Super Falcon
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i think rehman malik was talkin about these mi 17 from usa i know some members will say mi has been made in russia how usa got it usa buyed it for transport
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U.S. military plans to lease four of its Russian-made transport helicopters to the Pakistan army to bolster its fight against the Taliban in the nation’s ungoverned northwest territories , according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.The helicopters were among the top items that Pakistan Army Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kayani has requested in continuing talks with U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen, and that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari sought during his meeting last month with U.S. President Barack Obama, the officials said.The MI-17 is a medium-weight helicopter, capable of carrying troops, performing medical evacuations and carrying out ground attacks. The four helicopters may be delivered as soon as June 8, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.Pakistan ’s military already is using MI-17s and “has found these platforms to be very useful in their current counter-insurgency operations,” said Alan Kronstadt, a Pakistan expert with the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.Pakistan ’s leaders “urgently requested” that the U.S. provide more “to fill the gap created by the ongoing refurbishment” of its existing fleet, he said in an e-mailed statement.Pakistani security forces say they are close to driving militants from the Swat Valley and neighboring districts in the nation’s northwest after the Taliban flouted a February peace accord that introduced Islamic law in the region. The fighting has forced 3 million people to flee their homes, according to local authorities.Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed the broad outlines of the U.S. action and said details of the final delivery date are being worked out.“We are supporting Pakistan in its efforts against violent extremism,” Whitman said in a telephone interview. “The support includes various defense articles, services and training.”“Helicopters with the capacity to operate in Pakistan ’s rugged terrain are a high priority for the Pakistani Army, and we are pursuing numerous options to provide that capability, including the MI-17 option,” Whitman said.White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the helicopters are an indication “the president is moving aggressively to provide the needed resources to address the humanitarian situation in Pakistan .”Obama has pressed the government in Islamabad to wrest control of the northwest area from extremists. The insurgency threatens the nuclear-armed country’s stability and hampers the war effort by the U.S. and NATO in neighboring Afghanistan .The four Russian-made helicopters are owned by the U.S. Army. Two are at Ramstein Air Base in Germany and two are in Slovakia . They will be flown to Pakistan on a Russian-made AN- 124 aircraft, one of the world’s largest transports, according to the officials. They said they didn’t know who owned this plane, a model used by private transport companies worldwide.Pakistan also has about 32 U.S. Cobra gunships in its inventory. The MI-17 can perform more missions than the Cobra, which is primarily designed to fire air-to-ground missiles, the officials said.The operation is being organized by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which manages Pentagon foreign military sales.
---------- Post added at 03:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:11 PM ----------
those are mi 17
---------- Post added at 03:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:11 PM ----------
U.S. military plans to lease four of its Russian-made transport helicopters to the Pakistan army to bolster its fight against the Taliban in the nation’s ungoverned northwest territories , according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.The helicopters were among the top items that Pakistan Army Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kayani has requested in continuing talks with U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen, and that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari sought during his meeting last month with U.S. President Barack Obama, the officials said.The MI-17 is a medium-weight helicopter, capable of carrying troops, performing medical evacuations and carrying out ground attacks. The four helicopters may be delivered as soon as June 8, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.Pakistan ’s military already is using MI-17s and “has found these platforms to be very useful in their current counter-insurgency operations,” said Alan Kronstadt, a Pakistan expert with the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.Pakistan ’s leaders “urgently requested” that the U.S. provide more “to fill the gap created by the ongoing refurbishment” of its existing fleet, he said in an e-mailed statement.Pakistani security forces say they are close to driving militants from the Swat Valley and neighboring districts in the nation’s northwest after the Taliban flouted a February peace accord that introduced Islamic law in the region. The fighting has forced 3 million people to flee their homes, according to local authorities.Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed the broad outlines of the U.S. action and said details of the final delivery date are being worked out.“We are supporting Pakistan in its efforts against violent extremism,” Whitman said in a telephone interview. “The support includes various defense articles, services and training.”“Helicopters with the capacity to operate in Pakistan ’s rugged terrain are a high priority for the Pakistani Army, and we are pursuing numerous options to provide that capability, including the MI-17 option,” Whitman said.White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the helicopters are an indication “the president is moving aggressively to provide the needed resources to address the humanitarian situation in Pakistan .”Obama has pressed the government in Islamabad to wrest control of the northwest area from extremists. The insurgency threatens the nuclear-armed country’s stability and hampers the war effort by the U.S. and NATO in neighboring Afghanistan .The four Russian-made helicopters are owned by the U.S. Army. Two are at Ramstein Air Base in Germany and two are in Slovakia . They will be flown to Pakistan on a Russian-made AN- 124 aircraft, one of the world’s largest transports, according to the officials. They said they didn’t know who owned this plane, a model used by private transport companies worldwide.Pakistan also has about 32 U.S. Cobra gunships in its inventory. The MI-17 can perform more missions than the Cobra, which is primarily designed to fire air-to-ground missiles, the officials said.The operation is being organized by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which manages Pentagon foreign military sales.
---------- Post added at 03:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:11 PM ----------
those are mi 17
, and after 40 years the aircraft still has brisk sales, with new orders from India, China, Pakistan and Colombia, among others. That has been good news for the factories that produce Mi-17s: Ulan Ude and Kazan. Just a few years ago, work at the plants had slowed to a crawl, but now even getting a slot in the production line can be a challenge.The U.S. Defense Dept. dubs the aircraft destined for Iraq as counterterrorism helicopters. They are designed to insert and extract special forces “and provide limited air assault capability to clear and hold a landing zone, [and] provide self-protection . . . against insurgent small arms fire and SAM defenses.” The helicopters will have Western-style cockpits and modifications that include Flir Systems’ AN/AAQ-22 Star Safire electro-optical sensor and monitor; identification-friend-or-foe system with encryption; AN/AAR-60 Milds (missile-launch detection system) from EADS; and VHF/UHF/HF radios.When the helicopter contract was awarded to Arinc of Annapolis, Md., a communications and engineering company, it was, by everyone’s admission, an unusual sale. While the Army has bought Russian helicopters in the past—and modified them with Western cockpits—it never bought anything in the quantity seen for the Iraqi FMS case.In a controversial move, the Army’s Threat Systems Management Office in Huntsville, Ala., sole-sourced the contract to Arinc, rather than soliciting multiple bids. That raised questions about procurement cost. In 2001, the price of a newly refurbished Mi-17 was between $1.2 and 1.7 million, while a helicopter fresh off the production line went for around $3 million. The cost has since more than doubled, with vendors quoting new Mi-17s at around $7.5 million. But the Mi-17s for Iraq are sold for more than twice that price—between $13 and $16 million per helicopter (cost varies depending on the batch and whether spare parts and other equipment are included).Part of what drove up costs is the unusual way the contract was structured: Although Arinc is the prime contractor, it’s working essentially as an arms broker. And rather than buying the aircraft from the factory, Arinc has a contract with Air Freight Aviation, a Russian company based in the United Arab Emirates. Air Freight Aviation buys the helicopters from the Mi-17 plant at Ulan Ude and modifies them at its UAE facility.This arrangement has led to cost overruns and delays. The helicopters were supposed to be delivered starting in February, but the Defense Dept. concedes that the date for first delivery has slipped to 2010, and the contract is between 5 and 10% over the original $322-million budget. Officials insist, however, that the plan is to catch up with deliveries, completing the full contract on schedule. As of now, however, none of the helicopters has left Ulan Ude.Army officials defend the sale, arguing that the urgency of the requirement and the uniqueness of buying Russian equipment necessitated going with Arinc as a sole source. Arinc, despite its lack of experience buying Mi-17s, was selected as the contractor because the company was already in Iraq performing maintenance work on the nascent Iraqi air force’s skeleton fleet, which included older Mi-17s and Bell helicopters. Arinc also claimed to Army officials it had an exclusive relationship with the Mil helicopter plant—the design bureau. (Iraq’s Mi-17 requirement was, however, known for several years before the contract was signed, and there are over half a dozen U.S. companies with experience buying Russian helicopters and parts for the U.S. government.)To some extent, the Mi-17s illustrate the problems that have plagued weapon sales to Iraq. Since the FMS process started with Iraq in 2005, approximately $4.5 billion has been spent, but less clear is how much of that equipment has been delivered. Going through FMS—rather than direct commercial sales—was meant to avoid the mistakes and corruption that plague direct sales. In one now-infamous case, Iraq entered into a contract to buy Mi-17s from a Polish company—most of the helicopters ended up being too old or in no condition to fly.The FMS process is meant to protect Iraq from these problems, says U.S. Air Force Col. Lawrence Avery, deputy director of the security assistance office in the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq. “[They] view FMS as the anticorruption mechanism for their government, because nobody can get their hands on the money, nobody decides who the contracts go to,” he told reporters in a recent conference call. “That’s all done through the U.S. acquisition system.”But officials in Baghdad cite delays and confusion about the FMS process. The sales become even more convoluted when they involve a U.S. procurement process cross-matched with Russian weapons. In one particularly frustrating case, the Iraqis initiated—then canceled—a large order for BTR-3E1 armored personnel carriers that were to be bought from Ukraine through FMS.Defense Dept. officials concede that they made mistakes in the Mi-17 case for Iraq, but defend the overall process. While U.S. officials downplay the Russian FMS cases—noting they are the exception, not the rule—the truth is that these sales could prove more common over the next few years as attention moves to Afghanistan. The Pentagon has already approved a “pseudo-FMS” case for the purchase of 10 helicopters for Afghanistan for $177.5 million. That contract also went to Arinc.While FMS may guard against outright corruption, it has not done much in the case of the Mi-17s to prevent delays, or even guarantee reasonable costs. If there’s a lesson from the Iraqi helicopter case, it may be that the U.S. acquisition system is a poor conduit for Russian weaponry.“FMS works best when you buy and use what the U.S. military is buying and using, because if we give you a price on that, we’re probably pretty good about it,” says Avery. “If we’re buying equipment from countries and companies that we’ve never worked with, every problem that we run into is a new problem.”
