Liger3042 NH90 NATO Frigate Helicopter NFH
12 NH90 “navalized” transports
58 NH90 TTH for the army;
to be precise.
But i truly can’t find any order so far from Italy for AW149 past the 3 for the Coast Guard and Guardia di Finanza. There’s a long term requirement for Guardia di Finanza and SAR service, but no firm order so far for what i can learn.
16 Chinooks are also going to be license-built in Italy for the Italian Army.
12 Merlins are expected to be C-SAR platforms.
In June 2010, it was announced that Agusta and Rosvertol (Russian Helicopters) would build a plant in Tomilino, Moscow Region, jointly producing AW139s from late 2011.
Are we sure there’s any real chance to have AW139 and military-version 149 built in the UK anyway…?
Liger30Labour’s contract DID NOT include AgustaWestland work, at least for the first 12 machines. The LibDems MPs in Westland area had voiced requests to negotiate license-building for the successive 10 machines, but since these ten machines are unlikely to happen and the government needs to get the Chinooks in Afghanistan timing, it is higly unlikely that the 12 airframes get built by anyone else apart Boeing itself.
As to Italy wanting to buy AW149, that’s all yet to be seen. With 112 NH90 on order and 19 new Chinooks on the way, i higly doubt funding will be available any time soon to order more AW149 than the handful ordered for Guardia di Finanza (2, actually, if i recall correctly, in SAR config ordered in 2007, with a later VIP transport one in 2009 and a long-term wish for perhaps as many as 30 for Guardia di Finanza). More urgent is the order for 12 more Merlin for Combat-SAR and utility duties.
Besides, they’ll have to get a grip on the spending: the crisis hit here as well, and frankly, with 112 NH90 covering Utility and Frigate roles, 16 Chinook as heavy lift and some Merlins, i think we are very much all too covered in all roles.
Liger30I don’t think so. While the first regiment has some 16 or so Lynx, the squadrons of Lynx in the Attack Regiments are still present and reported in the force structure. One of them is the 672° Squadron, 9th Attack Regiment which was on the news not long ago because of its current deployment in Afghanistan. It received, of course, the re-engined Lynx MK9A for the role.
I did not find any evidence of the opposite. Have you a source for the single-pool Yeonvilton based Wildcat fleet?
Liger3028 are to be built in navy standard, with 360° E-Scan radar, dipping sonar and with interface for FASGM(Heavy), the Sea Skua II in development with the french collaboration and the FASGM(Light), the Thales Light Multimission Missile.
34 are being built at army standard, which means no sonar, no E-Scan, but crash-worthy seats for 8 soldiers and armoured floor.
The two airframes have high commonality of parts and design, and both helicopters have a sensors turret with Thermal Camera, IR, Laser and so along in the nose. Both helos will also share the defensive armament made up by a M3M .50 machine gun.
Hopefully, the Army version will be able to employ the Thales LMM too, but this is unclear: it depends on the cost of integration. If the helo is already able to use the missile, fine, otherwise at least for now it is unlikely to get it since funding for integration wouldn’t be available.
“Pooled” is correct to a certain points, with strict limits. The Army helos will of course go on ships like HMS Ocean in support of Marines, but despite the airframe being exactly the same, there are obvious differences as well, and Navy and Army Wildcats have their own precise roles and destinations.
For the Navy, it is necessary to replace all the current Lynx.
For the Army, the first destination of the Wildcat is going to be the Light Utility/Scout squadrons in the Attack Regiments: in each, 16 Apaches are accompanied by 8 Lynx. The Wildcat will replace those Lynx.
The Lynx MK9A instead is going to fill other roles and stay in service longer.
The other Lynx are all expected to retire from 2014 onwards.
Liger30Naked airframes come from Boeing Ridley Park, final assembly and outfitting takes place at AW Vergiate.
There certainly is a chance for that to happen, but i higly doubt it. The first 12 Chinooks were always expected to be built entirely by Boeing so that they would be available in 2013 for use in Afghanistan.
Assembly at Vergiata would benefit Italy, not the UK, while still probably slowing down the work a bit.
The idea was 12 Chinook ASAP-built by Boeing, then negotiations to see if Westland could work on the other 10 in the UK, not at Vergiate.
With cancellation of the 10 successive airframes, the UK is most likely to buy 12 Chinooks built by Boeing and that will be the end of it, simple like that.
Liger30The army needs the Wildcat as well. The Lynx of the Army Air Corp are approaching the end of their service life, and save for the Lynx MK9A, they currently lack the power to operate, say, in Afghanistan where the infamous “hot and dry” conditions take a tool over the machines.
The Lynx Wildcat in the army version is badly needed to replace the machines as they start to bow out. If it is cancelled, the only way for the AAC not to fall apart would be to expand the Lynx upgrade programme on the model of the MK9A refit, putting up the same engines of the Wildcat and other improvements, but it wouldn’t be really cost effective to lenghten some years the life of ancient airframes while their new replacements are practically ready to enter service.
The MK9A upgrade, besides, was sorta of a “bargain” before the engines were already available, built when the order for the Wildcats was still expected to be a 70 planes + 10 options. When it was reduced, the engines available were intelligently used for the UOR upgrade of “young” Lynx MK9.
By the way, i was thinking about another aspect as well. Both the F35B and C lack an internally mounted gun, and will use mobile gunpods at the centerway pylon under the fuselage.
Can we safely assume that the RAF will be forced to penny-pincing so much that the gunpods won’t be bought…?
I consider it HIGHLY likely.
Liger30I higly doubt AgustaWestland will get the work to build the 12 Chinooks. It would cost too much and probably they wouldn’t be ready for the expected 2013 date.
If we are to believe that the LibDems have any real power in protecting AgustaWestland’s activity and jobs, we can expect the Wildcat to be safe.
If they really get A LOT of advantages, soon enough they may come into play with a new arrangement for SAR helos, or, something i deem more urgent and that i crave more than any SAR machine, get a firm contract for MASC Merlin conversion and possibly to navalize the Merlin HC3 once their use in Afghanistan will be over and the handover to the Commandos will happen.
In the short term, however, what AgustaWestland must hope for is the survival of the Wildcat order untouched.
I don’t think any higher ambition would be realistic at all.
In the meanwhile, this month’s Navy News edition reports that experimentation of the mission system and cockpit of the Navy Wildcat has been carried out succesfully, and work is continuing with an in-service target date of 2013.
Sea Skua II and thales LMM missiles plus M3M door .50 machine gun are expected to be available for the Wildcat as well for that date.
Navy News also reports that HMS Duncan, the last of the Type 45 class, will be launched 3.47 pm on Monday 11 October.
Who lives close to Govan should realize the dream i can’t realize and GO CHEERING HER!
October 2010 will be remembered as a full month for the Daring class, indeed, with completition of hulls and with the first Sea Viper firing from HMS Dauntless a couple of weeks ago.
Also, HMS Daring will soon be out for its first real mission as it departs to go training with the US Navy out of the east cost as Air Defence unit of an aircraft carrier battlegroup.
Her future task in the RN as well, one long-awaited day in the future!
Liger30Why do you believe that the SRVL is any way connected to the UK?
Because the SRVL is a british idea? Because Qinetiq started the study and made it with a modified Harrier on board of Charles de Gaulle under request of british MOD? Or also because the article states precisely:
work to be performed on behalf of the UK.
For all of the above.
Liger30how would you exactly go about cutting a billion from the helicopter budget?
Basically, it comes down to two possible interpretations:
Bad case: Future Lynx scrapped altogether. Order value is incidentally in the region of the billion, and this gives the chills somehow…
Good case: Puma, Gazelle and reduced Chinook buy and Sea King HC4 phasing out total a billion saving by themselves. Which is possible if you think that only the upgrade to Puma was to cost in the region of the 300 millions, and 10 Chinooks also cost quite a lot.
All together, it should sum up to a billion, i think.
Scrapping the Wildcat, after all, means that both Army and Navy are left needing desperately to find a way to keep their current Lynx flying for more years, to an unknown date, since most of their fleets are made of Lynx. Besides, the first airframes for the army are coming together now in factory. Would be a shame to mess with the programme at this point.
Liger30Nothing new, actually. It is around from quite some time, and a Qinetiq modified Harrier has been practicing it already.
Liger30Two frigates that cover roles in the gulf and off Iraq, along with minesweepers and RFA assets in support.
ATALANTA against pirates off Somalia is a new standing task grown on the Navy in these years, which ideally should have been tackled by another frigate.
But there’s not enough frigates to be able to cover all standing commitments around the year, and so other vessels have to remedy.
Even oil tankers have been used for “combat” roles lately.
And, again, Fort Victoria would have been better justified if all its three hangars had been filled with choppers.
Then it would have arguably been able to do more than a frigate. As it is, instead, it is replacing a warship that simply wasn’t available for the role.
Not even bad, until there’s a ship that can validly do the job. Would be worse if there wasn’t even that.
Liger30Exactly what i envisaged, but with the difference that Harriers for me should go on QE if not all the time then almost.
We are keeping them to conserve experience and availability of air power at sea, after all.
While QE is built and enters service, BAe has the time it needs to prepare the modifications needed to PoW to get a couple of EMALS and the arresting wires and angled deck, so that once building starts, the work is clearly planned, and the catapults procured so to ensure no delays and possibly no cost-overruns/troubles.
For a few years, nothing at all would change.
In the end, PoW would be the strike carrier, and QE, with the demise of Harrier, would be available to work as replacement for Ocean.
Only problem would be that with PoW in refit, there would be no capability to put planes at sea by moving the air group to the other carrier, since QE would lack catapults. (unlikely but possible to fit them “in future”)
Not a small problem…
But if this is the way to get a good, real carrier strike capability and save the navy from tragic cuts, so be it.
Amphibs must be saved. And escorts… well. Lose the Type 42 is obvious, the Type 22 is okaish… but the Type 23 ideally should all survive, otherwise numbers go pretty damn low.
Liger30Well, it depends on HOW MUCH real difference in cost there’s between F35B and F35C. If the difference is big enough, it may still be attractive an option, all things considered.
If a couple of EMALS and arrestor gear could be fitted to the PoW for a fair enough price, and the F35C ensures an effectively lower unitary and through-life cost as it seems, the math may still be favorable.
I don’t rule it out cause i don’t have enough data to express myself about this dilemma.
I have doubts, sure.
At the same time, i make no mystery on the fact that i’d really would be happy to see PoW get catapults and F35C, IF IT HAS ECONOMIC SENSE.
Militarily, the F35C has its own advantages (range, payload, bigger-sized weapons bay meaning less problems in putting weapons into them and such). Moreover, it is having a far smoother development than the B version, of which the development-and-testing planes are once more grounded in this moment because of the need of modifications to some of the opening-doors of the lift fan.
It depends on the math that people with more complete info than me will have to sort out.
If there’s advantage, then it is the right way to go.
Interoperability would be a great thing.
And even greater would be to lease a bunch of Hawkeyes in time to provide MASC service.
The crews could be trained in France, if not in the US. And leased Hawkeyes from US navy surplus might be cheaper to obtain than buying or even just modifying already available Merlin airframes.
My personal view, which could of course be wrong, obviously, is that the F35B can’t help but be a mainteinance intensive aircraft. The complex STOVL system of ducts, doors, transmission, fans, gearbox… Moving parts. Moving parts need mainteinance. Moving parts break down. Complex things need attentive support.
Overall, the F35C launched with EMALS might even prove more durable and less mainteinance-heavy than the F35B, if you ask me.
Again, i could easily be wrong of course.
Liger30Regarding today’s reassuring report:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa…efence-cuts.do
Other press sources add to my doubts.
Lockheed Martin has received a $13 million contract to incorporate a shipborne rolling vertical landing (SRVL) capability with the short take-off and vertical landing F-35B, with the work to be performed on behalf of the UK.
On 6 october, 2 days ago, the US Navy made public that LM received the contract to look at how the F35B has to fare in the infamous Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing SRVL required to ensure the fighter is not forced to drop in the sea a couple of 500.000 dollars each Paveway IV every time it gets back to the carrier without having launched…
This evidently clashes with the reported “decision” to switch to EMALS and F35C.
Of course, since the decision was reported to have been taken yesterday or perhaps early today, it is very possible that the contract to LM, which certainly was scheduled by quite a long time already, means nothing really…
But i still express doubts on the report.
While hoping intensely that it was not hot air, but actual information of value, since it was certainly a lot better sounding than most reports lately.
Liger30A type 45-based 3-Merlins DDH is potentially awesome.
I liked a lot the UVX destroyer that BAe did propose some time ago. It did look so cool.:D
However, regarding press reports today talking of “ditched STOVL planes for CVF, to be replaced by cheaper cat-launched fighters” (F35C), i expressed my doubts, and i’ve already had confirmations to my skepticness:
Lockheed Martin has received a $13 million contract to incorporate a shipborne rolling vertical landing (SRVL) capability with the short take-off and vertical landing F-35B, with the work to be performed on behalf of the UK.
On 6 october, LM seems to have received the contract to look at how the F35B has to fare in the infamous Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing SRVL required to ensure the fighter is not forced to drop in the sea a couple of 500.000 dollars each Paveway IV every time it gets back to the carrier without having launched…
This evidently clashes with the reported “decision” to switch to EMALS and F35C.
Of course, since the decision was reported to have been taken yesterday or perhaps early today, it is very possible that the contract to LM, which certainly was scheduled by quite a long time already, means nothing really…
But i still express doubts on the report.
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