somehow the Americans didn't do it in SE Asia for their C-130/141/5s! That's because SF/SAR helos were enough, & Daisy Cutters could only clear vegetation & enemy personnel, not make the ground even for planes.
That was in a war where they didn't want to build lots of airfields and hospitals and churches and schools... they wanted to murder the locals who dared resist their occupation of their country.
They might fight a few months for one hill but when the fighting moved on they would leave and could care less about that terrain or the people near it.
For the Russians this is their land and these are their people, so anywhere there are human settlements or locations with important wildlife or mineral or energy potential having proper access is actually useful in making it cheaper and easier to access.... unlike a road or rail line an airfield can be located pretty quickly and relatively cheaply, because they don't need to be connected to anything else.
Obviously you select locations... ensure proper drainage... and it doesn't need to be anything like Moscow Airport in terms of services.
A flat stretch of ground 300m long would be fine for An-2 based aircraft in any conditions, and if the local needs demand more support then runways can be extended and improved over time.
In time there will be rail lines and perhaps even basic roads... the latter will promote small population sites along the way where people in cars or vehicles can stop... which means regular truck visits to keep them stocked with food and resources... a rail line could do that as well, rather more efficiently.
I mean for goodness sake... look at your own countries history... it tool a gold rush to develop train links between the two sides of your country, and the communication and trade links that created meant that places in between became viable places to live too if you didn't want to rough it.
Pretty quickly people on each coast realised there were wants on the other side of the country that the other side of the country did not meet and vice versa... so transporting stuff to sell where there is a need equals profit... especially when on the way across the country there are people who also need stuff and produce stuff they need to sell... when there are fewer people in the middle there are fewer people to sell to... a smaller market, which makes business harder... the train lines meant they could sell to either coast as well... and there was money to be made so building roads and airports and rail lines makes a lot of sense if you want to develop new areas.
China has already found that their highly successful high speed train network has greatly improved internal movement in their country, and improved their economy as well because instead of going overseas you can go to a different part of China where they speak your language and use your money but it is different from staying at home.
MRAPs r not needed in those types of remote mountainous terrain.
Which? Afghanistan or Chechnia? Which of those places has no land mine issue or IED issue or RPG threat?
If you are deploying special forces then they need vehicles to move around in...
1 CH-47F can do the same & replace ~2 Mi-8/17s.
But costs ten times more to do so... it would be cheaper to operate 4-5 Hips with smaller loads and better fire power and can be in four or five places at once, compared with a single Chinook that can't be recovered by air without people taking photos of Mi-26s carrying them around the place... there used to be several photos of Halos rescuing Chinooks... but Wiki seems to have removed them all from the Chinook page... I guess the Eastern Front will be eliminated from the pages about WWII as well... but you think they should spend billions of dollars copying the design when they are already developing a new helicopter in the 10-15 ton payload range with China... no wonder the US spends so much on its military...
The V-22s would be even more costly. Right or wrong, India decided it was worth to get them, & that's the bottom line. It's also a matter of pride: their military now operates not only Soviet/RF, but also some American made aircraft, just like the rich Gulf States & Japan.
India has a lot of problems but if they think pissing money away on such crap is worth it then who am I to say they are wrong.
Just don't try to spin the crap that the American stuff is cheaper... that is just bullshit.
They are buying influence and they are paying top dollar for it.
In the west there is a recommended retail price RRP, so you have a good idea of what you expect to pay for things... often there is some flexibility... usually 15% to about 30% depending on the customer, because the RRP includes a nice comfortable profit for the seller... for a good customer they can give up some of that to get a sale.
In India and a lot of other countries around the world there is no such thing as RRP... you know what you paid for it and the more you can get for it the bigger profit you make... knowing there are others who might have paid even less for it and might be prepared to undercut you so you could get left with this shit for yourself.
Indians expect a high offer and they expect to be able to negotiate down to a smaller price, that would be normal with Russia... it is why negotiations take so long and are so drawn out.
The problem with negotiating with the US is that there will likely be a clause in the deal where the person who negotiates it on the Indian side will get a percentage of the deal as a bonus for signing the deal... so all of a sudden negotiating down doesn't make sense... but how the hell can you justify 3 billion dollars for 14 freaken helicopters... oh the best answer is that operational costs make them cheaper over time... India hasn't had them in service yet so there are no numbers anyone can point to and say no they are not cheaper, they are actually much more expensive... and by the time they do that Indian official will be living in Florida or working for Boeing advising them about the junior officials below them, and of course how to cheat the Indian procurement system so they can keep selling over priced spare parts and charging enormous amounts for support...
15 CH-47Fs=~30 Mi-17s, & it's a political message to the PRC that India is friendly not only to the RF but also the US.
It is a signal to China that India doesn't want to cooperate in future with China, which costs them an enormous market, a high tech market, and hitches Indias wagon to a country that is already telling them they can't keep buying stuff from Russia or Iran.
If India want to piss their money away on American shiny toys I think China would not be concerned... especially when soon they will have an equivalent weight class helicopter they are developing with Russia that will probably be much better and much cheaper.
they could use avionics, etc. gear from their retired Tu-142s &/ import it before outfitting re-purposed airframes. Besides, when it comes to electronics & computers, the Indians r not more stupid than Chinese who now make their own MPA.
It is not about being stupid, and how much of the kit inside a Tu-142 is going to fit inside an An-32... and do you think the engines of the An-32 will have enough power take off to power all that equipment?
India could spend billions of dollars developing their own MPA... the result might be as good as the Mays they want to replace but it likely wont be as good as the P-8 or the aircraft the Russians develop to replace their Mays... the fact is that in some areas it is often just cheaper to buy something off the shelf.
Think of it as a car. You could spend years getting the skills to build cars, you could spend enormous amounts of money on tools and materials and make one yourself... it is going to be a slow and expensive process, and even if you succeed you might only want to make three or four vehicles for yourself, wife, adult children etc... those cars are going to be shit... and they are going to be expensive shit... hundreds of thousands of dollars each even if you buy engines and pumps and other things off the shelf.
If you are the head of a large company however and the market for these new cars you are developing is millions, then it makes sense to hire people who already have the expertise to design this car and to build factories to make these cars in enormous numbers, because it is numbers that matter... India doesn't need hundreds of MPAs... they could split the roles and have light cheap An-26 sized patrol aircraft with radios and optical systems for search and rescue and perhaps a system to release Sonobouys if needed, but another aircraft like a P-8 would gather the data and process it and direct the other aircraft to hunt subs or ships.
a smaller variant could appear- Kamov can't survive by only making upgrades & small helos like the Ka-226/62.
It is making Ka-52 on land and at sea, and it is also making the replacement for the Helix aircraft family also used at sea, and the Ka-31 used at sea and on land, plus of course they have designs for future high speed helos where their coaxial rotor design will give them an enormous advantage...
Then why the US continues the CH-47 line while CH-53Ks is being procured & can be sold to CH-47/53 operators worldwide? don't attribute it to corruption only!
Why did the USAF need an F-16 light fighter and the USN need an F-18 light fighter, or F-15/F-14? They managed to work together with the Phantom, but it seems they had different requirements and were happy to spend their own separate budgets separately.
If the tandem rotor design was so fantastic they could have fitted three engines to that aircraft if they wanted to and give it a bigger capacity, but they didn't.
I like to eat red apples, apricots, peaches, tangerines & oranges- 1 type doesn't necessarily exclude all the others. Russian & Chinese airlines operate TU, IL, Airbus & Boeing made planes. They may lose on costs but gain in other ways, being such a large nation with different elevations & climatic zones.
The Be-200 is a much better solution to forest fires in inaccessible places than any type of helicopter in most ways including payload, speed, and range...
The helicopters they already have meet their existing needs so there is no need for another new type... especially for the price.
they'll try to make them a lot better- otherwise it wouldn't be worth the trouble.
I am sure they would try, but you could try and make an octagonal wheel that might be cheaper to make than a round one... you really wont know if it can't be made more efficient until you build one... I agree an octagonal wheel with flat sides would make it bumpy, but with precisely curved sides you might be able to achieve a combination of smooth enough ride, together with a bounce effect that makes it easier to leap in to the air or to slow down faster on a hard surface.... we really don't know until we try, so how about loaning me 10 billion dollars and we can find out...
the trick is not to let them spread close cities.
Which is why Be-200 aircraft with speed and range and decent payload can keep them further from populated areas than any helo type or tilt rotor design could.
big areas in Siberia often get weather that doesn't change much for weeks, & the smog will stay with it.
Big areas of Siberia have little to no people there.
If it's not compacted, it can.
So not particularly effective then.
if it was only the size issue, then they didn't gain much- only by 1.8m!
The difference is freaking enormous... aircraft like both of these things operating at near max payload weights don't just take off vertically straight up into the air... that V-22 would probably need a hundred metres to get airborne with full fuel and payload and the helicopter would not be much better... with that sort of clearing you could probably leave the snow and land a lot of conventional aircraft rather easily... a grader and a roller could be used to quickly pack down snow and dirt for conventional aircraft operations.
true, but the US prints $ whenever it needs them- Russia would fall apart & turn to another Venezuela if tried the same!
You realise that is not going to keep working for much longer don't you... all through history every weapon has resulted in a counter weapon or defence from that weapon... there will come a time when no one accepts US dollars because they are just printed paper money with no real value... countries that have done such things in the past are a good view of what is in Americas future... German children in the 1920s and 1930s making kites out of million deutchmark notes because they were cheaper than buying the paper needed... women with wheel barrows of cash to buy a loaf of bread... America is never going to be able to pay its debts because no one will accept US dollars in payment for it... in fact right now is when you should be paying off your debts while other countries still respect your fiat currency... there is only one thing worse than having a meaningless currency, it is also being in enormous debt to people who wont accept it as payment...
every aircraft is subject to stresses- operating them in different ways can shorten or prolong their useful life. Perhaps that's also why India decided to use her Mi-26s in the lower altitudes & buy CH-47Fs as a substitute.
It is a bit different when the design of the aircraft means it is constantly under stress one way or the other when flying normally... even just flying straight.
Perhaps the "as is" asking price is too high? If it was worth it's weight in gold, as u insinuate, the airframe, rotors & engines alone would be worth it, even if all the rest is junk.
How would the guy in charge of buying Chinooks then turn around and say buying some extra Mi-26s makes sense when he has already stated they are too expensive to operate?
Remember in this deal he wont get any commission at all so will only be earning his government wages which are probably not great.
Don't tell me that there are no Chinooks or Stallions or Super Stallions in the desert bone yard too...
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