The CH-148 problems have been technical in nature, however, the mess that selected the CH-148 was political in nature.
During the bidding process, when the final selection was taking place, it was announced back in 2003 that there were two qualified bidders, the Agusta-Westland EH-101 and the Sikorsky S-92. However, there was actually only one compliant bidder; the EH-101. The S-92 was evaluated by the Project Office evaluators to be non-compliant with a number of the key requirements but was given a "pass" through political pressure.
Can you link to official reports indicating that such a "pass" was given? Or is this the press or the opinion of people pitted against the Sikorsky award and finding reasons for it to be negated?
Everyone will recall that MHP was a "lowest cost compliant" competition. The Sikorsky bid was the lowest cost of the two... so to guarantee an outcome, the solution Sikorsky proposed was merely pencil whipped as "compliant" but it remains to this day quite otherwise. The fact that to this day, the Cyclone does not/cannot meet many of the key minimum performance requirements of the original contract and. for these and other reasons, cannot be certified as being airworthy for anything more than daytime, fair weather, over land operations at best.
.Again, do you have a link to support such an allegation from an official source, either in the project office for the Canadian military or from the defence ministry?
Not knowing or seeing the specific requirements specification, I cannot personally say myself.
But, I do find it difficult to believe that any helicopter produced by Sikorsky would end up as you say:
<I>"...cannot be certified as being airworthy for anything more than daytime, fair weather, over land operations at best."{/I}
The design itself is based on a civilian helicopter that operates in many weather conditions and over land and sea. So that does not jive with what you are saying about it being able to operate only in fair weather over land at best.
Sikorsky has unbelievable good experience in developing all-weather, ASW naval helicopters...some of the best in the world.
I have to believe that there is more to it than that.
For all of the talk about the requirements changing, realistically, the basic requirements haven't changed since 2004. What has changed was that requirements were adjusted in RESPONSE to various technical issues or failures on part of Sikorsky.
Such changes are not at all uncommon in a project like this, particularly with the span it has. Such changes can be interpreted by the losing party to mean that things are being made easier for the winner...but that is universally almost never the case.
We need a capable, multirole, varied sensors aircraft that operate independently of the ship that launched the helicopter. The British and the Canadians practice this operational concept for their anti-submarine helicopters.
Agreed that that is precisely what the Canadian Military needs.
I also believe that Sikorsky is perfectly capable of providing it, and that they have a good track record with other programs of doing so.
As I said with my original post, it will be a shame if the Canadian government and Sikorsky cannot work it out, after all of this effort and cost, to make that happen with the Cyclone.
I personally believe the platform itself is capable of it...whether they will ever get there with it is the question...and it appears at this point that public and a lot of political perceptiona and sentiment has been influenced against it.
