Da Austrália parece que não vai nada 
https://asiapacificdefencereporter.com/defence-to-destroy-900-million-worth-of-taipan-helicopters/
Technicians are currently – and in secret – disassembling all 45 Army Taipan Multi Role Helicopters and will bury the components on a Defence site. Worth around $20 million each on the second-hand market, the decision has been taken to instead destroy them on the quiet in the hope that no one notices. Ironically the 10-tonne, twin-engine Taipans are being pulled apart rather than cut up because their carbon fibre construction is so robust.
The decision was taken at the same time as an announcement was made on September 29 that Taipans would not return to service following a crash during Exercise Talisman Sabre that claimed the lives of four service personnel. Defence has informally ruled out the helicopter itself as being the cause of the accident.
The Taipans are in excellent condition – and if the Army had been capable of maintaining them, they would be doing valuable work in Far North Queensland right now. As it happens, all that can be deployed are two CH-47 Chinooks that are unsuited to rescue work because of the huge down draft from their twin rotors and some AW139s that lack important features such as a weather radar and a hoist.
With the withdrawal from service – and now destruction – a huge capability gap exists for both the Army and Special Forces. Only three replacement UH-60M Blackhawk helicopters have arrived in Australia and none of them are currently operational. Rather than an expedited delivery – as claimed by the government – they were four weeks late.
Army is paying almost $3 billion for 40 Blackhawks.
More than 500 helicopters in the Taipan family have been sold to 14 countries. They outperform Blackhawk in all key metrics – speed, range, payload and cabin volume. Taipan is an extremely modern, fully digital fly-by-wire machine with features such a four-axis flight control system, advanced avionics and world-leading night vision equipment. By comparison, an Army insider described Blackhawk as the aviation equivalent of a “farm tractor.”
Another vital feature for amphibious operations from a safety viewpoint is that Taipan is fitted with flotation devices while Blackhawk is not. This was on display in March when due to pilot error a Taipan ditched in Jervis Bay with everyone exiting the aircraft safely.
It is understood that the accident was due to a senior, but inexperienced, officer at the controls – and because of his rank no one attempted to correct the mistaken emergency procedure being implemented after an engine overheated. If proper protocol had been followed there is enough reserve power on a single engine to get out of trouble. In similar circumstances a Blackhawk helicopter would have sunk, possibly within seconds.
The cause of the Talisman Sabre crash is still being investigated – and the results will probably remain secret because it is already clear that the cause was operator error. That is not necessarily to blame the pilot – who might also have been involved in the Nowra incident – because the weather was bad and the training mission was conducted at low level.
Why senior levels of Defence – and Ministers Richard Marles and Pat Conroy – have gone along with this multi-billion-dollar travesty is unknown. It has been an open secret that the enthusiasm for Blackhawk comes from a small cadre of officers who formed an overly sentimental attachment to them during deployments in Afghanistan.
Rather than sell the Taipans to a competent user, such as Indonesia, Defence instead has offered New Zealand some pieces of hardware – for free. These are likely to include some expensive items such as main, intermediate and rear-rotor gearboxes.
Defence has been contacted for a comment.
A ser verdade, significa que afinal a Airbus não teve sucesso ao tentar recomprar as células australianas, tal como vinha numa peça da revista Flight International que partilhei neste tópico há uns posts atrás. E face ao que se pretendia com as mesmas (servirem de fonte de sobressalentes para as frotas dos restantes operadores), é também um belo golpe para este programa europeu. Todavia, e como é possível depreender por este artigo e outros recentes, toda esta história do abate - e dos motivos invocados para o mesmo - do MRH-90, está notoriamente mal contada.
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/australian-politics/2023/12/08/taipan-choper-files-kept-secretPor cá, o Exército agora só tem é de se deixar de tretas e manias, propôr a aquisição de meia-dúzia a uma dúzia de UH-60L do AMARG, e modernizá-los para a versão V. E virem também uns helis de escolta, nem que sejam os ligeiros Kiowa Warrior ou Cayuse Warrior.
