PhantomII:

Relax bud. Not slating the Zulu, merely stating the fact that the helicopter is no faster than the rest of the pack – it’s as fast as a Mi-28 or A129I, but slower than an Apache and – *if* EC is to be believed – the Tiger. But still good value for money, and thanks to its installed power margin its performance certainly suffers less from stores carriage than the lighter Tiger and A129I (the 137kt cruise speed figure quoted by the USN is with stores).

Re: the fairings, Inside the Navy carried an interview with John Millman of the Navy’s H-1 Program Office on the subject last month.

The AH-1Z, while a very agile bird, is not that fast: the cruise KPP is only 140kts, and the Marines have recently accepted a 3kt reduction to avoid having to develop new fairings for the Zulu’s LAU-68 pods and landing skids.

Re: the Seahawk, I suspect she was only 30 kts slower than the Black Hawk due to her extra weight and substantially more cluttered lines (radome, ESM, dipping sonar, etc.). I would expect a vanilla MH-60S (for example) to match the UH-60M’s speed.

There has also been research into the use of piezoelectric structures (esp. leading edges) to steer bullets/shells aerodynamically.

Can’t comment on the internal FAMET thought processes, but I could certainly imagine that the Mike, Romeo and Sierra Hawks were part of the assessment, along with the EC725 and H-92. Doubtless NATO/WEU commonality and industrial considerations would have played a part in the decision.

Re: NH90 spec, I suspect that the initial buy will be TTHs, with NFHs considered at a later date. (There are now over 20 NH90 variants when cabin, mission avionics & powerplant are considered.)

As you point out, Spain’s rotary-wing fleet is in a pretty sorry state at present due to airworthiness concerns, so let’s hope it recovers quickly !

Cheers,
T.

IIRC, they never actually flew a manned version, only scale models. I also recall that the powerplant seemed to change every time it appeared in Flight (Larzac -> Adour -> F404 -> R199….)

I/C

IIRC, the XF-84H – although never intended to break M1 itself – pretty much ended those dreams, much to the relief of groundcrew across the nation…

In addition to the Type 90/WZ-551 APC, the WZ designation is also applied to a number of other armored vehicles including the Type 98 MBT (WZ-123), the Type 59 copy of the T-54 (WZ-120) and the WZ-701 CP.

According to the FAS, “Traditionally Chinese weapons were given a simple ‘Type’ designator consisting of a two digit year of manufacture or proposal followed by the Chinese word for ‘type’, and the description of the weapon. More recently designations have been based on a combination of Pinyin letters and numbers that are independent of the year of manufacture. Thus, a YW represents Armored Personnel Carrier and a WZ represents Armed Vehicle.”

It gets more confusing, however. In addition to the AFV and attack helo connotations, the WZ suffix is also applied to Chinese UAVs (Wuren Zhencha, as in the WZ-5 copy of the Firebee — also known as the WuChen-5 — and the twin-engined Guizhou WZ-2000 UCAV).

And if that’s not bad enough, the WZ acronym is also used for Chinese turboshafts, including the Wozhou-6 (WZ-6) copy of the Turbomeca Turmo produced by the Changzou Lan Xiang Machinery Works (Jiangxi Helicopter Engine Factory) for the Chenghe Z-8 (which is now being re-engined with the P&WC PT6B-67C), and the Wozhou-8 (WZ-8) copy of the TM Arriel produced by the China National South Aero-Engine Company (Zhuzhiu Aero Engine Factory, aka SAEC) for the Harbin Z-9/WZ-9 family.

All of which presumably aids Beijing’s MILDEC/CI activities !!