Results of LUH/UH Competition

[Head]

PRESS RELEASE

O’DEA GIVES GREEN LIGHT FOR ACQUISITION OF NEW HELICOPTERS FOR AIR CORPS


The Minister for Defence, Mr. Willie O’Dea, has today authorised his Department to open negotiations for the acquisition of six new helicopters for the Irish Air Corps.

Two Light Utility EC 135 helicopters will be acquired from Eurocopter, France/ Germany and will be used mainly for pilot training.

Four Utility AB 139 Helicopters will be acquired from the Bell Agusta Aerospace Company, Italy and will be operated by the Air Corps in a general purpose military operational and training role.

The Minister has directed that contract negotiations be completed with both companies as a matter of urgency and he expects contracts to be in place by mid-December 2004.

Minister O’Dea said that the helicopters will provide a very significant boost to the Army and Air Corps. The purchase of the helicopters is another positive indication of the Government’s commitment to ensure that all branches of the Defence Forces are fully equipped to carry out their day-to-day roles.


   

[clan]

Lets just hope they Paint them Green.

[sealion]

Quote (clan @ 27 Nov. 2004,19:32)

Lets just hope they Paint them Green.

I'll go for grey,same as the Pilatus. Much more suitable camouflage in this country.

[Buran]

Like has been said, i didnt expect 2 different suppliers as i assumed the cost of doing it that way would have been prohibitive, but i guess not.

But did anyone notice this:
I knew sikorsky would have suffered in this competition by not having much european links
but if you look at the resultant countries of manufacture:
EC-135 France/Germany
AB139 Italy/US/UK
none of the western heli manuf countries can claim to be left out
is this an example of Berties sitonthefencery filtering down through the system??
 '>

[IAS]

More likely the result of the streamlining of the aircraft/aerospace/defence industrys worldwide (remember, up to a couple of months ago the UK would not have been in the list as Agusta has only recently purchased Westland from GKN).

IAS