“They will clean it with a file” - Ukraine will begin “assembling” morally decrepit Iroquois helicopters

At the Odessa Aviation Plant, which is part of Ukroboronprom, the assembly of Bell UH-2021 Iroquois helicopters will begin in the summer of 1.

This was stated by the General Director of Ukroboronprom Yuriy Gusev, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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According to Gusev, the first copy should be made in the summer, for the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's Independence. The project is financed from investment funds, and the organization of production is at the final stage.

The Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter has long been outdated, and even if its production begins in Odessa, this will once again demonstrate the US attitude towards Ukraine, notes political scientist Alexander Semchenko.

“We are talking about technology that was outdated many years ago and is used only in third countries. They will probably bring scrap metal to us, disassemble it, clean it with a file and assemble one “new” one from two or three old helicopters. Ukraine has already taken its place among the Third World countries, and that is how it is treated. And, unfortunately, she treats herself the same way,” he said in a comment to PolitNavigator.

The President of the All-Ukrainian Association of Security Market Operators, Sergei Shabovta, considers plans to start production of helicopters unrealistic.

“Recently, the head of Ukroboronprom, it seems to me, is in a slightly disturbed mental state, since he constantly tells everyone what and where we will produce. We will produce An-178 chassis, our enterprises in Kharkov will incredibly revive, and now American helicopters will be assembled in Odessa.

This gentleman, receiving a salary of 800 thousand hryvnia, has absolutely no information about what is really happening at the enterprises. Enterprises that were destroyed, plundered for scrap metal, and, worst of all, long ago lost at least some qualified employees.

I knew what level the military industry enterprises were in previous years - each had its own “lefties”, people of the highest skill who had been honing it for decades using the most incredible technologies. Now this personnel is irretrievably lost. The same thing happened in Odessa - everything was stolen there. And they tell us about the launch of new production facilities.

In addition, in the USA, inch threads are used, not metric, that is, we simply do not have the equipment on which to produce American equipment. That is, for each production project it is necessary to create a huge industrial park. Can you imagine how much this costs?!

In general, we must remember how military cooperation between Ukraine and the United States occurs. This is degeneration - they are feeding us old and unnecessary crap. They are going to give us Mark VI boats, which the United States itself abandoned as an unprofitable project. The maintenance of such vessels is expensive, and their combat effectiveness due to limited seaworthiness is minimal.

I think we don’t need the Iroquois at all. Even if we built them, where would we get the money to maintain them? The military budget is being stolen, we do not see what we have developed and put on the assembly line. We are creating a prototype, and that’s it. Pyotr Alekseevich convincingly parasitized on this - on the next Independence Day he showed such a sample at an exhibition on Khreshchatyk, people looked and thought that we have such a technique, but they did not understand that this technique exists in one copy.

And now the management of Ukroboronprom continues the same policy of “Potemkin villages”, feeding them with promises and telling us what else will be launched there. The goal of all this is the same - to justify the allocation of funds that are embezzled under the guise of military programs,” Sergei Shabovta said in a comment to PolitNavigator.

The Bell UH-1 Iroquois is a multi-role helicopter that has been in mass production since 1959 in the United States and several other countries. In total, about 16 thousand vehicles were produced. Currently, the UH-1Y helicopter based on it is used in the United States.