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Hot new helicopter/rotorcraft news

ChuckMK23

FERS and TSP contributor!
pilot
Leonardo has staffed up with many hires of retired Navy helo O-6’s. I thing specific service requirements will play equally with influence.
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
Leonardo has staffed up with many hires of retired Navy helo O-6’s. I thing specific service requirements will play equally with influence.
Those are just their BD guys. Might have helped them shape the requirements and shape their proposal. But former O-6s aren't going to buy you that much influence.
 

DanMa1156

Is it baseball season yet?
pilot
Contributor
The irony of the Navy going back to the Huey as the training helicopter it uses would be too much. Doubt it will happen though - hasn't seemed to have been pitched from what I understand.
 

ChuckMK23

FERS and TSP contributor!
pilot
The irony of the Navy going back to the Huey as the training helicopter it uses would be too much. Doubt it will happen though - hasn't seemed to have been pitched from what I understand.
Not been pitched.

The AF however does their post T-6 helo track in beautiful 100% zero time refurbished TH-1H’s with Garmin glass cockpits and rotor dynamics from Bell 212’s. Beautiful machines. VFR and full IFR + NVG. Gold standard helo training.
 

fc2spyguy

loving my warm and comfy 214 blanket
pilot
Contributor
Only reason I could see a hoist a s a requirement was if they’re looking to use them as SAR station assets as well and divest of the more expensive -60? Just spitballing.
 

DanMa1156

Is it baseball season yet?
pilot
Contributor
Only reason I could see a hoist a s a requirement was if they’re looking to use them as SAR station assets as well and divest of the more expensive -60? Just spitballing.

This is something the HSC community has pitched as a way to bring MH-60S's back to the fleet in the most recent (May?) community missive.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
If it goes anything like the T-6...

T-6 was a result of the JPATS competition, Joint Primary Aircraft Training System, which as the name implies was a 'joint' acquisition. As far as I know the Navy is doing its own thing when it comes to selecting a helo trainer.

But former O-6s aren't going to buy you that much influence.

Yeah, retired O-6's aren't that big a deal at all WRT to procurement in DC. At all.
 

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
On the topic of the T-6, the Leonardo/Augusta/Boeing AWMH139 mashup, and in the context of buy-here procurement- the T-6 started out as a Swiss airplane. Beechcraft of Kansas sort of adopted it and got rights to build a derivative. Then they made it heavier, slower, needing longer runways, but otherwise equally capable (g limits, 0/0 ejection seats, fully aerobatic). Voila, they won the JPATS competition in the 1990s. Fast forward about twenty years to the A-29 debacle, which is a squabble over Brazilian airplane to be built under license in Florida. One of (then) Hawker-Beechcraft's main stall tactics was a PR campaign that it would be unpatriotic to buy a foreign airplane for the light turboprop attack mission. Sort of a "throw poo at the wall and see what sticks" strategy. They were going through bankruptcy at the time, so there was probably some desperation to get more revenue streams.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
...the T-6 started out as a Swiss airplane. Beechcraft...Fast forward about twenty years to the A-29 debacle, which is a squabble over Brazilian airplane to be built under license in Florida. One of (then) Hawker-Beechcraft's main stall tactics was a PR campaign that it would be unpatriotic to buy a foreign airplane for the light turboprop attack mission...

I thought that was amusing too but the Kansas Congressional delegation pushed that line hard too, hence the debacle.
 

phrogdriver

More humble than you would understand
pilot
Super Moderator
This is something the HSC community has pitched as a way to bring MH-60S's back to the fleet in the most recent (May?) community missive.

Community missive from where? PMA?

Where are there Navy station SAR aircraft now, anyway? The Marine Corps got rid of most of theirs awhile back except for Yuma.
 
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