BigOl64 wrote on Sep 25
th, 2013 at 8:54am:
Grey wrote on Sep 25
th, 2013 at 8:44am:
BigOl64 wrote on Sep 25
th, 2013 at 6:30am:
Brian Ross wrote on Sep 24
th, 2013 at 8:45pm:
And had no money left over for anything else. Our entire economy would have been skewed, which is what happened when we bought the C-17s (which was IMO a mistake).
And yet the RAAF operations of the C17 has proven to be an outstanding aircraft, fitting perfectly into out heavy haulage needs. The aircraft was purchaced on time and on budget, 4 initial aircraft for under $1 bil. So I don't see how buying 6 aircraft would have skewed our economy, considering it was a drop in the ocean type military purchace.
Very few aircraft are aquired without some extra pain, financial and operational, the C17 and the F18 Rhino were 2 such purchases. Both saw us aquire the aircraft in a timely fashion and those aircraft intergrate into their roles just as quick.
If you want to see a bad intergration have a look at the army trying to buy the new MRH 90s, a friggen fiasco. It's just a chopper and they carry on like it's run on voodoo technology, the RAN has a more complex version and are having less problems.
We'd've got a much better deal out of the Russians on an Antonov.
Really yhow would that be?
Taking into account, that it would be impossible to intergrate into our airforce without massive modifications to the comms systems, re-writting every publication and signage into english, re-training operators and maintainers from US aircraft systems to russian systems. Not having a gauranteed supply line or support.
Or do you think all these things would be free as the russians would just give them to us gratis?
The RAAF is not stupid, they, unlike you, have been operating quite successuflly as an airforce for over 90 years, so there is a very good reason why they don't ask or buy certain equipment just because it is cheaper.
Intergration is vastly more important than saving a few buck at the front end of the purchase.
The Malaysians and the Indonesians appear to have had little difficulty in integrating Russian aircraft into their airforces. As have the Greeks or the Turks which use Russian helicopters.
The Russians have been more than happy to install Western avionics and coms equipment into their aircraft when requested to by their customers. They have managed to translate or replace all the intruments, the manuals and supply the required spares.
What must be remember though, is that Russian aircraft design follows a different philosophy to the West's. Whereas the West has been steadily devolving maintenance tasks further and further down to the flightline, providing electronic systems built into their products to allow easy diagnose and fixing of problems away from the workshops as much as possible, Russian designs are still meant to be maintained at large, centralised workshops by specialised fitters. This, I suspect means that what you save on the roundabouts (initial purchase cost), you often lose on the roundabouts (in total cost of ownership of the asset).
Russian aircraft, particularly transport ones and helicopters tend to be simple, robust and built like the proverbial brick dunny. Their engines OTOH tend to have short times between major overhauls and need quite intensive maintenance. That is slowly improving but is not up to Western standards yet.
Their fighters have come leaps and bounds in the last 30 years though, and are as capable and as deadly, if not more so, than anything in the West's inventory, particularly if armed with their latest missiles.
There is considerable prejudice against them, though in many Western Air Forces, including the RAAF. Those that have adopted them have generally had good things to say about them and their after-sales report. Compare that to what is often remembered about such companies as Dassault and BAE.
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