Army Aviation Modernizes

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David Axe | July 21, 2006

Two years after the cancellation of the high-tech, $42-billion Boeing RAH-66 Comanche attack helicopter, Army Aviation has assembled a wide range of acquisition programs that it claims are affordable and better-suited to real-world missions than the Cold War Comanche ever was.

In recent months, the Army has let contracts for new light utility helicopters and new armed reconnaissance helicopters and has agreed to cooperate with the Air Force on a new light cargo aircraft. Meanwhile, new models of the venerable Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk, Boeing CH-47 Chinook and Boeing AH-64 Apache are in development or production. In all, the Army will buy as many as 2,000 helicopters in the next 15 years.

"Overall, we're doing exceptionally well," says Brig. Gen. Stephen Mundt, chief of the Pentagon's Army Aviation Task Force.

That wasn't always the case.

In early 2004, Army Aviation's future appeared bleak. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan had demonstrated helicopters' vulnerability to small arms and rocket-propelled grenades (more than 120 have been lost so far) and had proved that most Army aircraft were under-powered for hot weather and high-altitude flying. The aircraft fleet's average age was around 20 years and climbing. The rising cost of the Comanche threatened to bankrupt the force while delivering only a fraction of the new aircraft needed to recapitalize the Army's 4,000-strong rotary-wing fleet.

"We needed to meet the Army's vision for modularity and sustainability," Mundt says. Killing Comanche was the only way.

With more than $14 billion in reprogrammed Comanche funds, the Army launched a pair of new acquisition programs: the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter, or ARH, and the Light Utility Helicopter, or LUH. The ARH program was intended to replace aged, underpowered OH-58D Kiowa Warrior scout choppers that have suffered nearly 30 losses in Iraq with 369 new aircraft worth more than $2 billion. 322 LUHs costing $1.7 billion would replace the last of the service's Vietnam-era Bell UH-1 Huey transports and Bell OH-58A/C observation birds and free up Blackhawks for combat missions.

Earlier this year, the Army selected the Bell Model 407 for ARH and assigned it the designation ARH-71. Mundt cites its proven airframe, 15-percent excess power and open-architecture "glass cockpit". "It's a super airframe."

LUH tendering followed in July, with Eurocopter's EC145 design taking the cake. The so-called UH-72s will not come equipped with the full range of defensive aids, such as infra-red jammers. "The intent," Mundt says, "is to put them in a permissive environment." That means stateside roles and noncombat missions in operational theaters.

Alongside these aircraft, according to Mundt, the Army will field the new UH-60M with more powerful engines than its A- and L-model predecessors. He says the UH-60M -- the first of which rolls out this month -- plus the youngest of the Army's UH-60Ls will provide a force of 1,800 medium-lift helicopters by 2013. Costs are pegged at around $20 billion.

Mundt says the heavy-lift CH-47 fleet is getting similar treatment, with new, more powerful F-models replacing aged Ds. In light of the growing importance of air transport in the dangerous environments of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army will slightly expand the Chinook fleet, aiming for a total of 452 airframes, each priced at around $30 million. "We never had the [Chinook] inventory we wanted," Mundt explains. "That's why the Joint Cargo Aircraft is so important for us. Right now we're doing missions [with Chinooks] that should be [done with] JCA."

In addition to relieving Chinooks on some transport missions, the JCA will replace the Army's unpressurized Shorts C-23 Sherpas and other light fixed-wing aircraft with 75 examples of a larger, better-performing airlifter that will carry around half as much as the Air Force's Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules. The Air Force, which had its own light airlifter requirement, in June reluctantly agreed to partner with the Army on JCA and will buy around 70 . The Army's interest in new airlifters has ruffled a few Air Force feathers, but Mundt calls the $40-million-per-copy JCA a "no-brainer" for the service and points out that the Army has long flown not only C-23s but also fixed-wing King Air C-12 Huron and Fairchild C-26 Metro. "What we need is a more capable platform with more speed and the ability to fly distance and land in places we can't land today."

Alenia and L-3 with the C-27J Spartan and a team comprising Raytheon, EADS and CASA offering the C-295 or CN-235 -- as well as Lockheed Martin with its short-fuselage C-130J -- are competing for the contract, with a decision due by the end of the year.

Following the JCA award, there will be just one gap in the Army's aviation modernization plan. The AH-64 Apache, once scheduled for eventual replacement by Comanche, will soldier on for decades to come and will require upgrades. The future Block III Apache might include a better engine to address hot-and-high shortcomings identified in Iraq and Afghanistan. And to make up for the dozens of Apaches destroyed in four years of fighting, Mundt says he is pushing for money to buy as many as 29 new Apaches from Boeing's Mesa, Arizona factory.