Harry: mate the Mk-20/30’s are being offered to the military to replace Jet trainers and light combat aircraft, the US Department of Homeland Security is considering this jet for defence of Cities in the advent of another attack using airliners (this is how the Mk-30 was actually born). They expect to strap an ASRAAM to each wing and perhaps two small guns to bring down terrorist planes before they strike home.

the whole scheme developed after the Bede BD-10 (big brother to the Bede BD-5J famous in James Bond films for flying out of the back of a horse trailer) fell through, this plane uses some of the same designs from that aircraft. It was and still is intended for the civilian market, but there are also applications for the military market- in fact on military user has just bought 20?

Meat: I expect that the canopy design will change some what since this is the first plane to fly (thus is testing everything). I do know however that the canopy is a single aft hinged hydrolic/spring one piece system bringing it in line with bigger planes like the F-15 and F/A-18B/D/F

Ok let me clarrify a couple of points here:

1. We ordered the S-70B-2 version of the Seahawk which is a Roll Adaptive Weapons System (RAWS; look up in the Archive of this forum and you’ll see I did a thread some time ago about RAWS over LAMPS). This order for an initial 8 was in responce to the RAN buying four Perry Class Frigates. We later ordered two more ships and 8 more Seahawks. At the time we had to buy the S-70 versions because there was no export licence granted for the S-60 versions (this came later). It was thought that the S-70 was a downrated version of the S-60’s but in fact the S-70 series has been proven to be far superior to the US models. The High operational tempo of our Seahawks has seen them used in all parts of the world for more reasons than could be thought of by Michael Jackson for him being in bed with little boys.

2. The Order for the SH-2G(A)’s was placed at the same time as the order for the MEKO-200ANZ (Later called the Anzac class). The first 11 were to man 10 ships (later down graded to 8)and having one spare after development trials. The OPV dealwas to have seen the first 11 suplemented with a further 20 machines (another reason for buying second hand re-vamped models, keeping the cost down in order to buy more airframes). Since the deal fell through with Malaysia and no other partner could be found, the whole deal fell through and we were stuck with these 11. During the course of the development of the weapons intergration, the RAN were tasked with sending ships up to the Gulf for patrol duties- we couldn’t send the Anzacs with no credible Air Support (as it was they were being used as training decks with Squirells), so a plan was instituted to investigate wether the Seahawks could operate on the Anzacs- the initial thought (that these machines were to big and heavy to operate of the deck) being blown out of the water- no pun intended- on the first day of the trial and thus when HMAS Anzac sailed for the Gulf, she took with her an 816Sqdn Seahawk. Thus we have managed to get by without the SH-2G’s.

3. The Visby Class Corvettes will have a hanger, unfortunately it will not be below decks but intergrated in a redesign of the aft section incorperating the Hanger aft of the bridge. I found this out via Papa Lima and another former member of this forum both in Sweden.

4. The SH-2G is a damd good platform, it’s the Australian Government and RAN trying to stuff far too much into such a cramped machine that is causing the problems. Reducing the Three man crew to a Two man crew and adding highly automated computer equipment into the airframe has proven onceand for all that each design has it’s technological design limit. It’s good to see that the other four countries have not had any problems with theirs and that they are all working well as they were designed to.

5. Australia has not lost any Seahawks to my knowledge, the recent crash off the coast of Fiji was infact an Army Blackhawk with an Army crew. This has caused concern in the Army Aviation circles (5th Regiment) as this is yet another Black Hawk disaster and we are loosing them far too quickly. This has prompted a speed up of the replacement MRH-90’s entry into service with the Army.