I guess Lockheed Martin thought they didn't have a big enough share of the military aircraft business so they decided to make a small acquisition today.
-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
NEWS Lockheed buys Sikorsky
- Thread starter Flash
- Start date
Any thoughts of this getting challenged under anti-trust rules? I'm not smart enough on how the RW industry is distributed, but this seems to make it considerably smaller?
Sikorsky's competitors are Bell, Boeing, Airbus, AW, and a few others - not LM. I don't think LM has built they're own helo from the ground up for decades. I'd describe the purchase more as vertical integration (since LM provides the systems hardware & software for the MH-60R/S) than I would as horizontal swallowing of a competitor.
Now I'm going to go to urban dictionary to see if someone's already coined the term "horizontal swallowing."
We'll see how this works out... The current LM digital cockpit in the -60S and -60R is an abomination compared to the now common Rockwell Collins cockpit the rest of the services use. The mission planning software is just as bad, though maybe now some of that mission planning stuff will finally get "certified" since LM can stop fighting Sikorsky and the Navy over who owns certain rights.
You talking about your ASW tactical decision aid? At least you have a tactical decision aid...
The last helicopter I know of that Lockheed built was the AH-56 Cheyenne prototype. 200+ knot compound helicopter - ahead of its time. Scared the Air Force so bad that they built the A-10.
Lockheed's deep pockets will make Sikorsky formidable.
Lockheed's deep pockets will make Sikorsky formidable.
It won't mean much for its products. It's not like if, say, Apple bought RIM. This is more like if Apple bought Maytag. IKE pretty much said it - the defense giants buy their competitors strictly to diversify and control competition. In other words, make sure they get a piece of whatever pies are out there. Since L-M doesn't really have a piece of the RW world, Sikorsky gives them that. That's about it.
He's talking about the general clugeyness of the operating system. Think Windows 3.1 on a good day. To be honest, I blame PMA more than LM. If LM's system met the contract spec, then good on them...never mind if the product is unwieldy to use.
I have a sneaky suspicion (but no knowledge) that the reason the system is a LM one and not a Rockwell Collins is because of ASW, especially since the Romeo was the driving force behind the common cockpit, even though the Sierra came on line first.
ding ding ding
I just hope Sikorsky gets to keep their name.
With that said, having been heavily invested in our avionics in the -60S and seeing how the other services' 60's have some superior stuff and always being told "it's a contract issue with Lockheed" - I am hopeful that some of that can get fixed up a bit. We'll see.
With that said, having been heavily invested in our avionics in the -60S and seeing how the other services' 60's have some superior stuff and always being told "it's a contract issue with Lockheed" - I am hopeful that some of that can get fixed up a bit. We'll see.
I'm still in MH-60R OFTs, about a couple weeks away from my first flight. So at this point, I know close to nothing. What's the deal with the Romeo cockpit? I'm having trouble tuning into the convo
Correct. Its like they didn't even think to hire or consult a Human System Interface guy. Hell they didn't even have a fleeting concept of ergonomics and usability when they put it together. There were a lot of other compromises made with both airframes but that's a ship that sunk long ago.
I'm still in MH-60R OFTs, about a couple weeks away from my first flight. So at this point, I know close to nothing. What's the deal with the Romeo cockpit? I'm having trouble tuning into the convo
I should know this, but I can't remember...I think all 3 OFTs at NRB have PCOSIs now, so you're seeing the current "generation" of what the OS is supposed to be. Prior to 86 series/SYSCONFIG 14, you had a joy stick and fixed function keys. You'd still have the pop-up window option for some things, but you could quickly get to a function as you started a process because the keys would change as you selected different options. It still required you to get buried deep within a sub-system though. Then came the 75-series and all of the pop-up windows (this is actually when I started learning the system) and the fixed-function keys went away (other than the ones you now see on your CDU). As a result, you now get lost in various pop-up windows as you try to get to some sub-function. Even something as simple as shutting down the computer (something you should be familiar with now) requires 5 steps to make happen.
THEN they came out with the PCOSI, which reduced you ability to tab and scroll like you could with the joy stick setup. So now you become even more dependent moving that stupid mouse around, assuming your potato isn't gummed up with horsecock sandwich grease. While it may not seem like a big deal now, trying to quickly throw a fix, or even set up a buoy FTP quickly is a much more involved process, made more annoying if you're bouncing around trying to keep your hook steady.
And don't even get me started about the mess that is the Flight Display. At least they could put boxes around the various Nav data.