selling dauphin's a mistake?

[warthog]

hi guys first post here,
just thought i'd start by introducing myself, i grew up playing in the don(my dad was in heli's,now CHC),i'm only a few years older than the dauphin's myself!

basically i was wondering does anyone else think this is a bad move? reading posts here it's obvious that alot of people think they should go,
but was the dauphin really just the victim of a witch hunt? let me put it this way would you use a coupe to drag your mobile down to wexford? use a transit as a family car?
the dauphin was ,in my view applied badly (though it did an admirable job for the most part).and burdened by a "jack of all trades approach" but thats not the chopper's fault.it was down to the government/brass

seems to me that an avionics upgrade makes sense,we have four well maintained airframes,largely composite based which should go on for easily another fifteen years,i understand that the hybrid analog/digital cockpit is the real problem but surely we could replace it with a lighter and basic flight system for overland use only,get rid of the radar,flotation gear,harpoon's etc and make it a "battlefield taxi" for troop/cargo transport and as a mid-step from trainer to agusta
possibly fit one as dedicated air ambulance or v.i.p,(fit a cargo hook for 105's or mrs harney!)maybe even paint them green!

an engine upgrade might be pushing the boat but still more feasible than jets!!

if we sell them we'll get nothing of value in return,that's if we even find someone to take them due to ex-military constraints/limited number on offer.
the airframe is still a modern,fast design!
ideally selling the gazelle and AIII's for parts(after the upgrade or when the 139's start to arrive) would offset some of the cost of the work...

look at the 6 chc s-61's all well into their 30's/40's (infact i think we may even have the oldest flying one?) but due to avionics upgrades and good maintence etc they are very viable machines that we'll be around for possibly another 5 years of great service,how many huey's are still flying in the world today? almost every other force uses mid life extensions/refit's on aircraft
 if they do it right and keep it simple we could get great service from them,buying four agusta's will mean maybe three available at any time due to maintainence,with one probably tied up in crew training leaving maybe two/three available for army troop use at any one time? the dauphin could plug the gaps and augment it

also we already have the tool's/spares knowledge to support the aircraft,why waste that advantage?

think about it 2 eurocopters as trainers/recon,4 dauphin utility heli's,4/6 agusta's med-lift
it'd make for a nice air mobile infantry unit so the army could get used to heli ops and learn how to utilise them to the full potential that was wasted before
...so yeah let the flames commence! '>

[Tony Kearns]

Welcome warthog,
Say hello to your Dad, I see that he is still scrounging "lifts "home.
Tony K

[pilatus]

welcome to the board!i have always said they should be overhauled but there was not many here that agreed with me!im glad somebody does now!look at the brazilian armys dauphins!giving great service and are always in high demand!we could easily do the same!throw out anything navy associated!

[John K]

Welcome Warthog, you've put forward some very good points there, I go along with them. Have the US Coastguard got any plans to get rid of their Dauphins yet and they're older than the Air Corps ones.

[Tech Crew]

Warthog if you keep talking sense you'll get banned from this board!!!

I Agree with everything you say. The airframes have reasonably low hours on them. Get them g checked, remove all the excess crap and you have a workhorse capable of lugging gear for the pongos. Oh, and i suppose they better be painted horrible green for all the rambos out there

[pilatus]

john k the US coastguard is actually carrying out a huge upgrade on their dolphin fleet!http://www.ainonline.com/Departments/AIN_rotorcraft.html
scroll down through that link and there is an article on the dolphin upgrade!http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2004/May/Coast_Guard.htm
theres another one!

[Pink Panther]

Quote (warthog @ 02 Feb. 2006,02:00)

hi guys first post here, just thought i'd start by introducing myself, i grew up playing in the don(my dad was in heli's,now CHC),i'm only a few years older than the dauphin's myself! basically i was wondering does anyone else think this is a bad move? reading posts here it's obvious that alot of people think they should go, but was the dauphin really just the victim of a witch hunt? let me put it this way would you use a coupe to drag your mobile down to wexford? use a transit as a family car? the dauphin was ,in my view applied badly (though it did an admirable job for the most part).and burdened by a "jack of all trades approach" but thats not the chopper's fault.it was down to the government/brass seems to me that an avionics upgrade makes sense,we have four well maintained airframes,largely composite based which should go on for easily another fifteen years,i understand that the hybrid analog/digital cockpit is the real problem but surely we could replace it with a lighter and basic flight system for overland use only,get rid of the radar,flotation gear,harpoon's etc and make it a "battlefield taxi" for troop/cargo transport and as a mid-step from trainer to agusta possibly fit one as dedicated air ambulance or v.i.p,(fit a cargo hook for 105's or mrs harney!)maybe even paint them green! an engine upgrade might be pushing the boat but still more feasible than jets!! if we sell them we'll get nothing of value in return,that's if we even find someone to take them due to ex-military constraints/limited number on offer. the airframe is still a modern,fast design! ideally selling the gazelle and AIII's for parts(after the upgrade or when the 139's start to arrive) would offset some of the cost of the work... look at the 6 chc s-61's all well into their 30's/40's (infact i think we may even have the oldest flying one?) but due to avionics upgrades and good maintence etc they are very viable machines that we'll be around for possibly another 5 years of great service,how many huey's are still flying in the world today? almost every other force uses mid life extensions/refit's on aircraft  if they do it right and keep it simple we could get great service from them,buying four agusta's will mean maybe three available at any time due to maintainence,with one probably tied up in crew training leaving maybe two/three available for army troop use at any one time? the dauphin could plug the gaps and augment it also we already have the tool's/spares knowledge to support the aircraft,why waste that advantage? think about it 2 eurocopters as trainers/recon,4 dauphin utility heli's,4/6 agusta's med-lift it'd make for a nice air mobile infantry unit so the army could get used to heli ops and learn how to utilise them to the full potential that was wasted before ...so yeah let the flames commence! '>

Warthog,

Welcome on board.You have made some very interesting points indeed.As has been mentioned the US Coast Guard are carrying out a major refit of their Dauphines including changing the engines from Lycomings to turbomeca's.The powers that be I believe haven't seriously considered these option you have mentioned.Leaving air ambulance out of it and using these aircraft for purely military ops during day light VFR flight, they could be made light enough to carry a supstantial payload.

My own feeling on it is the new heli's currently on order as well as the 135's that have arrived aren't going to be enought, and pilots are going to find them selves carrying out more desk duties.

In a nut shell what you are saying makes a lot of sence, but this been Ireland you can be sure as night follows day it will never happen.

PP.

[Buran]

Quote

if we sell them we'll get nothing of value in return

eh... money has value?


Whenever anyone faces a decision to upgrade or sell off and buy new, it usually comes down to the economics. You dont look at the price tag of the upgrade and the price tag of the new builds and compare, you convert each into an amount that can be written off each year over its economic life, include maintenance, retraining, etc. everything, stick it all into a big excel sheet, and see what comes out the cheapest. And im assuming (possibly my first mistake) that someone has done this for the dauphins, and decided to get rid. It probably has nothing to do with how much pilots like or dislike them, or the diameter of the tainaiste's ar*e, or anything else. Its just the down to the readys at the end of the day.

Also, you have to figure in that if it costs 10 mil to upgrade 1 heli, it wont cost 100 mil to upgrade 10 helis. There is the basic economics of bulk buying of kits etc, but there is also the large up front costs, that are needed whether you are upgrading 1 or 10 or 100. Tools, jigs, stands, the design paperwork, etc. So there will always be a break even point where if you were only to upgrade x amount it wont make sense, but if you upgrade x+1 it will. Maybe in the case of the dauphins that number was 5 helis. Maybe 10, maybe 20. Can anyone offer examples of serious mid life upgrades where only 4 units were upgraded?

Also, the fact that we are not starting from 4 stock dauphins. They are not the same as the US HH-65. So we cant just swipe the instructions they are using to upgrade theirs and do the same. You need proper paperwork to go from config x to config y. You can just use a cobbled together thing going from config z to y. I know military are different, but i assume there is similar standards to the civil arrangement. If this was to be done in the civilian world, you would have to get a design organisation approved with EASA part 21 to do up the documentation. We have to do the same just to rearrange the seats on an aircraft. And that costs thousands. So if you want to pull out all the electronics and reinstall, and then develop testing not only to confirm that what is installed is working, but that no other cables have been snipped while the removals were happening, etc. Thats major work. So just to get any documentation at all, you are already minus loads of dosh.

Fact is, these are 20 year old aircraft, that they might have just decided to get rid of because they are too much of a pain in the butt.
Could be that simple.

[Tech Crew]

Buran

Nobody has even bothered to get figures on refitting Dauphins. You are conferring on Air Corps management a level of common sense that anyone that has served there knows they don't have. At the moment the only plan for the ac are to let them rot away in the corner of a hanger. This is a disgrace when a proper investigation of future possibilities has not and probably won't be carried out. Nobody at any level is willing to put their head above the parapet and make some decisions ( what am i saying- officers don't make decisions they abdicate them for fear of taking responsibility!! ).

If it is not feasible to refit the ac so be it. But at least produce the figures to prove that all avenues have received the proper attention and investigation. The ac are certainly not too much of a pain in the butt. Thats simplifying the situation.

Its down to the usual mismanagement and couldn't be arsed mentality of air corps management

[warthog]

thanks for the welcome lads,
seems a few of you know the old man
(don't hold that against me!)

buran,
here's a link to eurocopters own site,
it lists many airframes that have undergone refit,they have major experience at this game,they even have a eurocopter pre-owned division

http://www.eurocopter.com/pre-own....lang=EN

regards age,the first blackhawk flew in '74! so the dauphin is not that old.

it's not really the worth comparing the u.s machines to ours as they have a major conversion to undertake,modifying the airframes to take a completely different engine,but even this is described in the link given as a "conversion kit" which implies it's reasonably straight forward.

also a SAR chopper needs far more in the way of flir,auto hover,radar,GPS, etc compared to a "flying bus" plus take into account that military spec tends towards triple redunacy for major systems and you've added alot of complexity and weight

also stuff like the nightsun,and life rafts could go,don't fit the winches unless the mission required it,all this would help

if we did it right,we'd just be looking to upgrade to the arriel 2c (as used in the panther) from the older turbomeca,even more straight forward

like i said the best avionics fit would be simple,and lightweight the less "fluff" used would also be better for intermediate pilots to graduate from the 135,(don't get me wrong i'm not saying send them up there with a compass and a dublin A-Z)

i think this is possible if the will is there...

unfortunately,i'd say new carpets for the gulfstream's jacks has more urgency in the don at the moment...

[John K]

"pilots are going to find them selves carrying out more desk duties"

Pink Panther, there's a worrying thought! They'll be chewing off the techies for stupid, petty things! "Why are you wearing your ramp jacket down to the canteen?" It's dangerous letting pilots do nothing, there's only so many desk duties before they feel they have to assert their authority!
Incidentaly are you involved in Heli Wing? With a name like Pink Panther I assume you are, as only donners know what this means!

[clan]

Warthog, welcome, Your ideas are spot on, but many people do not want to see the Dauphins around anymore. I think the Air Corp, always try the poor mouth approach to getting new equipment. By this I mean decommisioning aircraft in the hope the MOD will feel sorry for them and order some new stuff. It has not really worked well in the past and why they contiue with this policy I don't know. I guess they are holding back the Dauphins, until the option on the two AB139's is taken up.
Then maybe they will be brought back in some capacity after a downgrade. certainly they are not past there sell by date, a nice green colour scheme would look the business, even an air Ambulance role would not go amiss.

[GoneToTheCanner]

Hi all
Some good points being raised here:  The USCG are no example to follow, or rather their political masters. The original USCG dauphins were supplied with Arriels, then pressure was put on the Coast Guard to buy American and they were recertified at huge cost with Lycomings, which turned out to be a disaster, hence the refit with French engines.Also, they don't use winchmen in their set-up, so the winch, among many other things, is different. Their Dauphins are quite different to the Don aircraft.
Another point: the cost of upgrading and recertifying the instrument panels of the Don aircraft would be prohibitive.As one person has already mentioned , every single tiny change has to be certified, hence the expense.I've already expoused the notion of stripping out the survivors for pure VIP work, which would be a technically simple task and comparatively easy to certify.Trying to turn a Dauphin into a poor man's Panther wouldn't be quite as easy.The frequency with which the Dauphins have been used for VIP work illustrates the need for a dedicated VIP aircraft and perhaps, a dedicated VIP Flight (on the lines of the French GLAM or the RAF's Royal Flight).
With regard to the officer management of the Don, many of them are perfectly intelligent, capable individuals, well able to come up with the same ideas we can. They are as tied by the rules/bureaucracy as the rank and file are, even more so.When you talk to those who have left, and are involved in aviation outside, you soon find out that their experience of trying to push good ideas is often as frustrating and futile as that of NCOs and airmen.Personally,I believe that the Dauphins are percieved as last years news and potentially career-fatal, so the aircraft will be sidelined and probably disposed of, as soon as possible.
regards
GttC

[Hess]

When was the last time that an aircraft was decommissioned and then recommissioned in the Irish Air Corps??? I don't think there are many precedents!!!

 

[Tech Crew]

The fact that the "decommissioned" ac is still flying gives you an idea of the planning that has gone into this

Why didn't they wait till the ac were all actually grounded?