Tuesday, March 10, 2015

New Zealand does what Australia was unable to do


(2015--Happy NZ Sea Sprites)

New Zealand Sea Sprite helicopters.

These refurbished helicopters were originally bought in 1997 by the Royal Australian Navy, which was conspicuously unable to upgrade them as it wanted to despite several years of effort.

After the cost of the upgrade doubled, still without meeting requirements, the RAN finally sold them back to the manufacturer in 2008, and replaced them with new-buy Sikorsky S-70s.

They were bought by New Zealand in 2013 for one-tenth to one-fifth of they had cost Australia, and of the 11 eight will be operated and three used for spare parts. This is the second Seasprite buy by New Zealand, which has bought an initial batch which entered service in 2007.

This was certainly not the most successful program ever managed by Australia and its Defence Material Organisation.

The Sea Sprite debacle cost the Australian taxpayer $1.5B.

For no capability.





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