Posted on 04/06/2016 3:37:59 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy has awarded a contract to Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. to build AH-1Z Viper helicopter gunships for the Pakistani government.
Under the $170 million Naval Air Systems Command contract, Bell will build the nine AH-1Zs and nine auxiliary fuel kits for the helicopters as a purchase under the Foreign Military Sales program. Deliveries are expected to be completed by September 2018, according to the contract announcement.
The approval of the sale by the State Department was made a year ago for a maximum of 15 Vipers.
The Pakistani Army will be the first international customer for the twin-engine AH-1Z, which is operated by and still in production for the U.S Marine Corps. The Pakistani Army has operated earlier single-engine versions of the AH-1 Cobra since 1984, including the AH-1S and AH-1F version, and has employed them in combat operations against insurgents.
(Used to build and repair engines for the Cobras - nice little powerplant).
Keeper Pic. My first thought was Pakistan? Are they having a lot a of air shows?
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Al-Zawahiri
Al-Zawahiri who?
I can only hope that our people don’t wind up on the receiving end of these.
Am I the only one hoping that we sell them with the “auto-destruct” option? Just in case of misbehavior of course.
Mrs. AV
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