Is MDHI going to make it?

Helowriter wrote:
Yep, that's me, Monday morning quarterback, Tuesday afternoon 'told you
so.' And now that ARH and LUH are here, I'm telling you it was a
mistake for Boeing to take itself out of the light helicopter business.
Now they have to buy the airframe from a shaky partner, and may lose
the ARH because of that. They also dealt themselves out of the
light/commerical tilt rotor business - and ancillary
government/military sales. (I know -- it's a fad, and Bell will never
sell more than a handful of 609s and derivatives.)

Salesmen make business -- if Eurocopter and Bell could sustain
commercial product lines in tough times, I suspect Boeing could have
too. Do you blame people for not buying MD600s and Exploriers from a
Dutch holding company when the two major suppliers have stable support
networks? That doesn't mean the product lines were losers. And it
doesn't mean the technology in them is worthless.

The composite blades finally in test for the AH-64 are made like those
already on the 530F (same autoclaves, too). Bell 430s were using that
four-bladed composite rotor head and blade technology way in advance of
the AH-1Z/UH-1Y go-ahead. A lot of that flaw-tolerant S-92 technology
makes good sense for a military operator who has to fly alot, take
battle damage, and stay within a budget. HUMS and lot of this dual-use
stuff evolves in parallel.

Commercial utilization rates are typically higher than military, and
commercial operators get real mad when they can't fly -- that gives you
RAM technologies directly applicable to military helicopters. I'm told
some of the latest FARs are tougher than MILSPEC.

Boeing figured 20-year sole-source military contracts like Chinook and
Apache modernization and V-22 and Comanche were sure bets -- ooops
Comanche wasn't a sure bet. Now, DoD has no problem going offshore for
helicopters. I don't think we should just surrender the market and the
industry to Europe. Monday morning, that might be good for business,
and Tuesday afternoon bad for the country.

HW

The light airframes are still available if Boeing wins the ARH. MDHI is
shaky, but they only have to hold on long enough for AMCOM to make a
decision. If Bell wins the competition, Boeing isn't stuck with a
money-losing commercial operation. The decision to get out of the
commercial tilt-rotor was primarily a Bell decision - no market for the
aircraft. All of the tilt-rotor sales are for military, not an ancillary
government/military sale from a commercial product. Tilt-rotor has been
a military program from the beginning - not a commercial program with
military applicability. V-22 would have never been developed if it had
been a straight civilian product. The torrent of money put into it over
the years would have been turned off long ago if it were a commercial
aircraft - no way to ever make a profit after the development costs.

Salesmen make business - its easy when you already own the lion's share
of the commercial market (Bell) or have governments that protect the
industry (Eurocopter). A good product line that doesn't sell is a loser.
A technology that nobody is interested in has little worth in the
commercial industry.

Composite blades were originally in development for the AH-64A but MD
first used them on the MD-530 because the U.S. Army has always been much
more averse to advanced technologies than say, the USAF or USN. The MD
entry into LHX was viewed with suspicion by the Army because it used the
"unproven" NOTAR concept - the Army wanted something that they were
familiar with. Flaw tolerance isn't the same thing as rugged. A high UTE
rate in a stable commercial environment doesn't equate to a high UTE
rate in a combat environment. A commercial aircraft doesn't routinely
make high-speed descents into the trees, jink around, take fire and
still have to come home with the crew intact. The design, build and
performance criteria are very different between the two.

The FARs are getting tougher because the DoD stopped requiring MILSPEC
many years ago. In an attempt to "streamline" the procurement process,
the Pentagon decided that they would no longer require MILSPECs for new
aircraft acquisitions. Requiring FARs was a different matter. Not to be
outdone, the procurement types in the USG started migrating MILSPEC
standards into the FARs. We're gradually closing the circle on the old
onerous procurement process and will be right back where we started in a
few more years.

Boeing is the prime for Chinook and Apache. Bell is the prime for V-22
and Sikorsky was the prime for Commanche. Of the four aircraft
mentioned, Boeing's strategy is working.


I agree about surrendering the commercial rotary wing industry to Europe
being a bad thing for the country. But, you need to be talking to the
folks in D.C. about that, not the folks in Chicago. Boeing was skinned,
dressed and slow-roasted over an open fire for the 767T deal. They were
roundly criticized in public for trying to protect their commercial
B-767 product line by getting the USG to lease 100 aircraft. The company
will make the decision within the next couple of months whether or not
to terminate the product line as result of not having any future for it.
The European governments would have no problem with subsidizing their
commercial aircraft (or helicopter) industry in order to stay in the
game. That's a government decision, not a corporate decision.

Vygg