choppers

[pilatus]

whats the story about liberia?are the corps really goin to deploy 2xdauphin?are these choppers even properly equiped for a deployment to such a hot spot?caus the waring rebels who r trigger itchy have(supposedly)sams and also rpgs(rocket propelled grenades).the choppers wouldnt know there was a threat until they feel the aircraft rocking from the impact.kind of dangerous as the yanks have found out on several occasions in iraq.

[Silver]

To my knowledge, there are no plans to deploy any Air Corps helis to Liberia (or anywhere else abroad for that matter).

The recent DoD statement mentioned that the AC may deploy abroad after they recieve new light helis.
In another thread, it was mentioned that 2 x Dauphins were training with the Army prior to the troops deploying to Liberia - not the helis.

[John K]

Yeah, Silver, it would be essential that the troops get some form of Heli. training before going abroard, I'd imagine that every army involved in UN duties must have some form of air deployment, with the possible exception of the Irish.
as for deploying any IAC heli into any possible hostile environment would be completely stupid without a comprehensive fit of countermeasures/warning systems. Just have a look at the RAF Pumas in NI, plenty of 'bulges' all over the airframe! What do the IAC have? Mk1 eyeball!-doesn't possess 360 degrees of vision!

[Imshi-Yallah]

Not a lot of protection you can get against small arms fire other than heavy armour and multiple redundancy.
The IAC can't deploy to Liberia because it currently lacks the training to do so, also to get a useful minimum of two operational Dauphins you'd need to send four.
Plus the flutey faux-modern avionics in the IAC 365s are probably not going to last very long in high humidity.

Personally I'm a big believer in the AS 365/565 series, speaking as I always do, from an armycentric point of view the basic airframe is sound, fitted with the right powerplant and avionics it would be a genuinely multi-role aircraft with far greater flexibility than the EC635 or A109 (the latter being the Dauphin/Panther's closest competitor but lacking any real transport potential whereas the 635 could operate in a similar role to the AIII and the Panther can carry up to "12" lightly equipped troops (i.e. in CEFO)).
As it is the IAC won't be doing any TTH work without a new MLH contract, any other Helicopter deployments will be in a purely observation tasking.