Presidential Helicopter

On 2005-04-03 11:13:59 -0400, "Helowriter" said:

Apaches were closed out of Kosovo in part by radar-directed threats,
and RF MANPADS in the future are not out of the question.

1. Most of what kept TF Hawk (i believe it was called) out of Kosovo
was the Army's characteristic really, really, REALLY bad staff work.

Note that where employed, the Apaches have protected the lives of the
crews but throw an Apache battalion against a hard-fighting enemy armed
with anything bigger than spitballs and the unit loses combat
effectiveness.

The Pentagon is busted. It is all about buying weapons, but every
weapon they buy is supposed to replace two others, costs five times as
much, etc. etc.

All of this brings us back to the original topic - the Presidential
Helicopter... The Navy just chose the
biggest box f

2. My source (which is in Sikorsky) says that they were told that the
project required a specific piece of classified equipment which did not
fit in the S-92 airframe. Since the dimensions of the cargo compartment
are functionally identical except for length, my personal assessment of
that is: bull****.

3. You have mentioned the pending AF HH-x competition. Any of the
contenders, even the NH-90, would be a quantum improvement over the
H-60, which is currently striving hard and falling short in that role,
but the proposal seems to have been written to require the EH 101. It
looks like the fix is in.

4. The other fella mentioned Comanche as a technology program. Sikorsky
has certainly salvaged what it could from it. The rotor on the -92 and
the new rotor for the S-76D incorporate aerodynamic knowledge that came
from the Comanche project.

5. Part of the problem is the consolidation of the aerospace and
defence industry that was forced by the DOD of the nineties. An
incredibly dumb decision that put skilled people out of work and
brain-drained the industry by some fifty to seventy percent, on top of
downsizing-driven losses. Now the DOD has a cartel of two contractors
to buy from on most projects. Sikorsky is rare in hanging on to its
independence.

Can it, after a couple more contracts get dealt overseas for political reasons?

Contrast this with the UK MOD decision on a replacement for aging
battlefield and naval helicopters. They went sole-source to Agusta
Westland.

--
cheers

-=K=-

Rule #1: Don't hit anything big.

1. I said partly - Gen. Cody mentioned the RF threat, and the Army has
yet to buy SIRFC for the Apache.

Apaches did very, very well in the fight for Baghdad and elsewhere in
OIF. And those people were using more than spitballs. Don't sell the
AH-64 short - there really is nothing to match it if it's used
properly.

2. You're right - that sounds like B.S. A foreign competition pulled
the same stunt requiring a cargo container just longer than the basic
H-92 cabin and just shorter than the cabin of the EH101. Wouldn't say
what was in it. Couldn't be repackaged. Had to go aboard.

You can always find an angle with which to rig a contest. I'm just not
sure why our military would want to play those games again for the
benefit of Agusta Westland. If the PRV competition is rigged, I would
hope for a Congressional investigation.

3. The HH-60 falls short only in that requirements (and loads) have
grown. If the fix is in for the US101, it indeed proves the Air Force
can be as stupid as the Navy. The same H-92 advantages apply -- new
generation flaw tolerance translates into ballistic tolerance. Two
engines will give you lower O&S costs than three. You can still put an
H-92 aboard a C-5 without taking big pieces off.

The NH90 is indeed a modern military helicopter. However, it is built
largely by two countries who hate our guts and apparently supported
Saddam Hussein. If politics have any role in defense procurement, the
French and Germans deserve to lose this one. If our White House is
determined to sacrifice our helicopter industry to make peace with
them, we've got real problems.

4. I'm not sure there was a lot of Comanche influence in the original
H-92 rotor system -- the broad-chord Black Hawk blade came from a
co-operative effort between the Army and Sikorsky and gave Sikorsky the
'92 blade. We'll see how much of the airfoils and tip work go on the
'76D.

5. Agreed, we are into this consolidatation frenzy and it is damaging
to the country. I do not understand US politicians and our own
aerospace companies when they cede whole market segments to foreign
competition. EADS is not going to develop a heavy lift helo for Europe
to have a free and open competition.

Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman seem to feel air vehicles
are beneath them. If they can buy a platform offshore and integrate
the systems - that's the higher calling. That is, until the US
government buys the code offshore. This insanity has to stop, but I
don't see anyone stopping it.

I would NEVER use UK MoD helicopter procurements as an example of how
to do anything.
The Royal Navy Merlin entered service 5 years late and 1.6 billion
pounds over budget -- the same team with roles reversed is building the
US Presidential helicopter.
The Royal Air Force bought Special Ops Chinooks it can't use 'cause it
can't figure out how to integrate the systems it thought it wanted.
The Royal Air Force has Apaches it can't fly 'cause it didn't get the
training system coordinated with deliveries of the real thing.

These are not examples you want to follow.

HW

On 2005-04-05 17:41:55 -0400, "Helowriter" said:

1.Apaches did very, very well in the fight for Baghdad and elsewhere in
OIF. And those people were using more than spitballs.

Yep, same as the Afghans (couldn't throw a rock -- an item in which
that nation abounds, if only there was a market they'd be rich as
Saudis, and they're much nicer chaps when they're not shooting at you
-- without hitting 14.5 or [gulp] 23mm AA. And 12.7s were literally
more common than pencils.

Their marksmanship was fortunately horrible, ignorance of or absence of
sights helped there. But if one of them got lucky and lit a copter up
it was generally time to find a nice place to park, even in an Apache.

The idea that the Apache is armored well enough to go toe to toe with
AA guns was embedded in Army doctrine. I think that fallacy (which the
WWI aviators, and the WWII fighter-bombers, and the Vietnam guys all
had to relearn) been kicked out of bed. Nothing like losing a dozen
airframes in one go, even if they do make it back to base with holes
the size of your fist in MR transmissions and whatnot.

2. You're right - that sounds like B.S. A foreign competition pulled
the same stunt requiring a cargo container just longer than the basic
H-92 cabin

I have to relook the cabin size thing, I want to be certain I have the
relative sizes of the NH90, S-92 and EH101 straight (from smallest to
largest) but Sikorsky was told that by the Navy -- something that would
not fit their helicopter needed to go on, and "sorry old boy, for
putting you through this." And Sikorsky decided not to appeal. Does
that mean they agree? Does that mean that they knew "the fix was in?"
These are the kinds of questions where execs who appear forthcoming,
change the subject.

You can always find an angle with which to rig a contest. I'm just not
sure why our military would want to play those games again for the
benefit of Agusta Westland. If the PRV competition is rigged, I would
hope for a Congressional investigation.

Well, one of the requirements is that the a/c air-refuel at 10,000 MSL.
Be difficult for any of the contenders to meet that but easiest for the
EH101.

You could argue that this is a legit requirement. AFSOC lost an HH in
Afghanistan doing the daft thing they do over there, refuel while
flying through the valleys. At night. Of course, they need to do that
because the HH60 has the unrefueled range of a spitball, so on a 150 NM
radius run (below average in Afghanistan), you are hitting the tanker
twice, once each going and coming.

Murphy's law (and the use of stateside HH units for maritime SAR) means
that you will be doing this when weather is in **** state.

If they're going to do that, they need a Chelton display, not strictly
rely on RADALT and FLIR which work OK in rolling terrain but in the
mountains, can only tell you you're going to die a couple seconds
before you hit. The Chelton displays the terrain from maps in memory.
Works even when the FLIR is choking on dust or whatever. And it's TSOd
and it's dirt cheap. So naturally the Pentagon, which is only
interested in max bennies for legions of uniformed or retired/industry
procurement wallahs, is not buying.

3. The HH-60 falls short only in that requirements (and loads) have
grown.

Gotta disagree with you there. Talk to the pilots and especially the
PJs in AFSOC. The ones that never flew the H-3 or H-53 are resigned to
the 60, but it always was a mismatch with the mission. A PJ can't
properly treat a rescuee, hunched over in the back of the cabin. And on
the old Sikorskys (as on all the new contenders except, I believe, the
Osprey, which isn't a serious contender for this contract), the pilot
can get out of his seat and stretch (or be relieved by a relief pilot).
In the 60 he's pretty well stuck for the duration of the mission.

Finally, there's that short legs problem that, as I said, literally
kills people. The S-70/H-60 is a fantastic helicopter, but not in this
job.
--
cheers

-=K=-

Rule #1: Don't hit anything big.

Don't minimize the threat in Afghanistan. The bad guys were nervy if
not sophisticated, and if they were dug-in someplace you had to go,
they were a threat. (The MH-47s brought down around Roberts' Ridge
prove that.)

No-one ever plans to go toe-to-toe with air defenses ('Case you didn't
know, the red coat thing doesn't work well). The idea is evade 'em
first, jam 'em second, and then take the hit as a last resort. Apaches
are good at evading and taking the hit - they don't have good jammers
yet. The Comanche was biased toward evading the threat - maybe too
much so.

As to the wonderful '101 - yes indeed it is wider. The mystery box of
course could fit nothing else, even though the '92 was modular and
already took two easy stretches. You could match the length of the '92
to the 101 and have a more crashworthy box without fuel under the
floor. All the PRV solutions apparently provide more headroom for PJs
to work - let's see if the requirement calls for some other magic
dimension.

I agree you want to refuel at mountain elevations - but you should look
at the full requirement, not find pockets that steer the choice
offshore. The VXX decision found the one pocket and just ignored a
generation of safety design progress, and 40+ years of US government
security regulations.

Agreed, 60's have less room and less gas in them than HH-3Es and Pave
Lows. The things were still able to get to people down in Iraq and
Kosovo. They also deploy rapidly on C-5s and C-17s without removing
the transmission, and they have the ballistic tolerance of a Black
Hawk, so they're not a total mismatch. Bigger will be better, but not
at the expense of superior ballistic tolerance, lower operating and
support costs, and all that other stuff the US military usually says it
wants.

That TERPROM-type solution assumes you've got your digital elevation
map for every place you're going to fly. You could also buy a terrain
following/terrain avoidance radar and digital map already integrated on
the MH-60K/MH-47E/CV-22, albeit for more bucks. The tradeoffs are to
be determined, but the stored terrain solution doesn't do it all.

I suspect any of the candidate aiframes will be compatible with the
MEP, but I still think it's a mistake to buy someone else's problem
(like the 101) to show how much you like them. (No one will say just
what has to be done to fix the 101 so it doesn't flatten again like
that Merlin in the UK.) Likewise, it is to our best interest to have a
viable helicopter industry, not a build-to-print shop for expensive
European engineering.

HW

Oh, and the decision on the VXX protest had to be weighed against
bigger upcoming programs. I suspect there was some worry that a messy
fight would get the customer mad, whether or not the VXX decision was
fair.

HW