Wildcat (AW159) Helicopter - First Flight

The AugustaWestland AW159 Helicopter's first flight. The Wildcat is the successor to the Lynx and Super Lynx helicopters (the worlds fastest helicopters in production). Its primary roles are battlefield utility, anti-armour, search-and-rescue and anti-submarine warfare. It is on order for the British Army and Royal Navy. The primary characteristics are improved hot-and-high performance, range and load. The airframe features an 80% reduction in parts count using larg monolithic components which is claimed to improve maintainability and reduce assembly time.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Aw159
• super
• lynx
• helicopter
• first
• flight
• aviation
• augustawestland
• wildcat

[tonkerdog]

If they had bought the Blackhawk because of its size, it was thought the RAF not the Army would be tasked to fly it(its the old fashioned way are Generals think!) and therefore this made it unappealing to the Army. Although all the soldiers on the ground, and most of the crew that will be tasked to fly it would have the Blackhawk(and more of them) any day.

[t43562]

@tonkerdog the army fly the Chinook and that's pretty big.

[TheMitchy93]

@t43562, The RAF fly Chinooks not the Army.

[t43562]

@TheMitchy93 Thanks for the correction and sorry for making that mistake. OK. I have read that the Apache is not a simple helicopter and it isn't tiny so surely the Blackhawk is not too much?

[t43562]

@kingdavewoody I think that the Wildcat is not the same as this Mk9A- the airframe is new (apparently less parts) and although the Mk9A has the same engines, I think it's avionics appear to not be new apart from the communications system. I don't know how much difference all of that makes.

[mr9396]

@stratagie1. oh, my mistake

[stratagie1]

@mr9396 Well the Chinook is in it's own class i am talking about the fact the Americans have the black hawk and the British have the Merlin to do the same job

[mr9396]

@stratagie1. and the chinook.....

[stratagie1]

@t43562 We have the merlin instead

[kingdavewoody]

@tonkerdog Also, thats 7 seats of troops with no gear, I belive it works out to be 4 seats if they're wearing webbing, patrol packs, ECM, weapons etc. Westland don't have to make decent aircraft because they know that any piece of crap they make, the MOD will still buy. I'm working on the MK9A in California at the moment, and deploying to Afghanistan with is shortly, and it's an awful aircraft.

[drfan2004]

A beautiful Lynx respun-albeit less than ideal for the Army's purposes in Afghanistan.A lighter smaller version of the Chinook like the 1950's era Belvedere being capable of carrying a section of men,their equipment and slung load; respun would have been a better and cheaper solution,for the army/marines anyway.

They just dont design them with the practical thinking as they once did.

[Atricz]

why didnt they buy the blackhawk for 500m less

[TheMitchy93]

@t43562,No problem, easy mistake. The Blackhawk isn't too much, I though am not that bothered what helicopter we get, I think the Royal Navy like this helicopter though because its predessors have been proven in battle and it's smaller for when it lands on our smaller naval ships.