Adux
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Now that special needs prefect has brought about his labelled tabular cross verified data sheet, let see what it doesnt have.
1. Design - How the chinook being a twin rotor which means doesnt have a low hung tail rotor is of enormous advantage in mountains, it will be easy to maneuver in the mountains, and will not be at the risk of crashing its tail on to the mountains, while trying to place offload ramp on the mountain side.
2. Uptimes - The 5 Mi 26 in the IAF has only been to fly 60 hours or less in an year, rest of the time it is maintainence which is on the basis of extreme wear tear due to poor design
3. After Sales/Support - The Mi 26 has the worst track record in the area, it is near impossible to find its spare parts
4. Customer Faith - There are only 70 Mi 26 flying today of a total 316 made, in 26 years it dwindled to less than 1/4th of its total inservice birds.Most customers thought it was prudent to just retire them, compare the same to the Mi-17's of the world. While more than 80% of the produced are still flying today.
5. Future Upgrades - Chinook has firm orders and has more than 1300 flying today, as opposed to 20 Mi 26 of Russian Air Force that will be upgraded to T2 standard, and 'hopefully' a further 20 will be ordered by the Russian Air Force. The future and upgrade path of Mi 26 is not secure. What you to note here very importantly is that, India is not upgrading its Mi 26, it could have done the same as Russian Air Force, even though iAF have very less hours on their machines, Please ask yourself why?
6. Life Cycle Cost - The fuel ratio and expensive spare part make the Mi 26 a very expensive product to use. Like most russian machines.
7. Service Ceiling - Just calculating over sheer tonnage is idiotic, its about useful tonnage. Our FOB's and ALG's are all above 15,000 feet , Mi 26 cannot reach there, so Mi 26 bringing BMP's, Tanks or resupplying the FOB in the Chinese sector is just a pure pipe dream.
If that is the case, what good is the Mi 26? That it can haul more tons in places where we have other options to do the same, Mi 17's, C-130's, C-17's? What good is it, when it cannot and will not carry good's to places where we actually need them? The Mi 26 will not be able to carry even 1 ton to an FOB or ALG, while the chinook can carry 10-12 tons, guess who carries more now?
Mi 26 is just good for carrying large amounts of goods in flat surface areas under 15,000 feets ( that is if you can get it to fly) , Do we have the need of an expensive and maintenence intensive bird for such trivial tasks, which can be taken care of by other options, while we have an emergency need of helicopter's which are combat capable and can actually supplement our chinese defense strategy.
The time of the Mi 26 is over, and it will be good to be prudent and intelligent to accept that unlike Mi 17 , the Mi 26 is not a good product design wise or by the virtue of our doctrine.
PS: The Chinook has successfully completed every parameter laid out by the IAF in its evaluations as per Boeing Press release, while Mi 26T2 has not given any such releases, I am sure as my conviction that our special needs prefect is a complete moron with false pride, that the Mi 26T2 has not been able to achieve all the parameters laid out by the IAF.
1. Design - How the chinook being a twin rotor which means doesnt have a low hung tail rotor is of enormous advantage in mountains, it will be easy to maneuver in the mountains, and will not be at the risk of crashing its tail on to the mountains, while trying to place offload ramp on the mountain side.
2. Uptimes - The 5 Mi 26 in the IAF has only been to fly 60 hours or less in an year, rest of the time it is maintainence which is on the basis of extreme wear tear due to poor design
3. After Sales/Support - The Mi 26 has the worst track record in the area, it is near impossible to find its spare parts
4. Customer Faith - There are only 70 Mi 26 flying today of a total 316 made, in 26 years it dwindled to less than 1/4th of its total inservice birds.Most customers thought it was prudent to just retire them, compare the same to the Mi-17's of the world. While more than 80% of the produced are still flying today.
5. Future Upgrades - Chinook has firm orders and has more than 1300 flying today, as opposed to 20 Mi 26 of Russian Air Force that will be upgraded to T2 standard, and 'hopefully' a further 20 will be ordered by the Russian Air Force. The future and upgrade path of Mi 26 is not secure. What you to note here very importantly is that, India is not upgrading its Mi 26, it could have done the same as Russian Air Force, even though iAF have very less hours on their machines, Please ask yourself why?
6. Life Cycle Cost - The fuel ratio and expensive spare part make the Mi 26 a very expensive product to use. Like most russian machines.
7. Service Ceiling - Just calculating over sheer tonnage is idiotic, its about useful tonnage. Our FOB's and ALG's are all above 15,000 feet , Mi 26 cannot reach there, so Mi 26 bringing BMP's, Tanks or resupplying the FOB in the Chinese sector is just a pure pipe dream.
If that is the case, what good is the Mi 26? That it can haul more tons in places where we have other options to do the same, Mi 17's, C-130's, C-17's? What good is it, when it cannot and will not carry good's to places where we actually need them? The Mi 26 will not be able to carry even 1 ton to an FOB or ALG, while the chinook can carry 10-12 tons, guess who carries more now?
Mi 26 is just good for carrying large amounts of goods in flat surface areas under 15,000 feets ( that is if you can get it to fly) , Do we have the need of an expensive and maintenence intensive bird for such trivial tasks, which can be taken care of by other options, while we have an emergency need of helicopter's which are combat capable and can actually supplement our chinese defense strategy.
The time of the Mi 26 is over, and it will be good to be prudent and intelligent to accept that unlike Mi 17 , the Mi 26 is not a good product design wise or by the virtue of our doctrine.
PS: The Chinook has successfully completed every parameter laid out by the IAF in its evaluations as per Boeing Press release, while Mi 26T2 has not given any such releases, I am sure as my conviction that our special needs prefect is a complete moron with false pride, that the Mi 26T2 has not been able to achieve all the parameters laid out by the IAF.
