Than to give or sell them to Ukraine.
These things were plagued with issues over the years and there have been a number of fatal crashes.
Ukraine is begging for them and Australia would rather destroy them.
Now that must truly be a POS helicopter.
Good on them for not arming potential threats. Wish we’d learn something from them (remember, ukraine isnt our friend any more than russia)
Didn’t Ukraine do a bit of fighting in the Middle East with us? If they aren’t a friend and did, what are our friends that didn’t? Are those friends friends?
noseMan, those Helicopters are not airworthy and extreamly dangerous. I’m happy to see them parted out.
Honestly, from my experiance with the extreamly Professional Guy’s in the Aussie Cavalry they operate a tight budget and do it well. An Austere budget akin to our own USMC.
While I wouldn’t say that Ukraine is our friend, they are not as much of a potential threat as Russia. If we can supply arms to help them degrade the Russian military, then I’m all for it. If one views both as enemies, having them fight and degrade each other means that they’ll have less ability to mess with us.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-10/australia-dumps-troubled-mrh-90-taipan-helicopters/100688550
MRH-90 helicopters have been in Army service since 2007 and despite some performance advantages over the Black Hawk, have been plagued with poor availability and fleet-wide groundings.
The Defence Department had estimated the total cost of the MRH-90 program would top $15 billion by the time the helicopters were due to be withdrawn from service in 2037, but it has remained on the “projects of concern” list.
They aren’t giving them away because they are junk and likely no one wants them. The expense to keep them flying was beyond their budget by tens of millions.
All kinds of design flaws.