New MH Announcement

[Ex-Dragoon]

Shoulda dropped a line Lance..maybe we could have grabbed Inch, Che, Brin and had an impromptu gettogether.

 

[Inch]

I will admit that from a distance they look fine.  Get up close and they look old, or for that matter look in the cockpit and you'll see what I mean.

That would've been sweet, I was down at the Lower Deck with my buddy, tons o' women, but he's married and you gots to have a wingman  ;D

I mentioned it in another thread, but I think it'd be more hassle than it's worth to keep the Sea Kings flying.  You'd have to strip them down to bare bones and redo everything. In the process of doing that you'd probably start to see metal fatigue that we don't even know is there right now.

Cheers

 

[Lance Wiebe]

I was there with wife and daughter.  Back to the hotel every night at nine or ten or so.  Sigh.  Otherwise, I most certainly would have dropped a line.  I did run into a friend, totally by accident.  He's recruiting down there in the big city.

Inch, do you guys have stabilised binos?

 

[Inch]

Not that I know of, I've never heard of them, what are they used for? We've got FLIR which is that little black ball hanging off the front, and of course radar and sonar.

 

[Lance Wiebe]

They had them in the Kiowas, for the observers.  The lens were stabilised, so that the vibration of the chopper was eliminated.  They worked very well, even using them on tanks and stuff made sense, the picture seen was not blurred at all by the vibration. 

I wonder what happened to them?

I can't recall off hand the magnification, byt it seems to me that they were 12X70, or something like that.  I would have thought that something like that would be useful in your line of work.  I also recall seeing a picture of a Sea Thing, where the copilot had a set of binos in hand.  Seems to me that stabilised binos would work really well for you, better than the standard binos.

 

[Inch]

Interesting.  They would be helpful identifying surface ships, not much help with the subs.  I'm sure we've got binos but I don't think they're stabilized, you get used to seeing stuff while you're getting your eyeballs shaken out of your head.

Cheers

 

[Lance Wiebe]

They have to be still in the system.

Any ragpickers, I mean bean counters, out there?  Maybe someone can do a search on them.

 

[Lance Wiebe]

Hey, Inch, you guys have to be really low on the priority list! 

Every Aurora has them, apparently.  At least 404, 405 and 415 Squadrons.  That's according to our local supply guy.  You should check them out sometime.  The more expensive ones that the Forces use are really good, they use gyros to stabilize in three axis.  They are a pain when you move them real quick, though.  They take a couple of seconds to sort themselves out.

 

[Zoomie]

Yup, stabilized binos are standard issue to Aurora crews.  The FE will usually use them for trying to pick up surface contacts that the RADAR has them vectoring in on.

 

[Inch]

It sounds like pretty good kit, so my next question is how big are these things? If they're standard bino size than I don't understand why we wouldn't have them, I've just never heard it mentioned around the sqn.  If they're large and need to be mounted then I can understand why we don't have them since being able to see a heaving ship amongst the waves and then land on it would take precedence.

Cheers

 

[Lance Wiebe]

The hel observer in the Kiowas carried them around his neck.  The carrying case is big, with spare batteries, lens cleaning kits, and so on, but the binos themselves aren't that big.  I tested them on tanks and Lynx a few years back.  I figured that anyone that gets issued binos, and is subject to any kind of vibration, should have been issued them.  We got turned down, on the excuse that they weren't rugged enough for real men, er, I mean soldiers, but they were great for the Air Force.

 

[Inch]

Ouch! Maybe we do have them, I just haven't seen them yet. I'll ask around to put your mind at ease. 

Cheers

 

[Cloud Cover]

The airforce-technology.com website shows the H92 with an in-flight refuelling probe. Will the Canadian machine retain this feature, and if so, could a Herc refuel it?  And, will the naval version have the rear cargo ramp?

 

[Inch]

That picture is a mock up, the H92's aren't even built yet, they're still a paper helicopter. As far as I know ours will not have refueling probes, there's really no point, the Hercs are not going to fly over the middle of the north Atlantic to refuel us.  The proposed refueling probe would be for American versions that it can be refueled with their Carrier based refuelers.  Negative on the ramp too, not a requirement for naval helos.

Cheers

 

[CDNBlackhawk]

I sure he probably seen a S-92 which is just the civlian version of the H-92 if i am not mistaken, but i could be wrong

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

hey Inch has anything come down on how many mk46s will it carry (or are they looking for something else)? Will it be able to carry a door gun like the Sea pig? Also will the fleet be broken into the dipping and non dipping variants like the 124s were?

 

[Inch]

Still no word on how many torps it'll carry, the MG I'm not sure of either unless they make changes to the size of the cargo door (it's quite small, almost too small for hoisting, I think the EH101 has the same problem so it's not unique to the H92) though I couldn't see them leaving the MG out. My understanding of the A & B model CH124's is that we were going to go with sonobuoys all across the board, but for some reason the idea got sh*tcanned and we ended up with the 2 versions, there's only like half a dozen B models, at 423 I think we only have one. So as far as I know, all CH148's are going to be equipped to dip.

Cheers

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

I figured there was no news but once can hope. Thanks for the response.

 

[Inch]

No worries. All the guys on Sqn that were around for the cancellation of the EH101 contract understandably aren't too excited right now about the new helo, they're all of the opinion "I'll believe it when I see it sitting on the ramp".

Cheers

 

[Gunnerlove]

I doubt they will make a large change such as deleting the ramp as it would require a great deal of re engineering, testing, and retooling. Why would you want to lose the ramp and the utility it brings? Additionally deleting it would probably change the CG, and with the tight delivery schedule they do not have tons of breathing room before they incur penalties. 

Just my opinion. And Inch is right no one will really know till we take delivery.