LH90 and defence contracts: In a way, it doesn\'t matter if Australia wastes money on defence projects. The articles in the SMH were annoying. There seems to be little or no recognition of the fact that building up this kind of specialised skill takes a lot of time and money. The benefit is not going to occur right now, but in 10-20 years when Australia has built up and learnt to exploit the ability to do these things. Journalists demanding that the first attempts be the best in the world is unfair.
And seriously, weapons systems not working as well as the best in the world is not the end of the world. After all, who is realistically going to take us on in the near future?
Defence R and D spending is one of the last allowed subsidies that governments have. We should use it.
Also, Australia is going to purchase the LH-90, the fantastic European chopper. Won\'t this replace the Sea Sprite at some point? Perhaps the contracts were signed so that there would be some experience gained before fitting out the LH-90s. Also I don\'t know how much work is going into the Aussie Tiger, but equipping them with Hellfires may be quite a lot of work, as well as a good idea.
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