It's a good discussion to have to inform leadership as to how much more money they'll need to plan for if they want to continue to operate the same way. Or if there's no more money it informs them that they'll need to do something different. Also helps source selection committee understand how to evaluate cost and other factors in relation to each other.
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- Thread starter Randy Daytona
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@IKE, clarifying question: did you mean HX wouldn't evaluate/fly-off the contenders prior to source selection or did you mean that once selection was completed that HX wouldn't evaluate the selected prototype as part of the system validation?
I was told HX wouldn't evaluate alternatives, but I don't remember who told me, so take with 100 grains of salt. I suppose it makes more sense that HX would evaluate alternatives, but not test the winner, unless it gets Navy-specific systems.
I do know we tested the new VRS sideways recovery technique in the TH-57, so we're not completely divorced from CNATRA.
There IS going to be a System Performance Demonstration before award, so is THAT going to be all CNATRA?
Yeah, maybe. Look, it is either delivering good value for the money, and you can afford it, or not. That should stand on it's own. So if it turns out the alternative is crazy more expensive than the -67, would they pass and keep the -67? Seems not. So big whoop.
Depends on how big your budgets are and the color of money therein.
You might have a procurement budget big enough to pay for something pretty Gucci.
If your flight hour and O&S money is fixed, though, you might not be able to achieve the same student throughput if there isn’t enough money to pay for the flight time.
So doing nothing, keeping the -67 is in play?
I think @wink means TH-57 - and no keeping it is not an option.
I have an answer - NAVAIR PMA is running the program and selection wing to wing. CNATRA is in the mix however (stakeholder and advisory)
@phrogdriver the System Performance Demonstration is scheduled for Spring, this year (not summer) - and will occur at each candidates location - 2 weeks for each aircraft.
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I am, sorry. Navy 57
That makes sense. Since it isn't really first flight for any of those birds, it shouldn't be Cat C, which means no TPS grad required. Anyone with enough "fleet experience" could be designated a Cat A/B test pilot. And to be fair, an HT IP with many hours training studs is probably a better judge than someone with mostly -60 time.
And the final bids are all in - it appears Bell did not submit the 429 and only submitted 407GXi (no word on IFR certification progress however? @phrogdriver can you comment without violating NDA ?
My contacts at Airbus tell me the full auto requirement will not be a sword big Navy dies on...
Some interesting times ahead - next step is the demonstration - a herd of people from Pax, Corpus, TW-5 and HT's will be traveling to Bell, Leonardo and Airbus in coming weeks to fly each aircraft through syllabus maneuvers.
https://www.rotorandwing.com/2019/04/03/bids-in-for-new-us-navy-training-helicopter/
My contacts at Airbus tell me the full auto requirement will not be a sword big Navy dies on...
Some interesting times ahead - next step is the demonstration - a herd of people from Pax, Corpus, TW-5 and HT's will be traveling to Bell, Leonardo and Airbus in coming weeks to fly each aircraft through syllabus maneuvers.
https://www.rotorandwing.com/2019/04/03/bids-in-for-new-us-navy-training-helicopter/
I’ve got nothing further to say than that the quantifiable performance differences between the aircraft are pretty small. However, you do see significant differences in acquisition and sustainment costs.
If I knew I would be keeping an aircraft for 25+ years, I’d do what the Navy did and make sustainment price and acquisition price both part of the evaluation criteria.
If I knew I would be keeping an aircraft for 25+ years, I’d do what the Navy did and make sustainment price and acquisition price both part of the evaluation criteria.