Talking to both operational commanders and security forces personnel, one of the most important factors is the ability to respond to a crisis with speed – to get some neutralizing presence on site as soon as possible.
But the Air Force has been making do with the Huey for quite some time. Particularly given budget constraints, what’s the rationale for them asking for something more capable now?
The UH-1N is an old aircraft, it’s increasingly costly to maintain and operate, and most importantly it just can’t do the mission, even with a significant amount of modifications. The UH-1N has almost no modern systems on board, and as such is very, very limited as to the conditions it can fly in. This severely limits its ability to respond to emergencies in the missile field around the clock, an area where the Air Force has had to accept significant risk. In addition, talking to both operational commanders and security forces personnel, one of the most important factors is the ability to respond to a crisis with speed – to get some neutralizing presence on site as soon as possible. The UH-72 is 30-35 knots faster than a UH-1N even when fully loaded. Also, the UH-72 has range and endurance capability that exceed significantly larger aircraft such as the UH-60. These factors, along with its historic 90 percent+ mission availability rate, make the UH-72 a highly responsive platform that gets right at the performance the Air Force desires.
The Army is procuring 312 UH-72 Lakotas, with 274 already delivered. EADS North America photo by James Darcy
So why has it taken this long – and with no clear resolution in sight – to close this significant capability gap?
Unfortunately, the solution was never affordable. What’s different now is that sequestration has imposed even more budget constraints; hence, affordability is more important than ever. Clearly, in this new era, the Air Force acquisition approach used in the previous attempts is no longer applicable. We need to look at a new model to solve issues such as the UH-1N replacement. In fact, that’s just what the Air Force Chief of Staff has challenged industry to do: Present new ways of thinking to find affordable and executable solutions.
What is the current Air Force plan as you understand it?
My understanding is that Air Force planning projects operating the UH-1N for at least 10 more years. The Air Force has discussed publicly spending money on some modest upgrades; however, those efforts are unfunded to my knowledge. Even with those modifications, UH-1N performance will not be increased, the mission gap will remain, and the Air Force will still be operating an aircraft that is configured almost the same as when it rolled out of the factory in the early ’70s. The Air Force has the opportunity to purchase the UH-72 – which almost totally closes the capability gap – and by doing so, save money on operating costs over the next decade. Plus, and this is key – the UH-72 gets them a solution now that’s good for the long haul, and keeps them from expending precious funding against the UH-1N only to have to pay for a more costly solution later.
You’ve left out the costs of a new program start, though.
We would propose the Air Force avoid almost all those costs entirely by buying the UH-72 aircraft from the current in-place Army contract. The Navy did the same in acquiring new UH-72s to support its Naval Test Pilot School. This allows the Air Force to put almost 100 percent of its expenditure into the new aircraft. That equates to a $370 million flyaway cost for 62 aircraft. That’s one tenth of the Air Force’s estimated cost of the cancelled Common Vertical Lift Support Platform (CVLSP) program. What’s more, a new UH-72 fleet requires no PDM [programmed depot maintenance] for 10 years, thus increasing the operational savings.
