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Ars Technica is reporting that the Italian-made MH-139 helicopter beat out two other bids to replace the UH-1 after the programme was put out for bidding.
Just in time to avoid the end of the fiscal year, the US Air Force has finally selected a successor to the aged UH-1 Hueys used by the Air Force's nuclear missile security force: the MH-139, a militarized version of the AgustaWestland AW139 from the Italian aerospace and defense company Leonardo. The MH-139 was a joint bid by Leonardo and Boeing and will be built in the United States at Leonardo's facilities in Philadelphia. The award this morning is for $375 million, covering delivery of the first four helicopters. But the overall program could be worth up to $2.4 billion, delivering up to 84 helicopters, as well as training systems and support equipment.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:03AM (2 children)
A flock of ITAcopters on the horizon, the setting sun behind them.
They don't shoot, in fact they don't seem to carry any weapon
But when they are overhead you notice the ominous banner tied on their tail:
"Surrender now or NO MORE PIZZAS FOR YOU EVER"
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:02PM (1 child)
Then again, they can keep their "Pizza Pies." I'll take my corrupt American Pizza any day.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:12AM
Hello there, real pizza virgin. Go visit Naples when you have time and watch out for your wallet when there.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:08AM (4 children)
Hueys and A-10s forever!
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:15PM (2 children)
> Blackhawks
Hawks of all colors deserve to be tweeted equally.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:00PM (1 child)
Black Hawks Matter ?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:23PM
There is a Bible verse I could misquote: Tweet others as you would have them tweet you.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:51PM
I forgot Chinooks!
Hey, if anyone wants to give away their Huey, A-10 or Chinook, i'm interested.
(Score: 3, Funny) by sce7mjm on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:32AM (6 children)
Will they fly faster backwards than they do forwards?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:48AM (2 children)
'splain, plz.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:30PM (1 child)
It's an old joke about Italy and retreating, it used to be about tanks... etc.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:52PM
If it were a French design, all the weapons would be detachable, so they can be jettisoned quickly. ;^)
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:31PM
No, they are Italian, not French!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:27PM
What sound do they make when they fly?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:13PM
No but they come with touchless controls so the pilot can talk and maneauver at the same time.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:59AM
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonardo_helicopter.JPG [wikimedia.org]
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:06AM (6 children)
This will turn out to be an expensive mistake. Anything resembling "big business" in Italy is infested by Mafia interests, who will cut corners and substitute cheaper, substandard parts / materials wherever they can.
The consequences are predictably dire: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/17/italys-crumbling-infrastructure-under-scrutiny-after-bridge-collapse [theguardian.com]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:34AM
> Anything resembling "big business" in Italy is infested by Mafia interests, who will cut corners and substitute cheaper, substandard parts / materials wherever they can.
Yeah. The F35 with its AI-driven toilet paper dispenser, or the HELL-I-copter with the blades made of well seasoned Parmigiano. I say, make more nukes.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by marcello_dl on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:40AM
> Anything resembling "big business" in Italy is infested by Mafia interests
Technically it's the other way round, big business infiltrated mafia.
Unless you subscribe to the theory that mafia is at its upper layers a secret society, not a resistance movement that found criminal activity too comfortable. In this case mafia=massoneria=finance.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Aiwendil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:56AM (2 children)
Joint bid with Boeing, will be built in Philadelphia...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:44PM
So, not (seasoned) Parmigiano but a spreadable one? ;)
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmigiano_Reggiano [wikipedia.org]
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_(formaggio) [wikipedia.org]
CYA
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:50PM
*And you wake up in the morning...*
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:53AM
Good luck with that.
The Dutch have had some bad experiences with Italian made helicopters and trains: Made in Italy [medium.com].
The helicopters can't be used by the navy because they rust near seawater and the trains had so many failures they were ultimately sent back to Italy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by richtopia on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:24AM (4 children)
In case you are confused that Hueys are still in service still while all movies have Blackhawks featured, we are discussing the Air Force's helicopter. The Air Force does not have as strong of a need for helicopters as the other branches of military, and therefore are still running the relatively old Huey. As the article mentions, the critical application of these aircraft will be providing overwatch for nuclear missile transport between silos.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:51PM
Not entirely wrong but its a little more complicated. The blackhawk upgrade in the late 70s was mission based; I wanna air assault or medevac platform better than a huey. The air force has baked billions of dollars of requirements into the design of their missile launch fields for decades; there's no operational gain by having longer range or more payload or whatever, in that the air force merely needs a 2000s era new model year huey to replace the old huey.
Put in horrible SN automobile analogy, lets say you're running an airport and you need ground vehicles to fuel planes and tow planes and deliver passengers. Currently in 1960 you use farm style pickup trucks and put tanks of gas (or jet-A, etc) in the back or use the tow hitch to haul little cessna-172s around the field or whatevs. The army comes along and says nice pickup truck but I want a new vehicle for fuel and tow that fits my mission needs exactly.. Now a civilian comes along and says "eh 4 wheels all the same" but its really a high tech tanker/tower vehicle the perfect companion for general aviation service. Meanwhile farmer Bob comes along in 2010 and says "I got an old pickup truck on my farm and I want a new pickup truck on my farm and thats a very nice airport tanker/Cessna tow vehicle, but I want a new pickup truck because my whole farm is built around pickup truck mission and capabilities and I'm not turning my farm into an airport anytime soon. Not that I mind if its cheaper to maintain or more fuel efficient or more reliable, but I need a pickup truck not a airplane tender." So the company that made his Ford 1955 pickup truck designs a new pickup truck in 2000 and farmer bob buys it without even seriously considering the airport vehicle.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:06PM (2 children)
You know your military is obese when you need more helicopters (84) just to watch over your own weapons movements, than all but a few countries have in their whole armed forces.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:21PM (1 child)
Thank you, internet man, for sharing your unique insight on the US military. I'm sure your opinion was taken into consideration with the experts who'd dedicated their careers to studying the needs of the military and have deep insight to the problems the modern military faces.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:28PM
Most of those experts push the narrative that the US needs to be ready for a two-theater World War III, and that US military bases or activities in over 100 countries are a good thing.
My point exactly.
(Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:23PM (3 children)
The story is not terribly well researched by the journalist.
Its really two stories. First, the blackhawk is a 1970s design to replace the huey. Its not a bad design for a 1970s chopper. For something made with slide rules in the pre-microprocessor era it kicks butt. Obviously there's been some modernization, but a model-T with an engine computer and Android Auto entertainment system is still fundamentally a model-T. The MH-139 is a 2000s design to replace the huey. Both the huey and the MH139 were made by Bell Helicopters. The MH139 was in a shared group project with this Augusta consortium because Bell was super busy with the second story, that being the V-22 Osprey which is a deathtrap.
The second story is the Osprey has always overpromised under-delivered and killed a lot of people. Part of ramping up the contract and r+d tempo on the V-22 around 2005 was Bell apparently giving up on their 2000s modernization of their old Huey, they sold out their share of the group project back to Augusta.
So its not frankly too shocking that the company that made the Huey, when in competition with another company that tried to upgrade the Huey in the 70s, kicked their butt in 2000s. I mean ... think about it... the MH-139 modernized a Huey using modern CAD/CAM whereas the blackhawk was a competitors attempt at a sequel made using sliderules... Meanwhile the failure of the V-22 program led to Bell having to give up and refocus on the new V-22 rather than the sequel to the Huey.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:15PM (2 children)
Only 42 so far, but who's counting?
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:18PM (1 child)
The Marines that ride and fly them everyday still have a big hard on for them...
I mean it's still tragic that 42 service members died because something went wrong, but as far as I'm aware those deaths lead to the discovery of flaws which were later fixed in hardware by the company or fixed in wetware with new training and maintenance procedures, so those deaths we're not in vain. Ideally those faults would have been identified before in testing, but as we all know it's impossible to fully simulate real life. Sometimes a bug can't be found until the end user gets ahold of it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 27 2018, @09:46PM
I don't know every crash, but the general V-22 theme is its too low powered and too fat, so they cut corners in weird places. Something like the highest pressure hydraulics in mass produced aerospace by a huge fraction are in the V-22, stuff that you can get away with on a 1000 psi system will kill people on a 6000 psi system.
There are also some issues where they kinda whipped it together without the wind tunnel technology to really understand whats going on, again killing a lot of people. For example an efficient way to get killed in a helo is a slow vertical descent where you're sinking into turbulent airflow and it gets worse as you drop ever faster; the V-22 has that like any other helo but its 1000x worse. Some sprightly and studly strong helos can power right out of a stupid maneuver like that; fat and weak V-22 not so much its going down... Sort of like its not too hard to get killed in a stall using a WW1 biplane because they don't have enough thrust for their weight; whereas its kinda hard to die in a stall in a F-16 because in a few seconds you have a 1:1 thrust to weight ratio and nothing short of a spin can get you. Something like a study upgraded AH-64 is hard to kill in a vertical descent because its got enough raw power to escape; V-22 not so much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:29PM
My friend, you under estimate the value of the pizza delivery business!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:59PM
I heard the new Italian helicopters have glass bottoms...so they can see the old Italian helicopters [scomedy.com].
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:28PM (5 children)
Data from Wikipedia and TFA.
Unit cost UH-60: 21.3 million (2012 dollars average expenditure per Wikipedia).
Unit cost MH-139: 28.3 million (2.2 billion divided by 84) down from original projection of over 4 billion.
So the Air Force gets to celebrate a win of only $588 million of wasteage, assuming the Blackhawk could have fulfilled the mission parameters (which if it is in competition I assume it could) but at average configuration acquisition price.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:34PM
What is really lovely is reading the articles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:54PM (1 child)
Obviously the UH-60 no longer fulfills the mission parameters, thus the competition. And if you had read the article you would know this.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:40PM
Yep. And if you read TFA closer you would have read that it was the UH-1 which no longer fulfills the mission parameters, not the Blackhawk. Since the Blackhawk was in the competition it met the the first round of bid requirements, as it is stupidly wasted money to put up something that can't meet (at least) initial specifications. In fact there were bids for both new UH-60s from Sikorski and also refurbed UH-60s [sncorp.com] with improved capabilities from a different company. There is no mention of the competitors actual bid prices and no information that price was the sole determinant of the winner.
And I'll grant that it was a Congressman who said this and is therefore suspect, but in this article from The Hill from 2016 [rollcall.com] it was suggested that instead of bidding outright they should have just no-bid bought Blackhawks. But re-read this paragraph in particular from TFA:
(Bolding mine).
In fact, the compeitition did not pay off for the American public, since as I point out above the Air Force will ultimately pay more than they could have.
Unless, AC, you have a different document that truly shows that the UH-60 couldn't fulfill the mission when originally it certainly seemed like it could have. (And then.... what does that mean - was bullshit added to the program requirements to make sure the right company won?)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 27 2018, @09:55PM (1 child)
Apples to oranges. Thats where the real money is made. Almost intentionally impossible to compare prices, sometimes.
Also UH-60s have mission packs; not really clear how useful it would be without mods. Bad automobile analogy is the truck mfgrs used to sell bare chassis to the RV cabin makers; technically the cheapest heavy duty truck you can buy is a body-less RV chassis, but since a body-less chassis is not street legal comparing its price to stealership driveaway price for a consumer truck.
I was about to suggest a helo wouldn't need the expensive air assault package, but for a nuke security response team that is in fact probably exactly what they need. Something tells me they're probably as heavily armed and modded as an Army helo. The takeoff-ready mission cost of a -60 is likely more than a MH-139.
I figure at least 25% chance you're right, but there are a lot of extra issues to consider.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday September 28 2018, @12:04PM
Good points, and I could be wrong.
The other aspect is that the -60 is already in the Air Force inventory as the Pave Hawk. That doesn't mean absolute compatibility but goes a long ways towards having training and support equipment/procedure/staff already in place, as opposed to bringing in a completely new equipment type to inventory.
It isn't quite clear to me if the training systems and support equipment is covered in the bid or if that's additional costing. And I may have misread - if the initial no-bid price was $4.1 billion for the Hawks then that may instead have been where corruption was at. (I read it that the MH-139 bid had to come down because there were competitors, which now I don't think is accurate.)
This sig for rent.