Also reported here:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/for-christ%27s-sake-just-buy-some-helicopters%2c-says-everyone-200907161908/
Hey, they asked, he answered. Being (I presume) a Good Soldier, he told The Truth.
Politicians being unfamiliar with The Truth, they got all butt-hurt.
Me, when I finish mowing the weeds, I'm going shopping for rope.
Posted by D.W. Drang at July 16, 2009 8:02 PMAt least he's got the bollocks to do it whilst he's in post unlike the prince of darkness.
Posted by ScaleyBack B*stard at July 16, 2009 8:21 PMMonty never minded running around in an American tank............
Posted by stuart at July 18, 2009 2:18 AM“The Army has a proud record of keeping out of party politics"
I'm sure party politics once had a proud record of supporting the Army.
I saw the video; I have a truly legitimate question here: What adaptations was Brown talking about? Altitude? Would there have been a problem with oxygen and fuel not burning? Terrain? Helicopters don't need runways, do they?
Could someone please elaborate on that? I thought the only adaptation they would need would be armament or medical.
Posted by Cricket at July 18, 2009 3:19 PMCricket
Speaking very generally, the PM was correct in his discussion of the need to modify the choppers. The terrain (ground level) in Afghanistan is higher than the usual operating altitude of choppers in the UK. The air density is lower and reduces the the power from the engines and the lift from the rotors; however this does not qualify as rocket science, and fixes for these problems have been available for years. There are other useful mods which are dependent on the missions assigned to those choppers. Generally there are time constraints required for the installation and testing of the mods, but most have been trialled before and the main constraint is money.
The PM is announcing corrective steps being taken now which he did not support when such problems were first mentioned, post 2001.
The choppers mentioned by Mr Cameron were a batch ordered for the Special Forces Command c.1995, which were delivered without the proper documentation and software c.2000. Mr Brown neglected to properly finance the necessary fixes and thus only one is serviceable at present.
Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs at July 19, 2009 5:36 AMI saw the video; I have a truly legitimate question here: What adaptations was Brown talking about? Altitude? Would there have been a problem with oxygen and fuel not burning? Terrain? Helicopters don't need runways, do they?
Could someone please elaborate on that? I thought the only adaptation they would need would be armament or medical.
SNIP
It's called "density altitude", which, for the reasons pointed out, can make any aircraft perform poorly. The worse conditions are "hot and high" which pretty well describes the territory in question during the summer. Let's assume you have an aircraft that has a service ceiling of 10,000 feet with a certain load and are trying to take off from 8,000 feet. If the heat is sufficiently bad (say midafternoon), the density altitude might reach 11,000 feet. The aircraft, not knowing any better, would refuse to lift off. You would have to either wait for evening to cool things off or reduce the load. The US Army found that UH-1D helicopters operating in the Central Highlands of Vietnam that could hold 10 men could only carry half that under local conditions, which led to the UH-1H with a more powerful model of the engine to restore performance. This also happens with civilian airliners (insert evil laugh), so manufacturers offer special "hot and high" models for customers who anticipate those conditions.