Eurocopter is on a winner with this design, not only in the four original partner countries, but now Australia, New Zealand and Spain! This is very good news, I think this will be the next Huey.

It is such a versatile design and the Digital FBW controls make it a very sturdy machine able to fly in most foul conditions, add to this the commonality with it’s naval varient and you simply can’t go wrong.

As promised, i scanned this in earlier tonight after having received no responce from InCat about the design and it’s possible users.

Scoot: Below is the pic I promised, this is a 112m Incat proposal that was in an article by Dr Carlo Kopp about Amphibious mobility and the ADF. Incredibly enough i believe that Dr Kopp has finally said something worth taking note of! In the article he claims that the ADF don’t need two such large ships but one backed up by a small number (say three) of smaller vessels such as this one. His point is well made and i feel that it is worth the ADF taking note of especially if we want to increase our presence in our region especially in the light of our humanitarian deployments and peace keeping duties.

This vessel is called the LHT (Landing Helo Transporter), it is112m in length, has a small flat deck with three flight spots, a parking area and a rear lift. It can operate six Blackhawk sized helos which can be housed in the hanger one deck down. There is also a rear ramp for amphib craft or RO/RO ops, the vechiule deck can handle almost everything bar trucks and buses and can even take our new Abrams tanks though due to weight constrictions only two plus support vechiules would be able to be carried!

Quite an interesting vessel! If you are wondering, yes i believe that the F-35B could be used aboard this type of vessel, it just remains to be seen now what comes of it!

Scoot: you’d be suprised how many times i’ve been asked that in the last week, I did post about the ADF’s intentions some time ago, but just for you I’ll re state what i said before!

The Australian Defence Force is lookingb at replacing it’s Hornet and F-111 fleet with the new F-35 in a 70/30 mix of two new types that are not on the drawing board yet (well that was at the time of the report). 70 F-35’s which would be a hybred of the F-35A and C models and a new version of the F-35B model of which 30 will be bought for ops off the two new LHD’s that the RAN are planning to buy.

Now considering that we are looking at introducing these planes in 2015 this does tie in with further development of the F-35 fleet. And considering Australia never buys anything off the shelf but tailor makes it’s planes to it’s needs, this could be interesting (refer to the F-111 program).

There still are many people here that are opposed to this planned purchase especially since most see it as a deal that has been forced on to us by the US.

The Vikings were being looked at by the RN for just this purpose, the Americans had offered to zero life them and convert them to full tankers, some other countries are also interested in buying them especially in South America.

From reports that I had heard, most of the S-3 fleet still have at least half their life left on them, though I could be wrong on this. IMHO both England and France could use these machines in a better way than the USN ever thought of, not only could they used the tankers but also the CS-3 cargo varients as well which were cancelled after only a few were made.

No SuE’s couldn’t launch from any American carrier because American carriers no longer have the Cable type launch system that the SuE’s require, thou I think that if some cables were presupplied to the USN carrier in question they could rig something up.

As far back as the transfer of USS Belleauwood in the early fifties to the MN, the Marien Nasional has maintained a close working relationship with the USN, this was boosted during the 70’s when the UK decided not to go ahead with the CVA-01 project.