Army-gunships-are-grounded.html
r
Isn’t this speculation, so far “MoD seems to be increasingly cutting capability rather than giving them a mid-life upgrade (T1 Typhoon for example)”
- if you have a fixed commitment to pay for new ones, why upgrade until you get to the end of the obligatory production run… from what precious little there are discretionary investment funds in the budget?
Tubby
Just to be clear, its not Afghanistan thats chewing up the airframes, its just the flight hours. If they were clocking up these hours on Salisbury, it would be just as bad.
I Think the Eurofighter is built with a 6000 hour life span.
Even if there are just 4 out there, they are still clocking up 2400 a year each, or 9600 on the fleet. So if they are built with 6000 hours flight time, we’re burning out 1.5 a year.
2006-2016 means we’ll burnout 15 Frames, just in Afgfhanistan, a quarter of the fleet, gone just as surely as if hit by enemy fire.
If they’re built with 3000 hours of life, half the fleet, gone.
Obviously, few frames will actualy reach that limit, but as a hole. And these things were supposed to last us till 2050 werent they?
I’ve to knock up a report on the “other” costs of “peacekeeping” before, but its rather difficult.
This is a prime example.
Military equipment is very much a “use it and lose it” thing.
I do now much about helicopter maintenance but 600hrs for such a large overhaul sounds excessive. What your describing sounds like a C-check. In the Civil world these are only done about every 6000hrs with modern airliners and the ones on the drawing board are trying to extend that further. I do know the much criticised Flynx will have a significant parts reduction which will aid maintainability but may cause problems elsewhere. This does highlight the need for more joined up thinking on future heli purchases so that major common components are used across the fleet such as avionics and engines and supplier parts. Mod should look to some of the big commercial heli companies to see if they could get any tips to improve things.
Tubby
Helicopters dont suffer the same problems. The is with fatigue cycles on high stressed parts mainly on wings of jets and rotor heads and gear boxes on helis. Its easier to replace the bits on the heli than a wing on a jet. Technically helicopter can continue for a very long time.
TD – It’s not a major rebuild, it is a major service.
DomJ – actually its not just flight hours, it is the environment too. The sand and grit gets everywhere, and is highly abrasive, so no you would not have that exact same problem on Salisbury plain. However you are right it would be nice to know a) what the design airframe life is, b) what the utilization rate on current ops is (how many hours per day etc).
I have seen Lynx go a full six month deployment with nothing more than the spare blades and spare parts carried in a Frigates stores, and with very little unplanned downtime, but on the other hand the Apache is a “cold war relic” (TM) in that it was planned to be thrown against mass Soviet armoured formations – did anyone really think it would last more than a couple of days before being shot down or caught on the ground ?
I think the point is, the deep maintenance effort is part of stewarding the remaining life of the fleet – fleet management per se.
The big question to me is, does the usage rate mean that by the time we withdraw from the current ops, we will have a massively reduced capability, because the aiframe life will have been chewed through and we wont be able to afford a full SLEP or a replacement ???
Ah, the mighty 7AA Bn, yes it’s 600 flying hours and strangely enough they don’t fly all day so there is quite a gap in the major service, never got to know the apache that well thanks to all the delays and westland made sure they got a lot of the “aftercare” contract.
There is a shedload more TLC on this compared to lynx and gazelle (a stripped down gazelle on deep service is scary, puts you off ever going in one again, flimsy is a good word).
I need to look at the improvement blocks americans are on block 2 starting block 3 soon i think reduced costs per flying hour and only a 2 level maintainence schedule is the goal.
composite blades and engine commonality with blackhawk also the plan.
oh and if caught air bumming the air bumee must shout sh1t off at the air bummer!!!!
I was aware that Apaches in the first gulf war were absolutly wrecked by sand, 17 hours maintenance per hour flight rings a bell, but had just assumed sand proof meant sand proof.
“I have seen Lynx go a full six month deployment with nothing more than the spare blades and spare parts carried in a Frigates stores, and with very little unplanned downtime”
Can you say how many hours it flew? If it was 3 hours a day, or less, it would be under the 600 limit.
“The big question to me is, does the usage rate mean that by the time we withdraw from the current ops, we will have a massively reduced capability, because the aiframe life will have been chewed through and we wont be able to afford a full SLEP or a replacement ???”
Sort of. A decision will be made, do we bring forward the replacement aircraft, do we accept a “gap” with no cover, or do we reduce cover to bridge the gap.
Aircraft are built with a pretty finite operational life.
A Typhoon has a real world life of 25 years.
Thats because it has a flight life of 6000 hours, and flies 20 hours a month.
If you fly it 40 hours a month, planes are ging to start falling apart mid flight in under 15 years.
If you fly it for 30 hours a month for 10 years, and 10 hours a month for 10 years, you dont have a problem
DomJ – ref Lynx flying hours over a 6 month deployment – very difficult question – no hours some days, 4 the next…..
But I guess in answer to your question it would probably average out as 3 or less per day, so your right it would be around 540 hours in the busiest case.
@ ArmChairCivvy,
Sorry I was repeating a story I read on Key Publishing Forum that the MoD had decided to scrap T1 Typhoons early rather than carry out expensive upgrades to them. I am sure a cost/benefit analysis would show that their limited performance compared to T2 and T3A coupled with the high costs would show that it the upgrades were not value for money, but it does feel like a theme – if it costs a lot to upgrade or extend the life of key equipment then the MoD retires them early and gaps the capability.
RE: Apache
I would love to see a report on the Apache’s and what their usage and the environment has done to their residual life, and how it is impacted on any programmed future upgrade/life extension programme.
I agree with Dom’s main comment there.
As with maintenance…600 hours of high tempo ops for a machine originally designed for a few days tank hunting over the Fulda Gap doesnt sound too bad to me… I think the tax-payer gets his/her money’s worth from the helicopter fleet – especially the seakings, but I’ve also seen Junglie seakings have their blades properly ruined in operations in Kenya, but whilst in Afghan their blades can handle it.
Its all about the environment… not just salt-spray and Afghan dust…but other environmental factors too, like temperature… also like the dust of Kenya for example is more corrosive than that found in Afghan… whilst someone has already commented that the sands of Iraq caused problems whilst in afghan the sand seems to have less an impact on blades (more finer) but still means a lot of work. Unless we produce either sets of blades (and other parts) to handle each different environment or some sorta ‘all-in-one’ blade that can handle anything, we’ll continue to have the problem of maintenace and red lined flight limits (600 hours)… its the same with the herc fleet…initially those now blades on the J were being worn through at a crazy rate… and thats just looking at the blades, but I think the troops on the ground would appreciate more the pressence of a apache that can stop and hover and take care of business…than a Bronco which needs to orbit and turn around for attacks, and thus be for a moment useless to those on the ground. My sometimes uninformed opinion anyway!
But the americans are having a turbo propped attacker to replace costly and maintenance heavy fast jets…notably the tired and treasured F-16 and A-10 fleet, not to replace attack choppers.
I dont think the Apache fleet would ever be cut as such..the army would fight tooth and nail, the press wouldn’t have it and we’ve got other plans for them away from Afhan (only proper armed ac we can operate from sea now)…maybe a reduction in numbers, but never cut, so a SLEP and other programs would be coming…look at the Puma for example.
Thanks Tubby,
It is just so hard to believe (how good is the source?) “MoD had decided to scrap T1 Typhoons early rather than carry out expensive upgrades to them. I am sure a cost/benefit analysis would show that their limited performance compared to T2 and T3A etc…”
Surely they are OK for what they were designed for (intercept, and if necessary to fight for air superiority)
… and the the follow-on batches are true multi-role
If any of this is to be believed, unlike with Nimrod, the underlying capability will never go away. And then you can have the sufficient (whatever that is) numbers to achieve commonality for “back office” synergies.
Hi ArmChairCivvy,
It is extracted from the Guardian story on the MoD needing to save extra money, but it appears to be a decision that was always planned for around 2015ish (the retirement of the T1 Typhoons). I have no idea what the planned upgrade was, though my money is on replacing engines, as it seems that most fast jets have about twice the life in the air frames than they do in their engines. It would make 2015 the crunch year not 2020 for a shortage in available fast jets, as far as I can tell Tornado would be starting to go into its upgrade programme, we would not have our full complement of later Typhoon tranches delivered and we would be retiring our T1 Typhoons.
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1687820&postcount=47
Mike said: “But the americans are having a turbo propped attacker to replace costly and maintenance heavy fast jets…notably the tired and treasured F-16 and A-10 fleet, not to replace attack choppers.” All together now … “oh no they’re not…”
After a spouting hot air about an Irregular Warfare wing, the USAF has done nothing at all on this front. There is no budget for the IW, the requirement for the aircraft have not been approved nor added to the appropriations as far as I know. Shiny jet mafia more worried about delays to F35 and fatigue issues with F15/16 fleets. The slowest and ugliest your gonna get in USAF colours remains the A10.
The USN on the other hand, has at least experimented with contractor provided Super Tucano…..
Crikey, that video is perhaps one of the most harrowing examples of modern warfare I have ever seen.
“a”: The Apache had better have a lifespan of more than 3000 hrs.
I believe there are eight Apaches in Afg. Like DominicJ, I can’t see how each Apache can clock up 600 hrs there in eight weeks. But even if we assume 600 hrs in three months, and therefore four rotations of eight Apaches per year, that means each Apache (from an overall fleet of 67) serves three months/clocks up 600 hrs in Afg every two years. With 2011 being the sixth year of Apache deployment(?), each Apache will have been through three times, for 1800 hrs (assuming we always had eight in theatre). So we will have used up 60 percent of the fleets’ flying hrs by 2012 – without factoring in UK flying hrs.
I’m hoping the Apache has a lifespn closer to the Typhoon, or we’ll have a knackered fleet by 2015.
Tubby/Armchair Civvy: I’ve heard the Tranche 1 Typhoons are structurally different to the T2 and T3 a/c, meaning that the T1s can’t be retrofitted with an AESA radar. The RAF would be well advised to hang onto them anyway, IMHO. In the current economic and political climate, I can’t see the RAF getting any more fast jets for quite a while.
Ref Typhoon part of post, please be advised I am not at all techinically minded, and on such matters have no idea what I am talking about. It’s just something I read somewhere from others who MAY be in the know.
Admin: Enjoy your site. Have been reading it for a few months now, but have only now felt I have something to add to the comments.
The 53 Typhoons can still be used or UK/Falklands air defence and OCU initial flying training. So why get rid of them, is this official or just newspaper speculation.
@ ADB
What is the nature of the structural differences to T1 Typhoon from later tranches?
What about autogyro’s? I understand they are cheaper to run than helicopters and easier to maintain? This is pure fantasy kitbash but gives an idea of “what could have been”.
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,22800.0.html
Putting aside the production/design/cost issues for a while, would autogyros work? would they combine the best elements of helicopters and turboprops or merely their weaknesses?
Its avionics/computer issues that stop the tranche 1 typhoons from being upgraded…apparently it would be cheaper to buy more tranche 3 typhoons than upgrade the tranche 1s…but if the tranche 1s just do uk qra and falklands i don’t see why we can’t keep them
Thanks everyone – I have also read that as well as lacking the ability to be upgraded with AESA radar and new avionics the T1 Typhoons are also structurally slightly different from T2 (something to do with the wing loading but it got technical and I could not follow all of it). However I see no reason why the T1 Typhoons should be retired if they still have hours on the airframes.
Hi Mike,
RE yesterday’s ” some sorta ‘all-in-one’ blade” , in Vietnam the blades had a metal edge. I believe they are now all composite (and must be much better in many aspects), but just wondering…
RE “the americans are having a turbo propped attacker to replace costly and maintenance heavy fast jet”
- a lot of talk but nothing ordered yet
- or have I missed some news?
Hi GJ @ 8:58,
I don’t have the expertise to answer your question, but I think I saw a photo of a full-scale mock-up of something similar, being offered from Ukraine for COIN-type CAS. Will see if I can find it again.
Regards Typhoon
The structure issue has been over played somewhat the mod to take radar is by all account not a big problem as the AESA radar will use a T2 aircraft base plate. Other bigger problems are that a T1 aircraft cannot accept conformal fuel tanks and as tubby said will need a new mission computer im guessing this would require a pretty big overhaul to install. The question you have to ask is this cost effect for aircraft that will have used up around 50% of its life by 2016 (when the mods due) or buy new and zero life the fleet.
The bigger point though is that around 20 of the T1 aircraft are 2 seat trainers. Has the raf decided that like f35 these are no longer needed. Perhaps the new hawk with its stores system and glass cockpit, typhoon simulators and carefree handling of jets means we can radically reduce the composition of the OCUs. Its an interesting one, but I would say this if we reduce typhoon by 50 a/c we would need a significantly larger F35 buy than that currently suggested here.
Could spare two-seaters be used for specialised roles EW, etc?
Or would that cost too much money?
If a Typhoon squadron flying time costs £200million a year that is about 4 or so F35s……
It is just a money pit and the money doesn’t work out however it gets cooked.
I can’t believe that after 2 decades or so of development that Typhoon is it appears effectively two classes of aircraft.
Wow. Just wow…….
X
Its not 2 classes its the way almost all the larger aircraft production runs are done incremental upgrades it comes a times when the earliest aircraft require more money spend on them to avoid fleets within fleets. Dont forget these aircraft started production in the late 90′s theyll be 15-20 years old by the time this update needs done.
Typhoon is a lot cheaper to operate and sustain than the tornado it replaces it not the rafs fault the ramp up of the fleet was suspended in the 00′s which has lead to this problem.
Mark: I am a bit out of my depth here regarding the technical aspects of Typhoon. I read on Pprune that the AESA radar cannot be fitted because the “forward bulkhead” on the T1 is different to that of later variants. Does this alter your perception that the structural issues have been overplayed, or is the issue surmountable?
ADB
I understand its different and with out getting to technical a bulkhead could be installed to take the AESA radar it may require some limited new engineering and provided its just the bulkhead and there’s not something else going on with the nose then it is not a big issue. I would guarantee if these aircraft are sold to another county one will be installed for them.
@ ACC – Thanks, if you could that would be great! As you can probably tell from my other posts I’m a bit of a retro-man; I see modern problems/lack of capabilities and think “wasn’t there an answer to that in the past?”.
@ Mark
Thanks for the explanation. Really having worked in IT, a field that either ignores or over does backwards compatibility, I shouldn’t expect any better of any other field.
And I don’t hold the RAF accountable for this; I never mentioned them.
It’s a bit more than just the bulkhead. AIUI Tranche 2 have the bulkhead, but Tranche 3A will have the necessary power and cooling already built in. I’ve read that the RAF want all their Typhoons to end up as “Tranche 3A” standard – although technically Tranches are merely contractual designations which happen to equate to groups of three Blocks, which are the actual units of capability. Although they’re now getting away from formal “Blocks” of aircraft and going for a more incremental approach.
However, I sense that we’re not talking about an upgrade to being AESA capable, I think we may be talking about earlier upgrades.
The first bit of standardisation was the R2 upgrade that would see all Tranche 1 Block 1 and Block 2 (ie the T1/T1A/F2) upgraded to Tranche 1 Block 5 (T3/FGR4) which adds the infamous “austere” A2G capability of Litening + Paveway as a separate RAF “fork” of Block 5. The R2 programme is still underway, I think it has another year to go, although most of them have been done now (all of the F2 single-seaters, but not the trainers yet?), it’s not a simple job – I’ve heard 12 months to do T1 (ie Block 1) -> Block 5.
However, by the time that Eurofighter got all the governments to agree to A2G capability, Block 8 had been frozen, so it has the “Tranche 2″ hardware including the new mission computer and AESA bulkhead, but the software is A2A only. And now they’ve abandoned the idea of Blocks altogether, but to get everyone back in sync the Block 8′s needed the addition of A2G, whereas Block 5′s needed to be synced up with the “Tranche 2″ upgrades – mostly software stuff (SRP10), but also changes to the cockpit, new navigation system, comms upgrades etc, collectively known as the Phase 1 Enhancements (P1E). Given that P1E is unique to the RAF, presumably we’d have to pay all the costs of testing a unique upgrade, as well as the actual costs of upgrading. If at the same time you’re making a decision to move all Typhoon training across to the new fancy Hawk T2′s – not ideal, but it means you pay ?£15k/hour rather than £70k/hour – then you’re effectively applying this rather complicated P1E upgrade to just 30-odd aircraft. I wouldn’t be surprised if the economics of P1E looked daft, never mind longer-term considerations of preparing for AESA and the remaining airframe life.
All this talk seems to stem from a passing mention in the Guardian report on the “£1bn extra cuts” conference last week so we’re speculating here. But it looks like the MoD has taken a decision that for both military and commercial reasons, if they’re going to throw any money in the direction of Eurofighter it’s more important to get a move on with developing an AESA radar for Typhoon, even at the expense of P1E, upgrading the remaining T1 to T3, and apparently training on Typhoons.
Hi GJ,
Didn’t find the Ukrainian design, but this one http://www.architectswanderlust.com/?p=16 is almost a helicopter with ducted lift/ propulsion (won a NASA award, so I guess it would work better than an autogyro)
@ ACC – I like it! Looks like the illigitimate offspring of a A-10 and and a AH-64! Role and armenment wise it reminds me of the OV-10 Bronco. A suggestion to inprove the basic Bronco is here.
http://www.angelfire.com/art/enchanter/bronco.html
A similar idea is here, although without cargo space.
All the above designs are intended primary for COIN but could they have a wider role? I always liked the “Helijager” concept. Cost is always an issue but if we could develop a good design could we off-set the cost with export sales?
Its the heavy vibration loads in helicopters which cause the higher maintenance requirements, its just the price you pay for being able to hover. I’ve always understood helicopters to work in a state of barely contained self-destruction so I’m not surprised that they need to be stripped down so often
On Autogyros, I’ve always been a fan but in the attack role I can’t see what else they give you that a conventional light/COIN attack aircraft can’t. The ability to hover into the wind isn’t exactly the most useful combat feature.
I also read somewhere that the Typhoon Tranche 1s had weaker landing gear and so would need major structural mods to take the combat payloads of the T2 or 3′s
@ El Sid
Thanks for that explanation though I got confused. Can I get one in off white with cup holders, yes or no?
I still think we should keep the T1 birds to UK AD. Co you really need an AESA for this. Yes it would be 2 fleets but if you look at it as to aircraft types with some commonality it still makes sence. Have 2 Squadrons at either Conningsby or Leuchars with F2s for QRA and have 2 deployable FGR4 Squadrons at the other along with a further 3 at Marham and the RAF still has a viable FJ fleet. The F-35 doesn’t really count as it will either be on a carrier or training to do so.
Sorry TD for being a bit too late on this post to support the cause!
The Apache is a pretty good helicopter and may be what it does is worth sending it back to be rebuilt every 600 hours. But taking one away to strip it down has the cost of needing a replacement to fill the gap in operations. So the more time a machine spends in servicing the higher the overall cost of maintaining an operational fleet.
The test would be if there was an alternative helicopter that might only offer 90% of an Apache but because of higher availability, and therefore operational numbers, actually offered better value.
@x
Do you want the standard capuccino cup holders used by the Europeans, or the tea cup holders, that were developed under a separate RAF programme? The tea cups have enhanced capability over the capuccino cups – nothing is too good for Our Boys – but are completely incompatible with our allies.
However, Eurofighter are pleased to announce an exciting new development, Future Mug 2030. Part of the Advanced Personnel Refreshment Capability programme, FM2030 will see the latest titanium and composite technologies used to create a common low-observable beverage container for all Typhoon customers. Offering significant advantages over COTS containers such as those used by Starbucks, the in-service date for FM2030 is forecast to be 2042 and the projected cost is €5621 per mug. The mugs in question being the taxpayers.
El Sid,
The B1 bombers got ashtrays at $25.000 each (twice or more that in today’s money) as it was considered inhumane to require the long stand-by patrols to be non-smoking(and not allowable for the contents to dip, should the plane have to go into action)