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Last Friday, after preliminary investigations, Tiger manufacture Airbus Helicopters put out a safety bulletin basically saying that they had not yet identified a part or a reason for the blades to separate from the aircraft. Because of that, they could not say whether it was a design or a manufacturing fault or a maintenance error that caused the crash. Consequently, the statement inferred, Airbus Helicopters was not in a position to propose a solution that would prevent further crashes.
originally posted by: Blackfinger
On july 26 a German Tiger lost its main rotor blades about 2000 feet above the ground,killing both crew members in Mali,South Africa.
How do we know? Because that is the reverse of the situation that Airbus Helicopters would dearly love to see reported. The Tiger has had such a troubled development, testing, production and deployment it is only rivalled by the equally bad NH-90. The aircraft has had such a litany of problems that finding yet another major flaw that has resulted in an aircraft loss and dead crew would be totally unsurprising. Plus the other Tiger witnessed the incident and did not report any ground fire, just a sudden loss of altitude followed by blade separation. And the likelihood of someone being able to aim small arms fire accurately at the main rotors when they were at 2000ft and score a disabling hit is pretty low. This has all the hallmarks of a major failure in the drive train or flight controls. As to what has caused it, only an accident investigation will find out.
How do we know it wasn't ground fire? Grounding the fleet because of design flaws might just be a cover story.
Plus the other Tiger witnessed the incident and did not report any ground fire, just a sudden loss of altitude followed by blade separation.
Plus the Zulu is fully marinized for operations off the Canberra class or any other naval vessel and its operating costs are lower than the Tigers. Kind of a no brainer really.
originally posted by: Blackfinger
Plus the Zulu is fully marinized for operations off the Canberra class or any other naval vessel and its operating costs are lower than the Tigers. Kind of a no brainer really.
Pretty much explains the WT actual F that many here in Australia said when the Defence department gave the release that we were buying Tigers..That was 12 years ago..
German military helicopter crash in Mali caused by incorrectly set autopilot-report
Spiegel Online said the Defence Ministry had informed the parliamentary defense committee about the new findings on Tuesday.
It said the autopilot controlled the airplane’s elevator. It remained unclear who programmed the settings on the autopilot software, which were not found on any other Tiger helicopters.