Sea King Redux

After just hearing about another Sea King loss off the coast of Denmark my comments today are all the more relevant. You read it here first!
It appears that the Sea King replacements are going to be late, very late. The helicopter we ordered is not the helicopter that Sikorsky showed. We order a chopper with a folding tail and folding rotors and a fly by wire system. The SH-92 has none of that, yet. These features will add weight and the folding rotor head will increase the diameter of the blades and this will cause a major problem because of hanger size limitations on the ships. If it wont fit, you must acquit (had to say that) Seriously, because the rotor size has to change and the extra weight for the folding tail, the C of G (center of Gravity) is all screwed up and thus the flight dynamics become an unknown and therefore flight testing will have to be done all over again. The gearing on the transmission will have to be re-evaluated and probably, because the rotors are longer and the tips will break the sound barrier, need to be re-engineered or replaced which may or may not be possible.
What we have here is a failure to communicate! (Damn, had to do it again.)
The Cyclone was supposed to come on line in 08 and the Sea Kings gone by 11. Won't happen! Not a snowball's chance in hell. It's just possible that, nah, highly likely that the Harper boys when they find out all the details will bail on the Sikorsky deal without penalty because of failure to perform and go full toss on the EH-101 which was already accepted and that project could be brought up to speed far more quickly than re-designing the SH-92. What a mess the Libranos have left in their wake. Let’s hope Harper is up to the task, he will need all the help he can get to clean up after the Librano Tsunami.

I nods to Agent Clauswitz.