Aer Corps Dauphins now in Chile

sunshinediver

I just heard that the Dauphins that were in service with the IAC were re-built and after being sold in the US are now in use with the chilean navy. Just wondering why re-building these aircraft was not an option for the IAC? Anyone able to fill me in? They were great machines. See link below

http://www.rotorleasing.com/AS365Dauphins.htm

Thanks.

Foggy43

The Dauphin turned in Baldonnell shortly after I left, mid to late 1980's. Were they the civillian version?
I know a few years have past now but I am sure the Aer Corps pilots trained on the military Gazzelles but dear old goverment bought the civillian version.

youtheman

The IAC Dauphin was one example of how not to procure equipment in the public sector.

They basically got a brochure of every available optional extra, and lo-and behold, the Air Corps ordered every single one. The AC Dauphin even made it into the Airbus magazine where they boasted that it had more avionics than an A320 (which was true). So the AC was faced with two major problems for years afterwards 1) the aircraft had an avionics package that was never tried and tested before (so it took them years to iron out the snags) but more importantly 2) the empty weight of the aircraft meant that it's range was SEVERELY limited (and this really hurt in the SAR role)

They ordered 5 aircraft (2 naval versions) but there was nearly always 2 or 3 in the hangar, out of service or being robbed for parts for the remaining aircraft.

In their defense, the Dauphin was a major leap forward in technology. They went from the Aloutte (single pilot, VFR, onshore) to the Dauphin (dual pilot, IFR, all weather, offshore). So they learnt some hard lessons. At least now they have a really capable aircraft, the AW139. It's a pity that the SAR role was taken from them though.

diverdriver

I seem to remember at the time the cost of each Dauphin was £5m of which £3m was for the avionics alone. This was not a criticism but something they were proud of as I was shown around one in the hangar in Baldonnel.

To answer the original question, the Air Corps no longer had a requirement for the Dauphin. The were optimised for SAR which was taken from them. They weren't much use for anything else being overweight and thus underpowered as well being range limited. They found a good home with the Chilean Navy.

Remember too, why SAR was taken away from them, in part anyway. The pilots, all officers had been paid bonuses to retain them in the Air Corps. This being the boom years when Ryanair or flying civvie SAR was an attractive option. It was hard to keep pilots. Not only that deployments away from Bal weren't popular. When the NCO aircrew asked for a similar bonus. They ended up being taken off flying duties and redeployed, presumably peeling spuds. It was an unseemly row and the government stepped in and took away their toys. They won't get SAR back.

I would disagree that the AW139s are really capable helicopters at least in a military context. They are essentially civilian helicopters painted green. Remember too, the IAC are the first military customer for the AW139. Instead of buying a tried and combat tested helicopter like the Blackhawk. They went for a 'Gucci' helicopter perhaps more suitable for it's role as a VIP transport than a combat helicopter. Not that the Air Corps will ever be deployed anywhere dangerous.

punchdrunk

The Dauphin was a clusterf$ck from the get go!

AC crews wanted the puma and were ignored

as a SAR machine it was badly implemented,but that wasn't the choppers fault

it was made a scapegoat after Tramore imho

and they made a mess again when they lost SAR to CHC
(and rightly so as they do a sterling job of it)
their error was to not foresee that now they would have to move in a new direction
supporting the Army to an extent they never did before,and to do that well,in any meaningful way requires airframes!

the 4 Dauphins should have been sent back to eurocopter and stripped down and re-rolled into a basic utility chopper which would have given years of service in support of troops,at the very least!

do the maths,we sold them for 300K thats 75k each...

chilie bought them after refurb for $24mil

thats $6mil each....

factoring in that rotor leasing had to container ship 4 of them to the US,and pay whatever taxes the US imposed on the deal,and hire engineers to work on the machines and yet they still managed to make a profit....

keep in mind that we were doing a deal on the ec135 of which we only bought two from eurocopter,and the fact that the eurocopter website even sells ex customers machines for the customer!!!

at the very least i think we could have arranged it with eurocopter to refurb and sell the 4 on our behalf and gotten another EC-135 for the money....

scandalous!

FiSe

I think that this was here before and it's not entirely as clear as you've described it. I think it was something like this:

- Rotor Leasing bought the Dauphins off the Irish government
- They've painted one and made some propaganda sketches and visited some airshows with it
- Chilean Navy expressed interest
- Rotor Leasing sold these to Eurocopter /I believe/, which done all the necessary upgrades and changes as requested by the Chilean Navy
- Eurocopter sold the Dauphins to the Chilean Navy

-open to corrections

punchdrunk

well thats an even worse scenario,
it shows that rotoleasing,a very small company done what we should have!

sent them to eurocopter to be upgraded and sold...

if eurocopter and rotorleasing were involved clearly there was enough money to be made on the deal

diverdriver

While sending them back to Eurocopter sounds like a good idea. It's important to remember that neither the Air Corps or the government are in the business of buying and selling helicopters. Rotorleasing took a huge gamble in buying some clapped out helicopters that needed a lot of money spent on them. They got lucky. They could just as easily have them sitting in the hangars gathering dust even now.

I think the lesson from this is from the Chilean navy. They got what they needed without spending a fortune buying shiny new choppers. Buying brand new aircraft is not something we should be doing with the budget the Air Corps has.

The Air Corps could have kept them but

it was made a scapegoat after Tramore imho

I agree, sentiment seemed to change after that accident. That seems to be an Air Corps thing. The Seafires were less fondly remembered than the Hurricanes. There were several fatal Seafire crashes but the Hurricane 'never killed a pilot'. The fact that the Hurricane was easier to fly may have something to do with that.

I can't help wondering if sentiment changes in view of recent events.

EchoIndia

punchdrunk wrote: »

well thats an even worse scenario,
it shows that rotoleasing,a very small company done what we should have!

sent them to eurocopter to be upgraded and sold...

if eurocopter and rotorleasing were involved clearly there was enough money to be made on the deal

They were advertised by public tender and Rotorleasing put in the best bid. Remember they were not serviceable aircraft, so whoever was going to fly them was going to have to spend money. If, instead of selling them by tender, the Government had done a private deal with Eurocopter to offload them I suspect that this would have been subject to criticism as well.

punchdrunk

EchoIndia wrote: »

They were advertised by public tender and Rotorleasing put in the best bid. Remember they were not serviceable aircraft, so whoever was going to fly them was going to have to spend money. If, instead of selling them by tender, the Government had done a private deal with Eurocopter to offload them I suspect that this would have been subject to criticism as well.

just because you put out a tender,doesn't mean a sale has to happen...it's not Ebay!

when they realised that selling them in their current state wasn't generating any interest
(one wonders had they ever seen an episode of wheeler dealers :rolleyes:)
they should have scrapped the idea of the tender and found an alternative

curious to note that around this time the USCG was upgrading their HH-65's in co-operation with eurocopter
infact they bought 10 new airframes aswell

EchoIndia

punchdrunk wrote: »

just because you put out a tender,doesn't mean a sale has to happen...it's not Ebay!

when they realised that selling them in their current state wasn't generating any interest
(one wonders had they ever seen an episode of wheeler dealers :rolleyes:)
they should have scrapped the idea of the tender and found an alternative

curious to note that around this time the USCG was upgrading their HH-65's in co-operation with eurocopter
infact they bought 10 new airframes aswell

You are hardly comparing like with like and I suspect the USCG has somewhat larger financial resources at its disposal. It had bought 99 airframes originally and the economics of an upgrade would be quite different. Nonetheless it is interesting to note that the upgrade involved new avionics and getting rid of the HH-65's US-built Lycoming LTS101-750B-2 engines in favour of the Turbomeca Arriel 2C2-CG as currently fitted to the EC155. That is unlikely to have been a cheap option.

punchdrunk

EchoIndia wrote: »

You are hardly comparing like with like and I suspect the USCG has somewhat larger financial resources at its disposal. It had bought 99 airframes originally and the economics of an upgrade would be quite different. Nonetheless it is interesting to note that the upgrade involved new avionics and getting rid of the HH-65's US-built Lycoming LTS101-750B-2 engines in favour of the Turbomeca Arriel 2C2-CG as currently fitted to the EC155. That is unlikely to have been a cheap option.

eh I never compared us to the USCG!
but indeed if they deemed it worthy of fitting new engines and a new cockpit suite over buying new machines then there must have been some merit to it!

diverdriver

Ah yes but the USCG are an SAR unit. The Air Corps is no longer. The USCGs Dauphins/Dolphins were underpowered thanks to the original insistence that American engines be fitted. Apparently the single engine performance was so poor that losing an engine at high weights simply meant it crashed more slowly. So they had to be upgraded.

Refurbishing the Dauphins would have been pointless. The Air Corps needed troop carriers. No one could say the Dauphin is a sensible troop carrier. I also firmly believe that sentiment in the Air Corps was against the Dauphin after Tramore and all it's maintenance issues.

It's just a pity they went ahead and made another mistake by buying fancy executive helicopters painted green instead of actually buying real military helicopters.

FiSe

I think that AWs are good helis for their role of Army training. They are not a truly military helicopters as a such but they will never be deployed abroad or in the areas of combat, unless 2nd Civil War and they are much bigger and more capable than Dolphins anyway.

Any and every IAC aircraft, current or future, will be or could be used as a VIP transport. Unfortunately, that's the price IAC is paying for being small, unknown, underequipped and publicly invisible unit.