The main problem with PFI’s basically comes down to loyalties- If there is (god forbid) another war, the government will wish to defend it’s interests. What if the governments interests differ somewhat from the private firms?

One day there will be a war and it will be between corporations and not countries. This idea was played out in the 70’s movie Roller Ball and again in the 80’s movie The Running Man.

PFI’s are a huge gain for the Private Sector and a major loss of capabilities to the Defence and Government sectors, especially in terms of human efforts. I person could be on the track to being top brass, well versed in his chosen profession. A PFI is initialised and the government pull out of that area of defence leaving it to the Private secort, the Private sector say “We have to retire you as you are too old and don’t have any useful work life left in you. They call in a smart mouthed young person who learnt all they could from a text book and the actual experience goes off in to obscurity.

Don’t get me started on PFI’s they are the worst thing ever thought of to save money for Politicians to put back into their pockets.
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Yep, all USN F/A-18F from Lot 32 (FY2008) have provision for conversion to EA-18G (they want provision for future expansion). They aren’t actually fully wired (the wings are), the space is left for the looms in the fuselage. There are a number of other airframes mods, and the rear cockpit is heavily modified – the EA-18G isn’t quite as common with the F/A-18F as originally planned.

The RAAF hasn’t made a decision on the EA-18G and isn’t due till the decision on the final batch of F-35 is made. Theres a number of problems – lack of ALQ-99 pods for export, export clearances for the pods, the fact that a new generation of pod/pods should replace the ALQ-99 at around the same time as RAAF EA-18G would be due.

None are showstoppers and the upgrade isn’t hard, but it will not be cheap and it will take time.

I know mate, at least we have the money for it- thank you China

Swerve someone said Spruance and Ja thought the person meant second hand ones but i think the person meant new builds based on the design, basically using a proven hull design and other features. Nice to see you noticed that as well.

Ahhhhh ok yes that is what I thought, Sorry, well those designs are great to build on and yes are a proven factor, but neither have been in production for some time- thus all the tooling would be non existant now- And I doubt that the RAN would go for another American design again unless it was converted from Imperial to Metric fittings. This was a key issues with the decission to buy the F-100’s according to a source of mine. When Will America catch up?

A Royal Navy SAR Sea King from HMS Gannet just belted past my house, looks as if someone needs some help.

Yes someone does- Parliment!

A decision is due in ~2015 on a replacement for the S-70B Seahawks. Its either the NFH or the MH-60R. If its the MH-60R the Naval NH90 will be based to the Army.

Sorry mate, this has been brought way forward due to the failure of the SH-2G(A) Program and the extensive use of the S-70B-2’s in the fleet which has used up just about all their predicted service life- this being because they are capable of deploying aboard Anzac class ships and thus has been, plus their use up in the Gulf on duties as well as extended training periods here at home getting pilots ready for combat duties- hence another reason why we leased the three A-109’s.

This urgency came as a shock and was announced in both the DCP and the latest White Paper “Force 2030”, under which the new helo should be achieving IOC by 2013. The announcement of a winner should be done by the second half of next year. This has the NH team worried because their support and customer service structure won’t be fully in place by then giving the Lockheed team a clear advantage and possibly a victory with the less capable SH-60.

Lynx was in competition with the S-70B back in 1980s and the Super Lynx with the SH-2G in the 1990s. S-70B are planned to retire when the FFGs go.

Squirrel are currently training only and are planned to retire sometime after 2011.

A109 are an interim type, due to the failure of the SH-2G – the three are under lease.

The first of the six naval NH90 transport aren’t due to deploy till mid 2010 to replace the Sea King.

So in 10 years time or so, it will be 6 transport NH90 and either ~24 MH-60R or naval NH90, with another training type.

The AS.350 Squirrels are also deployed aboard the Survey ships as well, these took over the role when the RAN retired the Bell 206 Jet Rangers

So if im getting this correctly the RAN will use NH-90’s in future and something else for a light helo, but what could they choose in 10 years time i suppose we will have to wait.

Air 9000 is a defence initiative to reduce the number of different helos used in the ADF. The bulk of this has been the order of 46 MRH-90’s (6 for the RAN and the rest for the Army Aviation Brigade- 5th Regiment) to replace the and Seaking Mk-50A’s the S-70A-9’s respectively.

A new Training helo is up for bids as are new naval combat helos (24 are to be ordered under an urgent requirement). We are also getting 7 new CH-47F to replace the 6 CH-47D’s currently in service.

So our helo service is looking rather healthy in the next 10 years or so.

As for the Lynx, I too think it would have been a great machine for the RAN, as would the SH-2, but you can be assured that what happened to the failed Super Seasprite program would have happened to the Lynx program if we had gone down that path. The Kiwi’s have never had any issues with their machines- even ordered another one they did, original requirement was for four helo’s they bought one more and rather than buy second hand, they bought new build machines. They too were looking at the Lynx but since they were replacing another Westland product (namely the Westland Wasp), they decided to go American this time.