best helicopter

[Trojan]

yes gordo I saw that too supposedly it can carry it
Personally I'm a big fan of the AH-1Z (the AH-1W has Hellfire capability btw but i may have misunderstood if u said it did or not blackbuck) and a westernized KA-52 i think would be simply awesome sad that the IAI version the Erdogan didn't win the Turkish competition nor the AH-1Z
hmm interesting with the WZ-10 option though

[Blackbuck]

It does not have it integrated into it, it can however be retrofitted with a podded version of longbow on one of the hardpoints which isn't really optimal considering.

[gordo8000]

I don't get that, why they didn't have Longbow integrated into the design from the beginning?

[Thiel]

The Longbow radar weren't around when they designed the AH-1 and retro fitting it would require a major redesign of the rotor assembly.

[gordo8000]

Well, they already redesigned the rotor when they built the AH-1Z, so why didn't they integrate it then?

[Thiel]

They didn't see a need for it.
The longbow is great for stopping the Red Horde(c), less so when fighting fourth and fifth rate militaries and insurgents. Guess what the US has been fighting since 1950.

[Blackbuck]

The Longbow radar weren't around when they designed the AH-1 and retro fitting it would require a major redesign of the rotor assembly.

They didn't see a need for it.
The longbow is great for stopping the Red Horde(c), less so when fighting fourth and fifth rate militaries and insurgents. Guess what the US has been fighting since 1950.

You're totally ignoring the fact that you can do GMTI and SAR mapping with Longbow which is useful no no matter what sort of conflict you're in, considering that I would replace the rotor assembly with new blades re-designing the rotor-head to accommodate a radome wouldn't be out of the ream of sensibility would it?

[Thiel]

I'm not ignoring it, but the USMC obviously didn't find the capabilities important enough to justify the cost and maintenance issues and the reduction in payload/range/speed it would bring with it.
It should also be noted that IR sensors are far more useful for most SAR jobs.

[odysseus1980]

Although my country uses the Boeing Apache (which is among the best attack helicopters),I am fan of Russian designs such as Mil Mi-24/Mi-35 and Ka-50/Ka-52.
Note that I have seen in action the Mi-35 during an exercise when doing my duty in Cyrpus.

[Blackbuck]

I'm not ignoring it, but the USMC obviously didn't find the capabilities important enough to justify the cost and maintenance issues and the reduction in payload/range/speed it would bring with it.
It should also be noted that IR sensors are far more useful for most SAR jobs.

You can do synthetic aperture mapping with an IR camera? That's news to me...