grounded Chinooks

[apache]

Was this all about? not the infamous FADEC surely

[billb]

dunno but why did they pay for them if they didnt work?? 240 million wasnt it?

[Dr Strangelove]

billb said:

dunno but why did they pay for them if they didnt work?? 240 million wasnt it?

because like everything else this government sqanders, it's always easier to do it with someone else's money.

Roll on May 5th...

[c c]

manchester news said:

The chairman of the influential House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Tory MP Edward Leigh, said that the Chinook contract was "one of the most incompetent procurements of all time". "Thanks to a massively botched job, they cannot be flown when there is a cloud in the sky," he said. "Instead of desperately needed helicopters, the MoD might as well have bought eight turkeys. They can just get off the ground but cannot fly enough to be useful. Putting this right will cost us an extra £127 million." When the original contract for the Mark 3 Chinooks with improved range and state-of-the-art night vision sensors and navigation capability was placed with Boeing in 1995, they were expected to be delivered in 1998 But radar and other software developed under a separate contract would not fit in the cockpit, said the NAO report. One proposed solution, using a fully digital cockpit of a type already in use by the Netherlands Air Force, was rejected as too expensive, and the MoD opted for a "hybrid" solution combining analogue and digital systems. The aircraft were finally delivered in December 2001, but it was found that the contract had not specified that software should be checked for safety against United Kingdom Defence standards. Because the hybrid cockpits were unique to the Chinooks, it proved impossible to clear them for safety. They are now restricted to flying above 500ft in cloudless skies, with the pilot using landmarks on the ground to navigate, and can be used only on limited trial flights. At the time of ordering the Chinooks, the MoD identified 100 "essential elements" required for them to operate as planned. But, in what Mr Leigh described as an "atrocious oversight", only 55 were specified in the contract.

[rpguk]

manchester news said:

Putting this right will cost us an extra £127 million." ... One proposed solution, using a fully digital cockpit of a type already in use by the Netherlands Air Force, was rejected as too expensive, and the MoD opted for a "hybrid" solution combining analogue and digital systems.

Typical false economeny which leaves us paying over the odds for an inferior product.

manchester news said:

Because the hybrid cockpits were unique to the Chinooks, it proved impossible to clear them for safety.

Does this mean that they are impossible to clear for safety because they aren't safe or they are impossible to clear because of some H&S technicality?

Yet another case of govenment getting ripped off.


>> Edited by rpguk on Friday 18th March 12:38

[GMan 2112]

billb said:

because like everything else this government sqanders, it's always easier to do it with someone else's money. Roll on May 5th...

The contract was signed in 95 which would be the tories.

[Hardcore2000]

When you put software into aircraft you have to mathematicaly prove 100% that the software works. It may be that there is a technicality in the regulations that makes it impossible to prove that the dig to analogue conversion works. Thats my guess.

On the news they said they did not work because they did not explain to boeng what they wanted them to do.well surely fly and pass JAR / UK rules would have been a good a specification to start with.