USCG Deepwater AW139 (then AB139) proposal

[RavenOne]

Remember the USCG Deepwater Program that selected the then Bell Agusta AB139 for the Medium Range Recovery Helo side of things. Well I popped down to Farnborough Airshow 2002 on the first day and saw the mock up. Anyhow dug into ma collection and here they are :

Cheers

 

[Grey Havoc]

Compact enough bird. Definitely would have been better for the US Army than the Lakota.

 

[RavenOne]

Funnily enough when I was living in Dubai in early 2006, mate of my flatmate who worked on the 139 for the Dubai Air Wing mentioned that he reckoned for sure the 139 would be picked for LUH competition as he heard that there were personnel from Ft Rucker had been signed up with AW for courses though few months later on the Lakota was picked.

However the Lakota is doing fine for what it is the fielding has been on time on schedule, and for the ones stationed in Germany with the Falcon/Raven teams at the CMTC Hoehenfels, well supports always down the road at Dornauworth!!

 

[Stargazer]

I knew about the Agusta 109 being used as the MH-68A Stingray but had no idea that the USCG also used the 139. Do they have a designation for it?

 

[RavenOne]

Stargazer, the USCG never took delivery of the 139 whatsoever as even though they won, it ended up getting cancelled and then the HH-60J Jayhawks ended up being upgraded to the now MH-60T for the forseeable future.

Cheers

 

[Stargazer]

Thanks for this confirmation. I'm glad to hear that I'm not getting senile (yet!).
Once again, Wikipedia information has to be taken with a pinch of salt since they list the USCG among the AB139's users... :

 

[Grey Havoc]

Some of the planned USCG buy may have been diverted to the Department of Homeland Security, however there is absolutely no confirmation of this.

For a (somewhat outdated [pre-LUH selection]) overview of the AW139 program: http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/ab139/

 

[TomS]

Some of the planned USCG buy may have been diverted to the Department of Homeland Security, however there is absolutely no confirmation of this.

The USCG is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Another DHS agency, Customs and Border Patrol, got a pair of AW139s back in 2007, but those were not "diverted" from any USCG order, because there never was any USCG order to divert. The CBP purchase was certainly no secret or mystery; here's a press release about the delivery.

http://www.globalentry.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/archives/2007_news_releases/072007/07302007_2.xml