Does anybody have any evidence for the Derby on Indian Shars, I have seen several reports saying that the plan to upgrade the SHARS with Israeli kit was dropped and I have never seen a photo of a SHAR with a derby, or a report of sales of that missile to India.

SLL: Here you go mate, this is on the list of the current defence procurments and upgrades: http://www.indiadefence.com/viraat.htm.

It’s an interesting topic really because the misistry of defence seems to have made a ratehr big bungle on this issue. They have bought 16 of the radar sets for only 15 serviceable planes, but of that, only 14 of them seems to be getting the missiles. Weird huh?

As for the new planes, I suspect that they will be the new build ones and that they would be airframes only as even the engines are different to those currently in service. The nose will most definatly have to be reprofiled back to the old style unless the new radars are causing the Mk51’s to have their noses remade into a similar fashion as the FA-2’s.

What about the ship used in Tomorrow Never Dies, which class and who uses it?

That was supposedly Sea Shaddow and she is used by the Department of defence, (not the USN), But if you look at the way the ship is protrayed in the movie, she is a much larger vessel. It’s just Hollywood being creative yet again.

From what I hear Malaysia has now walked away from the Rooivalk in favor of a European solution, and in the Turkish ATAK competition it is a distant third. Can’t comment on Brazil – that effort stalled in 2003 (at which time the AH-1 was the favored platform), and funding still seems some way off.

Malaysia is like Homer Simpson, eyes bigger than his stomach, they want all the good things but don’t have the money for them and South Africa won’t do bater deals for military equipment, this is where the whole deal fell through.

Turkey is a tricky situation, they have the money, they are willing to buy, but they don’t really no what they want. Bell won the first comp but then Turkey changed the deal, a new comp ensures forcing Bell to sue and they won that deal and the US declined to bid again, this forced the Russians to win, then Turkey fell out with Russia on details again. The Third comp which is now starting has seen little bidding from anyone because they are affraid of being mucked arround just like the Americans and Russians, they’d be better off building their own helos so then they could change their minds as many times as they want and have no one effected by it.

With Brazil, they are having a hard time at the moment, too many programs, far too many items to upgrade and never enough money to do it all. IF any attack helo is bought by the FAB, then they would only be in small numbers and I don’t think that Denel would survive on just a small order of say 12 for the FAB, they would rather not bid on a small order and save the time and money, usually wasted on promotion, for their own business!

Can’t really see it happening – Tiger would probably be the preferred option. And given that Boeing has first ‘rights’ to all competitions, you’d probably see an AH-64D offered rather than the WAH-64, unless the FMV stipulated the type (Westland’s only hope).

Well what you said about the Apache is correct, Boeing does have first rights even over Westland built models (most of the parts are built in the US and ships over to Westland for assembly as it is). But i don’t think the Tiger is an option on the Swedish board. Personally I think they have their sights on the Mi-28P and they are only being pollite to the other competitors, they Sweds are a funny bunch, they know exactly what they want and they go for it but are pollite to everyone whilest getting their goals.

Rooivalk suited the bush-war needs of the RSA during the apartheid years (when Aerospatiale was still willing to sell platforms and provide engineering assistance), but it’s too much of a compromise for most users. Denel’s perilous financial state has also proved worrying for most potential buyers.

Well the Rooivalk did stem for those years of conflict and as such came away with those requirements. Anything else would be an upgrade to the original platform and thus decrease the “Growth Potential” of the helo, this is a serious marketing flaw IMHO. Sure there is a commonality with Eurocopter products (bearing the modernday name in mind), but why have a mut if you can afford a pedigree? The cost of the Rooivalk (being the Mut coming from many Eurocopter parts), is almost the same as some of it’s competitors (being the pedigree’s, like A-129I, Tiger, perhaps even the AH-1W/Z).

***I mean no offence to anyone mentioned in my comments, they are just me speaking and do not form any oppinion that I have of the nationalities that are mentioned***