46
Irish Air Corps / selling dauphin's a mistake?
« on: February 02, 2006, 08:50:55 pm »
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...
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...