Why don't they pick H225M Caracal?
As far as I can tell Eurocopter don't have a heavy lift helicopter. Does anyone know of any development program they were running to make one?
German military kicks off heavy lift helicopter competition
21–30 of 67 posts
Re: German military kicks off heavy lift helicopter competition
#22Same two contenders as the original competition in 1965! Significantly updated but still disappointing in showing how little aerodynamics has progressed in five decades.
Also curious: why no other contenders, especially the Russians? Procurement politics is heavy stuff.
Re: German military kicks off heavy lift helicopter competition
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
A 747-400 has 6 million parts (according to Google). Good luck inspecting all of those.
On each plane it would not be reasonable, but on a few planes it could be done, and would detect defects like the one described above.
Aircraft procedures aren't reasonable. Go and read an accident post-mortem sometime, they're gorgeous. They describe debugging with all the dials turned to eleven. Inspirational.
Re: German military kicks off heavy lift helicopter competition
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
A worn-out fuel line had been rubbing silently against a bundle of old electrical wires near the front of the cabin – a problem that had gone undetected for years. The same mechanical defect existed inside every Sea Dragon in the fleet, though nobody knew it. Over nearly three decades, the Navy had never required anyone to regularly inspect Sea Dragon wires or fuel lines for damage. Calling this particular problem ma…
We shouldn't underestimate what we don't know about building machines. Maintenance should accommodate time to check for wear on parts we don't expect to, to check things that are different from what we expect them to be. The problem was there for decades and one inspection in one unit over that period would probably have evidenced the issue and added one more item for the maintenance checklists. It's not like the man…
> It's not like the manufacturer can't schedule a full disassembly of a unit 10 years into its lifetime
Wait hang on, I was under the impression that a D check (?) did exactly this, every 6-7 years. This is second hand knowledge from a pilot buddy so maybe I'm forgetting something. Also it's on the civvy side of things, maybe the military does stuff differently?
If it's as simple as the military has shittier maintenance checks, then that's a solvable problem.
Edit: ok looked it up, it is a civilian vs military thing.
Re: German military kicks off heavy lift helicopter competition
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
A worn-out fuel line had been rubbing silently against a bundle of old electrical wires near the front of the cabin – a problem that had gone undetected for years. The same mechanical defect existed inside every Sea Dragon in the fleet, though nobody knew it. Over nearly three decades, the Navy had never required anyone to regularly inspect Sea Dragon wires or fuel lines for damage. Calling this particular problem ma…
WTF? I thought aircraft maintenance stipulated that all parts have to be inspected, some often, others seldom, but none never.
I'm looking this up now from a sibling comment, I think that yes every N years a civilian aircraft goes through a complete teardown and inspection, taking >50,000 person-hours of time or something depending on the complexity of the aircraft.
However the military apparently doesn't do this.
Re: German military kicks off heavy lift helicopter competition
#26> Some officials favor the CH-47 which they say is combat-proven and cheaper, but others say the larger CH-53K would allow growth in future missions.
This implies the 53 is not a combat-proven aircraft....to be clear, the K is just an improved version of the same aircraft that has been operating for like 3 decades.
Hard to see how the 47 would beat the 53, especially if the Germans are actually using the aircraft for heavy lift.
Re: German military kicks off heavy lift helicopter competition
#27Same two contenders as the original competition in 1965! Significantly updated but still disappointing in showing how little aerodynamics has progressed in five decades.
Also curious: why no other contenders, especially the Russians? Procurement politics is heavy stuff.
Not sure it makes sense to buy military aircraft from any given country if being able to stop them from invading you is your military's primary mission.
Re: German military kicks off heavy lift helicopter competition
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
On each plane it would not be reasonable, but on a few planes it could be done, and would detect defects like the one described above.
Aircraft procedures aren't reasonable. Go and read an accident post-mortem sometime, they're gorgeous. They describe debugging with all the dials turned to eleven. Inspirational.
If at least there where crawlspaces for inspection robots planned into the design.
Re: German military kicks off heavy lift helicopter competition
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
A worn-out fuel line had been rubbing silently against a bundle of old electrical wires near the front of the cabin – a problem that had gone undetected for years. The same mechanical defect existed inside every Sea Dragon in the fleet, though nobody knew it. Over nearly three decades, the Navy had never required anyone to regularly inspect Sea Dragon wires or fuel lines for damage. Calling this particular problem ma…
The US Navy seems to have lost the culture of maintenance and seaworthiness that they were famous for over the previous half-century.
This was posted here a few months ago. The article indicated that a change/reduction in training starting in 2003, mainly for cost savings, was coming home to roost. I wonder if similar things are going on in the maintenance area.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/27/navy...
Re: German military kicks off heavy lift helicopter competition
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also curious: why no other contenders, especially the Russians? Procurement politics is heavy stuff.
Not sure it makes sense to buy military aircraft from any given country if being able to stop them from invading you is your military's primary mission.
And yet the West seems to spend time and sometimes money to arm groups, and then fight them.