by DAVID AXE & ROBERT BECKHUSEN
Ukraine has withdrawn its 2024 request to acquire 22 surplus Airbus EC665 Tiger attack helicopters from Australia, Ukrainian ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko told Militarnyi.
It is, for the Tiger’s developers, an embarrassing end to long and embarrassing saga. Myroshnychenko cited the Tiger’s high operating cost, estimated at $27,000 an hour. That’s five times what it costs to fly a Boeing AH-64E Apache.
That Ukraine balked at the Tiger’s cost should come as no surprise. After all, Australia balked, too. Canberra bought its Tigers in 2008 for $2 billion. By 2016, it wanted to scrap all 22 of them. The last of the Aussie gunships retired last month.
The decision to ditch the Tiger landed with a thud with the release of Australia’s 2016 defense white paper, which laid out the country’s military strategy over the coming decades. The plan included $21.5 billion in new spending, which would pay for new submarines, frigates, patrol vessels, aircraft and drones among many other big-ticket items.
But not the Tiger.
