Comments on: Russian Helicopter (?) Crash Kills 16

By: artboyusa

artboyusa — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:46:12 +0000

“There aren’t enough American or NATO helicopters?” The answer is no, unfortunately. UK troops in Afghanistan have limited helicopter capability and must travel by road when they could be travelling by air, thus increasing their exposure to IEDs. In 2004 the now Prime Minister Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, cut £1.5 billion from the Army’s chopper budget and the results are now coming home in flag draped coffins. The British army has been reduced to hiring ex-Soviet choppers flown by Russsian contractors to move people and things around and those birds ain’t always the safest…as this story shows.

The chopper shortage is a major scandal over here and has had extensive coverage. Here’s some details:Helicopter shortage seriously undermines UK operations in Afghanistan, report says Cross-party Commons defence committee warns that government’s procurement policy could make situation worse…http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/16/afghanistan-helicopter-shortage-commons-defence-committee

By: MinnesotaRush

MinnesotaRush — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:20:27 +0000

Peculiar .. especially in light of all the: “Moscow racked up an extraordinary array of superlatives.” talked about in the just preceeding article.

God bless and keep every one of the victims, tho’.

By: DW

DW — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:14:57 +0000

Last year, the Canadian Armed Forces leased 8 Mi-6 helicopters from a civilian firm based in Toronto. They (and their civilian -yikes!- pilots) were leased specifically for service in Afghanistan (to make up for a lack of Canadian military helicopters -which were all sold off by a previous (cough*Liberal*cough) government.

I do not believe this was one of the Canadian-leased ships (we now have CH-47s and Bell 412s in theatre).

The Poles also operate Mi-8’s and in reference to the question about if there are enough US and NATO helicopters: the Brits have also been suffering from a lack of helicopter assets.

By: canary

canary — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:59:44 +0000

Russian plane taking off from Iran last week killed all 168 on board. Witnesses all saw tail on fire in sky before nose-diving.

(scroll way down)
http://sweetness-light.com/arc.....-11-jul-17

By: Liberals Demise

Liberals Demise — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:42:49 +0000

“There aren’t enough American and NATO helicopters?”

I guess the Russians are trying out Capitalism. I mean, their slicks are just sitting in mother Russia not making anything but rust. Why not grab (lick up) some of that nasty stimulus money floating about.