Germany may have some issues with their new NH-90 helicopters. Or do they? Most of the issues mentioned in this article apply to payload layout.
Question: Under the Australian specification for this helicopter as the MRH-90, are the German issues important?
The German military responds that the negative issues mentioned have more to do with a prototype.
The Australian Navy part of this project is under contention with some in the military wanting to buy “off the shelf” American helicopters instead.
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I not surprised. Been reading the yearly updates to the Dutch parlement and it reads like the NH-90 for the Dutch Navy falls well short of operational requirements. I think the big lesson from all of this is never buy stuff thats not out of testing. Buying of the shelve would have been a lot cheaper for Holland and faster too.
I very much doubt the NH-90 is suited for land operations also cause its made out of plastics. And for naval operations there were other ready alternatives.
This whole overlap from buying stuff thats still in early development phase and unproven is no good. F-35, A400 now the NH-90 to name a few projects. Its a wrong business model for the buyers.
Vince
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