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o me dejaste en la duda!!
voy a preguntar...
voy a preguntar...
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Efectivamente eran coheteras...
Ahora les traigo una notita que tiene que ver con uno de los helos que se hablan aquí:
Turkey Orders Nine More T129 Helicopters For The Land Forces Command
16:26 GMT, November 9, 2010 AgustaWestland, a Finmeccanica company, is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a contract for nine T129 combat helicopters. The contract is valued at €150 million also including a spare parts package. The nine T129 helicopters will be assembled by Turkish Aerospace Industries, Inc. (TAI)
Comentario: 16 millones de euros cada uno ~ 22.036.209 la unidad de T-129 sin contar costos logísticos adicionales pues Turquía ya es usuario tradicional del Mangusta.
SaludosComentario
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Estan cerrando el boliche, una opcion menos...
FuenteAH-1 Cobra retirement program at Fort Drum ends; final four helicopters head to Thailand
Oct 21, 2010
By Paul Steven Ghiringhelli
Photo credit Paul Steven Ghiringhelli
This AH-1 Cobra helicopter was refurbished at a hangar near Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield at Fort Drum. It was recently purchased by the Royal Thai Air Force and will ship to Bangkok later this year. Personnel working for the Foreign Military Sales program of the Directorate of Logistics' Aviation Logistics Management Division have stripped, refurbished and/or sold parts from hundreds of Cobra helicopters since 1999.
FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- A Fort Drum-based operation that brought in tens of millions of dollars for the Army by rebuilding and selling AH-1 Cobra helicopters is about to ship its last four aircraft, bringing a successful and profitable venture to a close.
About 10 years ago, every Cobra in the U.S. fleet began arriving at Fort Drum to be retired through the post's Foreign Military Sales shop near Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield. Some were gutted for parts and used as military training apparatus; most were refurbished here and sold to military customers overseas.
The last four refurbished helicopters head to the Royal Thai Air Force this winter, officially ending the Army's Cobra retirement program.
"The Army normally gave individual instructions to units to tell them how to get rid of aircraft," said Chuck Florence, a quality assurance representative who oversees the FMS program at the Directorate of Logistics' Aviation Logistics Management Division. "They used to take them to the DRMO (Defense Reutilization Management Office).
"(But) the program manager, who is in charge of the life cycle of the Cobra down at (Redstone Arsenal), Huntsville, Ala., said 'let's try something different.'"
Work on the Bell-manufactured Cobras at Fort Drum's FMS shop has been nothing short of total restoration.
Once a helicopter arrived, it was stripped of its parts, its fluids drained and paint blasted off. New wire harnesses were manufactured at Fort Drum and installed. Flight controls, generators, battery compartments and overhauled engines were located, purchased and mounted.
"As hard as it is to believe, there are parts that we got after (searching) online," Florence said. "It was very creative logistics."
Each restoration took roughly 5,500 man-hours to complete and nearly $1 million in parts and materials.
The rebuilt product is remarkable to see.
"This is how it would have looked when it came out of Bell back in the 1970s," Florence said of the four Cobras soon to depart for Thailand.
Todd Gibbs, a senior mechanic at the FMS shop, said he thinks the DS2 federal contractors here are the best in the business.
"I would bet my next paycheck that the best structural sheet metal mechanics on the East Coast are right here at Fort Drum," Gibbs said. "I only say that because I really do have a lot of pride in what we do."
It was because of those skills that 10th Combat Aviation Brigade recently sent the FMS shop two crashed OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters.
"You generally wouldn't let a local ALMD do the repairs," Florence noted. "But because of our capabilities developed with the Cobra mission, they asked us to rebuild them instead of sending them to Bell."
The Army began phasing out the Cobra in 2000 to bring the Comanche and Apache attack helicopters online. The Cobra was discontinued in part because it did not fight well in the dark, it could not house the Hellfire missile and the Army did not want a third scout-attack helicopter, Florence said.
"They figured they would save on maintenance costs," he said. "The Cobra really was a very expensive aircraft to maintain."
Since the Vietnam War, the U.S. military's total inventory of AH-1 Cobras reached 469 units. When Col. William Gavora, Redstone Arsenal's Scout-Attack Helicopter Program manager, initiated the Cobra retirement program at Fort Drum in 2000, ALMD personnel here jumped into gear. Two lots near Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield were used to store incoming Cobras while four warehouses were erected to accommodate refurbishing shops and Cobra parts.
"(The Army) allotted $10.2 million for the retirement of the Cobras," Florence said. "In the end, it really didn't cost the Army anything."
The last Cobra was dropped off here six months after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Most of them arrived with patriotic-styled graffiti, Florence said.
In addition to taking deliveries, Fort Drum's ALMD sent teams to units throughout the Army to inspect Cobras, inventory parts and tools, and bring them back to Fort Drum.
Eventually, hundreds of aircraft were refurbished. They were purchased by nations such as Jordan, Bahrain and Turkey. More than $75 million worth in parts were sold to the Marine Corps. Israel bought more than 100 airframes.
Some Cobras were outfitted to fight forest fires and were sold to the U.S. Forest Service as well as state forestry agencies in Florida, Montana and Washington.
Still others were custom-designed and sold as static displays to veterans' organizations nationwide, including helicopters at the Marine Corps League in Lowville and the VFW in Sackets Harbor.
"It's hard to believe it is 11 years that this program has been going," Florence said.
"This is the end of an era. What happened here is a large chunk of Fort Drum history."Comentario
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Yo lei otra noticia, no del US Army-esta noticia es del 21/oct-, sino de que finalmente la USMC -que antes había comprado 75$ millones en spares al US Army- se está decidiendo en los proximos años por deshacerse de los AH-1W actualmente en servicio en favor dek AH-1Z Zulu que actualmente se encuentra en etapa de evaluacion, así que esperanza aun nos queda:
Bell Helicopter AH-1Z Earns Navy Recommendation for full Fleet Introduction
15:00 GMT, October 4, 2010 FORT WORTH, TEXAS | Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, announced today that the U.S. Marine Corps' newest attack helicopter, the AH-1Z Cobra successfully completed Operational Evaluation (OPEVAL).
On Sept. 24, the Navy's Aviation program office (NAVAIR) for H-1 Upgrades received official notification from the Navy's Commander Operational Test and Evaluation Force that its AH-1Z helicopters were found to be "operationally effective and suitable" and were recommended for fleet introduction.
"We are pleased and proud that the AH-1Z has completed its operational evaluation," said John Garrison, president of Bell Helicopter. "The AH-1Z is a remarkable aircraft that is only made stronger by the Marine aviators that fly them. We are excited that our warfighters will receive the full benefit of this awesome machine."
The Marine Corps is replacing the two-bladed AH-1W with the AH-1Z, which features a new, four-bladed composite rotor system, performance-matched transmission, four-bladed tail rotor, upgraded landing gear and a fully integrated glass cockpit.
A total of 189 new and remanufactured AH-1Z helicopters are anticipated, with deliveries expected to be complete by the end of 2019.
The AH-1Z Cobra helicopters are part of the U.S. Marine Corps H-1 Upgrade Program. The program's goal is to replace AH-1W helicopters with new and remanufactured AH-1Zs which provide significantly greater performance, supportability and growth potential over their predecessors.
The H-1 Upgrade Program offers 84 percent commonality of parts between the AH-1Z and UH-1Y utility helicopters. This commonality reduces lifecycle and training costs and decreases the expeditionary logistics footprint for both aircraft.
Marines saludosComentario
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Tecnicamente este AH-1Z Viper seria el Helo de ataque ideal para Chile ya que el 84 % de los componentes mayores son los mismos del UH-1 Bell que hay en Chile asi que nuestra logistica ya esta implementada y los pilotos tambien , solo necesitarian el training de Systemas de armas del Viper . aqui un buen videoOriginalmente publicado por HernanSCL Ver MensajeYo lei otra noticia, no del US Army-esta noticia es del 21/oct-, sino de que finalmente la USMC -que antes había comprado 75$ millones en spares al US Army- se está decidiendo en los proximos años por deshacerse de los AH-1W actualmente en servicio en favor dek AH-1Z Zulu que actualmente se encuentra en etapa de evaluacion, así que esperanza aun nos queda:
Bell Helicopter AH-1Z Earns Navy Recommendation for full Fleet Introduction
15:00 GMT, October 4, 2010 FORT WORTH, TEXAS | Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, announced today that the U.S. Marine Corps' newest attack helicopter, the AH-1Z Cobra successfully completed Operational Evaluation (OPEVAL).
On Sept. 24, the Navy's Aviation program office (NAVAIR) for H-1 Upgrades received official notification from the Navy's Commander Operational Test and Evaluation Force that its AH-1Z helicopters were found to be "operationally effective and suitable" and were recommended for fleet introduction.
"We are pleased and proud that the AH-1Z has completed its operational evaluation," said John Garrison, president of Bell Helicopter. "The AH-1Z is a remarkable aircraft that is only made stronger by the Marine aviators that fly them. We are excited that our warfighters will receive the full benefit of this awesome machine."
The Marine Corps is replacing the two-bladed AH-1W with the AH-1Z, which features a new, four-bladed composite rotor system, performance-matched transmission, four-bladed tail rotor, upgraded landing gear and a fully integrated glass cockpit.
A total of 189 new and remanufactured AH-1Z helicopters are anticipated, with deliveries expected to be complete by the end of 2019.
The AH-1Z Cobra helicopters are part of the U.S. Marine Corps H-1 Upgrade Program. The program's goal is to replace AH-1W helicopters with new and remanufactured AH-1Zs which provide significantly greater performance, supportability and growth potential over their predecessors.
The H-1 Upgrade Program offers 84 percent commonality of parts between the AH-1Z and UH-1Y utility helicopters. This commonality reduces lifecycle and training costs and decreases the expeditionary logistics footprint for both aircraft.
Marines saludos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuV7c...eature=relatedComentario
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