From our friends at Popular Mechanics:
Even the president’s ride can be hot-rodded. That’s the best way to describe the 23 choppers scheduled to replace the current fleet of Marine One VH-3Ds and VH-60Ns. Outfitted with a kitchen, a bathroom and a White House-worthy high-speed communications suite, the VH-71 is closer in capabilities (and amenities) to Air Force One than to its short-hop predecessors.
Development of the VH-71, which had its first test flight in Yeovil, England, in July, was accelerated following the Sept. 11 attacks, with Lockheed Martin promising five production models by 2009. The remaining choppers, due by 2018, will include even more communications systems and performance boosts.
Read the rest of the Popular Mechanics story on the VH-71 HERE.
– Christian
Call me protectionist, nativist, old fashioned-whatever…but I just can’t wrap my brain around the fact that our President is going to fly in a helicopter from a company that isn’t American owned. Yes I know that’s not in keeping with globilization but it’s just … “weird” to me!
Solomon I think your missing the bigger picture here, surely it doesn’t matter from where the helicopter is coming from but that it’s the best available?
The RAF and Royal Navy have combat proven this machine in Afghanistan and speak VERY highly of it’s reliability, comfort and maneuverability. US pilots on detachment to the UK who have flown it have likewise said the same.
On top of all that the UK and US defense industries are so closely intertwined it might as well be American!
Come on Wren, Some Pride! lol
I know that national pride is a big thing in the states, I should know I lived there for a year, but its nice to see that the bean counters selected the better product over pride. Its just a shame that those same bean counters couldn’t have resided over the CSAR aircraft requirement, or there would be a darn sight more EH101’s in service across the pond.
Phil, don’t worry I have plenty of pride in my own country (the UK) just don’t see the reason so many Americans complain about the EH-101 being British, and yes your right if CSAR had been managed properly more EH-101 probably would have been serving in the US
Hey man,a kitchen,a bathroom? All it needs now is an Austin Powers’ circular bed in it & it’d be seriously rocking,hubba,hubba!!!
This thing is quiet. After using our local airport for test flights, I can say this thing is so much more quiet than any other helo I have heard before. The carbon fiber blades are interesting.
Obviously, the President needs a decent helicopter but is it really necessary to have a kitchen and a bathroom for such a short hop aircraft? The communications suite and performance updates are necessary, but isn’t the Prez and WH staff only using this ride for 10–20 minutes at the most?
They might as well trick out/uparmor a Winabago and use that as the Prez limo to get the trifecta of bathrooms/kitchens for all Prez vehicles; Marine 1, Air Force 1, Winabago 1.
At least the fuel tanks for a Winnebago arent in the floor, directly underneath the President’s feet.
No,the Winnebago needs to be tricked out like the one on the movie “Stripes.” It needs rockets & rocket launchers.I still say that the Austin Powers’ circular bed is not a luxury,its necessary.Maybe the new Marine One is supposed to operate like “Airwolf.“Hey,no need for Air Force One,the new Marine 1 can fly to Moscow by itself.You’d need a bathroom & a kitchen for that wouldn’t you?
Ok Wren, if national pride plays no part in procurement then why don’t the brits use the M-1 instead of the challenger??? Why the Warrior instead of the Bradley??? Why develop the typhoon when its only marginally better than an F-15D (with AESA and new engines, avionics etc..)???? Because domestic industrial bases still count for something. The president rides around in a pure dee American stretch limo and could instead ride around in a Jag but he doesn’t. I used the same reasoning for the selection of a new US PRESIDENTIAL helicopter. Better selections might be available but they’re not always “palatable” to the public.
Oh and Phil, if we’re talking about the best available then instead of replacing C-5’s with A380’s we’d be calling Mr. Anotov and acquiring AN-225’s instead!
Phil
The issues with the 101 were fixed indeed…years later, with multiple fleetwide groundings (CH-149)and only after people died.
Im not sure you understand the domestic requirements of the VXX program. Its not “reassembly”. The reason that the VH71 had to be completed by Lockheed, and not just sold by AW, was that a specific % of the AC was mandated to be domestically “sourced” (it was a fuzzy equation based on mission-critical part distribution) for SECURITY reasons. Believe me, I worked on the V/H92, and our AC was capable of 100% domestic sourcing. A similar issue is rearing its head with F-35 export to the UK.
Having been a part of the VH92 team myself, Id like to hear why you believe the 101 was a superior selection.
Howdy,
Don’t get me wrong, American products are great, and national pride and national defense industries are an important point in any form of politics, Agreed Solomon? As for the M-1, and Bradley, who says they are the best? Yeah the Eurofighter may not in your eyes be amazing, but we do have to keep our defense industry going or we will repeat the TSR disaster. I was talking about the A380 for the president, not the transport role, as stated in my post.
C. Foskey, honestly, I don’t think we should start a spitting match over early crashes and deaths, as I could pull about 12 groundings and fatal crashes in the first 2 years of the blackhawk testing program and service from memory and net alone. My apologies, I was referring to rebuilding % when looking at the XCSAR program, not the Presidents ride, I should have made my self clearer.
Phil…
You lost me bud…if we can agree that industrial bases are important, national pride and politics are realities, then why can you not wrap your brain around my contention that a US President should be flying a US made aircraft?
As far as the EH-101 is concerned, I don’t even consider it the premier European medium lift helo. That award goes to the NH-90, perferably in the “tall” version. The A-380 for our next President??? give me a break! We don’t need to backstop European social programs do we???
Solomon, without getting into a long winded argument, I do agree National Pride is important. All I was saying is the US choose the best helicopter out there for the job. Yes the EH-101 has problems, it
@ Wren
The Typhoon costs over 4 times more than an F-15C/D ($122/$30 million) and is a full generation newer. Anyone can argue that a 2006 BMW M5 is going to outperform a 1992 Corvette. But the costs associated with owning and operating each at present day vary greatly — and may not be justified by the difference in performance.
Which is why the F-35 is marketed as a cheaper little brother to the F-22, and is the actual aircraft that should be compared to the Typhoon.
C Foskey
read Solomon’s post of 03.33pm. that explains Wren’s comparison of Typhoon to F15.
Supporting domestic industry can make selections a whole lot simpler sometimes. In Canada, the military usually prefers to buy US equipment for interoperability. Every time one of these purchases comes up, however, it becomes a lobbying game between US companies, European companies, some Canadian company that thinks it should be the supplier provided that half a dozen requirements are altered and the government kicks in development money, and just for fun, the Russians who insist that their equipment is twice as capable for a quarter of the cost. We’ve been through this fun little game for our recent C-17, CH-47, and rescue helicopter purchases, and we’re going to see more of it to replace our Auroras (Canadian P-3) and CF-18s. And curiously enough, we selected the S-92 as a replacement for our cancelled EH-101 frigate helicopter. Kind of the reverse of the US-101 decision, just dragged out for 15 years so we could kill more pilots flying 1st generation Sea Kings.
I was really going to let this go but…The comparisons between combat vehicles in use by the UK and US was just to illustrate a point that “better” is indeed relative and that politics/national pride and industrial bases do indeed trump most procurement decisions. But having said that a few points do need to be made on your comparison tables. First an EFP that is properly constructed can defeat any know MBT roaming the battlefield. The same applies to roadside bombs. Multiple RPG hits on M1’s have been absorbed with no loss of life or the vehicle. The same can be said of the Challenger. Specific RPG’s that have enhanced warheads can penetrate the armor of both vehicles if the shot is carefully aimed or if the gunner is lucky. The stats given by you on the Challengers performance are also not borne out by “real life” experience. The M1 is certainly capable of much more than 30 mph off road (i’ve seen it personally)-your view of the Bradley is also flawed, it has a 30mm chain gun from the Apache Helo and is also capable of much higher off road speeds than you listed, I’ll leave it to an Active Army guy to read this post and backstop my claims! As far as the Typhoon is concerned, it is almost certainly a national jobs program (as many military procurement programs everywhere are) because the F-15 as I stated earlier with the latest avionics, AESA and assorted pods would have been a quicker, cheaper and more logistically viable alternative than the effort it took to develop a 4.5 generation aircraft. The table that you quoted is backstopped by a classified report that I can’t get my hands on regarding the effectiveness of the F-22 into the future (constructed during the funding battles to justify more F-22 production I might add) so until I or Christian or Ward or Norman or anyone thats credible can flesh out your “kill” numbers—I’ll toss those up as being pure speculation and political nonsense.
But again I digress. The main point that I started with has yet to be proven wrong. An American president should fly American product. Every manufacturer on this planet can claim to have the finest widget going. The mode of transportation that a nations leader travels in reflects more than “the best value at the best delivery date”, it represents the nations technological and military prowess. Bush forgot that in this selection period. And if you believe that this was not a political decision then I have some beautiful beach front property outside of New Orleans to sell you.
Roy!
ooops my bad on the gun but i was thinking efv when i should have been focused purely on the bradley (got my vehicles confused).…dumb i know, i’ll take the hit…the point remains and the conversation devolved.…president should fly american
hey,Blackwater flies the H-92 Helicopter.
I guess it comes down to the fact that at present the US isn’t really all that careful when it comes to foreign policy decisions for many and depending on a foreign power for our primary combat aircraft would be one hell of a problem if you decided that North Sea Oil was next after Iraq, just a random musing but a problem if we did depend too heavily on another nation for our weaponary. Also, if you don’t use it, you lose it, we can’t lose our skilled aircraft engineers or ship builders or we really will be in a bind, why do you think the MOD is up in arms over the US foot dragging over the source code for the F-35 we have agreed to buy. We like to fix our own kit if possible without worrying about contracting in Lockheed or Boeing, plus it allows us to develop additions to the source code for British or European weaponary and requirements.