Thanks Tempest, I didn't that.Tempest414 wrote: ↑15 Feb 2023, 08:29No the T700's new engines are some 250 to 300 SHP lower than our old D's but as said the new gearbox and blades make a lot of that upmrclark303 wrote: ↑14 Feb 2023, 18:29A few points Tempest, as far as I am aware, our E models are absolutely bog standard US Army models, diverted from US multi year orders, perhaps I'm wrong there...Tempest414 wrote: ↑14 Feb 2023, 16:04In many ways our D model was the E model and what is now the E should have been the F there are so many things on our D's that have informed the E. It should also be noted our E's have extra works over the US E's around better protection of working parts at seamrclark303 wrote: ↑14 Feb 2023, 14:54I see your point SW1 and you could add the value back to the treasury....SW1 wrote: ↑14 Feb 2023, 14:16 I’d disagree on the original apache purchase because it was commonising engines with a fully supported supply chain in country and a fully sovereign DAS system which resulted in a superior product in the region it deployed to for a number of years.
The question that should of be asked after that was should we have taken the Japanese decision and not purchased the e version at all
However, even taking that and the happy coincidence of the added performance from the RR engines in the sandbox into account, the cost of our D models, in comparison to the US Army version was said to be a quite horrifying between 2 and 3 times the unit cost, because we insisted on UK engines and assembly.
That's an insane waste of money by any metric...
It should also be said that when I was last at Wattisham the first air crews were coming back from training on the E and were saying that the new rotors and engines helped a lot but didn't fully compensate for the raw power of the RR engines
The uprated US engine is I believe more powerful than the RR engine of our old D models.
I would concur that our unique D model probably did influence the E model development, increased power and basic maritime mods.
the UK E's still have some UK only kit on them and as said more work has been done on the UK airframes and some other parts around maritime ops
If our E models have specific UK modifications, then their very low unit price is even more remarkable and a stark contrast to the outrageous price the UK tax payer was ripped off by, regarding our D models.