"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
In message , Leadfoot
writes
What I heard was that they had done everything on paper to navalise the
AH-64 and then made an offer to the Marines but that was as far as it
went, PAPER.

The UK Apaches are getting qualified for maritime ops offf HMS Ocean or
the CVSs, but that's not full marinisation: rather, detachment as part of
a Tailored Air Group for a specific mission.

I broke my knee in 1997 which ended my stint both at Boeing Mesa (I was on a
contract, not a direct employee) and my crawling around on aircraft. A
small batch of UK Apaches were to be built about 6 months to a year later
with the rest of the production being done in England. It's not a hard
aircraft to build

The AH-64D Longbow starts by taking an A model out of storage,(Cheney
mothballed a lot of them after the wall fell) stripping the fuselage to bare
metal and storing/refurbing the various components removed. Then the fun
part comes with rewiring the the fuselage with brand new wiring along with
whatever mods are needed mechanically. DITMCO (continuity check) the wiring
and then install the old and new black boxes along with rigging the flight
controls. Then off to functional/flight test to wring out the bugs.

The oddest thing was that the longbow radar system uses one of the largest
black boxes I have ever seen on an aircraft. About the size of a coffin for
a 12 year old. Or maybe a large steamer trunk. A two man job to install as
it weighs over 100Lbs. Personally I think that was a mistake

My information is a bit dated and subject to a tad bit of fog ;-)



My understanding was as far as navalisation goes it was easier to stick
with the Cobra and upgrade the weapons and avionics than to make an an
Apache that could withstand long periods in a salt water environment. I'm
guessing but the blades were probably the biggest hang up. You'd have to
mod them to fold and make sure they could handle a salt water environment.

I think the Apache's blades fold (for air transport, at least) but as you
point out, getting the airframe able to stand up to prolonged exposure to
salt spray is a seriously non-trivial issue.

Air transport is done via disassembly of the rotor baldes, not folding. It
was designed for that. I think the standard was flying combat in 12 hours
after an offload.


Again with UK experience, we deploy Joint Force Harrier GR.7s to sea for
specific deployments, but for a committed force we wanted the Sea Harrier;
which wasn't just a case of putting a radar in the nose, but some
surprisingly wide-ranging structural changes such as getting rid of all
the magnesium components (while light and stiff, I'm assured it rots very
fast in a maritime environment)

Exacrly! It's one of those "devil in the details" and I bet even if they
had convinced the Marines to buy some once it was deployed something new
would crop up.



--
The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its
warriors, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done
by fools.
-Thucydides


Paul J. Adam - mainbox{at}jrwlynch[dot]demon(dot)codotuk