"Naval" AW139

[ias]

Potential?

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi...modele=release

If/when the EPV goes ahead, it's nice to know that there may be a "cheap" way to put aircraft aboard.

IAS

[hptmurphy]

Pissing around in the Med is some what different to the North Atlantic. Given the AC have a higher priority on the Helo acquiring stakes the NS will never see it own helo in my life time.

The bast we l may ever end up is ship with a fight deck and fueling capabilities but never one operated from a ship with hanagerage,its a pipe dream

[Dogwatch]

This is the Italian OPV that the AW139 landed on, just shows you they can land on a LPV size hull (with a flight deck that is!!)

[ias]

HPT, when I saw this I was more thinking of the optional roles of the EPV, troop deployment, disaster relief, etc., rather than the patrolling role. So no permanent on-board deployment, only deployments for training and for specific missions.

I do not see aw139 being converted to a "full" naval aw139, more a "navalised" aw139 with the ability to operate close to shore, deploying troops/supplies from ship to shore and/or pick up suvivors on-shore and bring them back to the ship.

IAS

[Goldie fish]

Any helicopter can land on an open deck close to shore, even those currently in service.

[hptmurphy]

Given with a an extra two metres the Eithen could have handled a seaking. lets just say that size doesn't count.We did HIFRs with RAF and RN sea kings , Dauphins landed on Eithne along side as did Gazelles and Allouettes.

Operating as opposed to facilitating a helo are tow different concepts. The provision of flight decks for limited heli ops is possibly an overly expensive option.

While with the EPV scenario its a probability and could even be considered a neccesity to be able to take a helo of some description in some format I don't see it happing any time soon as at this point in time a EPV is but a pipe dream.The Army can rent deck space cheaper than they could operate a ship .