Chinook wins heavy lift helicopter competition

[Sridhar]

i think its going to be a special ops copter rather than a regular battle field tactical one since we are buying only 15.

just like C 130j..

We are Buying C 17 , which can transport them , and they are deployable within few hours of touch down. May be the reason for smaller numbers ...

 

[Ray]

The country is buying the heavy utility helicopters for tactical mobility and not for skycrane duties.

 

[Kunal Biswas]

We need more than just 15, I hope first batch is of 15..

Indian SF specially of Army is huge..

 

[p2prada]

That's how big the Mi-26 is.
But I guess the requirement (multi-mission rather than heavy lift) and the pricing made the difference.

Both would have fulfilled ASQR considering both helicopters were in the fray for the L1 bid. Comparatively Mi-28, the only competitor to the AH-64 was rejected. And L1 was not considered in that case.

So, multi-mission wouldn't have been a reason, the only reason would have been the price.

 

[kaustav2001]

Both would have fulfilled ASQR considering both helicopters were in the fray for the L1 bid. Comparatively Mi-28, the only competitor to the AH-64 was rejected. And L1 was not considered in that case.
So, multi-mission wouldn't have been a reason, the only reason would have been the price.

From what I understand that the IAF was simply tooooo impressed by the avionics package & networking capabilities of the Apache. The Mi-28 had it's own advantages but in the end Apache simply turned out to be more mature, better networked platform with a more advanced weapons package, so L1 was never the question there. The Mi-28 N simply couldn't match what Apache was bringing to the table.

In the latest purchase, I would rather tend to agree with some of our more senior members here, that although heavy lift was the requirement, it wasn't the only requirement & a Chinook could really fill in a lot of other roles in our inventory.

Having said that I would prefer seeing both the Mi-26 & d Chinook in our inventory (we do have uses for both of them - if only wishes were horses) : )

 

[Tshering22]

I think is the effect of bad business in the case of INS Vikramaditya........

Well, it may definitely piss the Russians off. But the Chinook hasn't won officially as of yet. It is still in discussion and will take time before a definite winner can be decided.

The Halo has the good advantage of previous infrastructure to maintain them and I simply cannot believe that the Chinook is cheaper than a Russian product. The Mi-26T is a modernized version of the old Mi-26 that most of my fellow Indians here are confusing with. As per what the Russians say, the Halos are quite heavily modernized with a crew of only 2 pilots needed to use the helicopter apart from the usual Load-master unlike the crew of 6 in the older ones that we have.

The Halo can lift much more payload than the Chinook and it has already been used in our military.

However, let's see how the Russians deal with this one.

I have a feeling that if Chinook wins this one, then the Light utility helicopter contract of 197 helos will go to the Russians for sure.

 

[Tshering22]

We need more than just 15, I hope first batch is of 15..

Indian SF specially of Army is huge..

These helicopters won't be used for daily stuff, bro. In fact, the reason why we never ordered more than the 4 Mi-26s was because of its limited use in exceptional cases. Whether it is the HALO or the Chinook in this race, it will not be used the way it is used in US or Russian armies daily.

 

[LurkerBaba]

Since the Chinook hasn't officially won. I'm locking this thread.

Continue discussions over here http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/...mil-mi-26t2-halo-vs-boeing-ch47f-chinook.html