Home » Land » ARH Redux; Kiowa Is It, for Now

ARH Redux; Kiowa Is It, for Now

By Colin Clark Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 2:41 pm
Posted in Land, Policy

The Army, perhaps having absorbed the lessons of Comanche and looking to what we are politely calling the constrained budget environment, has put aside all thoughts of building a new recon helicopter any time soon and will instead upgrade the venerable Kiowa Warrior.

The Army will upgrade the existing fleet so it can meet the mission through 2020, Lt. Gen. Ross Thompson, principal military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisitions, logistics and management, told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee Tuesday morning. Instead of proceeding with a new helo program, they will “reinvest that money” in the Kiowa. In the best budget tradition, the Army brass offered no funding numbers since the president’s budget has not been released yet.

The fleet will be upgraded by 2015, Army Brig. Gen. William Crosby (PEO aviation) told the HAC-D. At least 52 aircraft remain to be upgraded, the army brass said. Crosby told the committee that that the service and OSD remain “committed” to the requirement for a manned Armed Scout Helicopter. However, they will do without a new one for a while. He said the Army will perform an analysis of the Kiowa program once the upgrades are done and will then decide “if a new capability is needed” or they should keep upgrading the OH-58s.

The current requirement is for 368 helos and the Army is now short 30 of the OH-58Ds, the Army told the HAC-D. So the service plans to upgrade A and C models currently used by the National Guard, Gen. Thompson said. The service has completed an engineering analysis of what must be done but no details were offered.

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	Bob April 1st, 2009 at 10:08 am As long as the airframes hold up… Good plan… when they start to fail you will have to look into buying maybe brand new ones…(not even sure what the expected lifetime for a oh-58 is?) Hopefully they have learned through the commanche… that super hightech/stealth isnt the way to go w/recon heli’s, especially with the numbers they want to have!
	yasotay April 1st, 2009 at 12:02 pm Most of the OH-58D, if not all of them started life as OH-58A that went to the factory to be rebuilt. If memory recalls, because it was to be an “interim for RAH-66, they took the oldest airframes to do the re-work, leaving the “newer” ones in the fleet to soldier on till Comanche, except for the ones changed into the Kiowa Warrior. Tailboom cracks and counterweights (just what an overweight helo needs)I guess will have to continue to do. No room in the back for anything but the giant weight of all the gear. But then they are only scout aircraft after all. I agree with Bob that super stealth and overly high tech is not needed for counter insurgency, but if we get ourselves into much more than that… well I am not sure the ol’ Kiowa’s are ready for that round. Lets hope we do not find out.
	Recon-Team April 1st, 2009 at 12:56 pm Something is seriously wrong we can’t get a relatively cheap replacement for the OH-58 like the ARH-70 was supposed to be. There was no excuse for screwing up that program like we did. Originally I was opposed to the cancellation of the RAH-66, but later I began to see the reasoning behind it and figured it was probably a good choice. Yet I don’t know what to think now that we have managed to screw up the ARH program.
	Bob April 1st, 2009 at 1:17 pm ^ I agree, ARH program looked like a good plan, seems that they are scrambling now to upgrade what they have (even taking the guard helicopters to get the numbers they want).
	DensityDuck April 1st, 2009 at 2:40 pm Recon: Blame the lawyers. No, seriously. When every contract award always gets protested every time, then contract awards become something to avoid. Of course, I expect that what’s going to happen is that Boeing will build a completely new helo that looks sort of like the existing OH-58, and they’ll call it the “OH-58E”. Worked for the F-18, worked for the Tu-22, worked for any number of military programs in the past. Increment the version letter, call it an “upgrade”, and you can do just about anything you like.
	gunplt April 1st, 2009 at 4:41 pm They should have dumped the Kiowas and kept the snakes (AH1). Strip off the TOW missile system and keep the laser designator and use the laser guided Hydra 70 rockets. Great visibility out of the cockpit, a flex gun, faster, harder to shoot down, etc. Hell, with the MMS on you’d be very lucky to survive an autorotation in a PeeWee Warrior, especially at night. Unless something has changed they wouldn’t even do autos at the school house (Ft Rucker) in those things.
	NeonConVet April 1st, 2009 at 4:44 pm Look, the reality is we have a bunch of lawyers most of whom have only seen a shot fired in semi-anger on the TV Shows. Their emphasis is growing their voter base and getting re-elected. Once again the Warriors are an after-thought until the next 9–11 (or worse) strikes! The Army will be lucky to get eneough money to buy rifle ammo, much less for replacement helicopters, tanks, vehicles etc. Expect that the budget will also chop out more active duty units.
	warrior April 2nd, 2009 at 8:50 am The KW’s always were overweight, they are now worn the hell out (talk to any aviation mechanic who’s been down range) and need replacement NOW. Their shortcomings have been evident to all who have worked with them. Wasting billions on another upgrade is yet another politically based gutless lack of decision by senior Army leadership. Get us Hughes MD530N’s — their faster, carry more farther and do it with more stealth than anything else out there.
	jim April 2nd, 2009 at 9:10 am This is what happens when we waste soo much money in over priced over budgeted platforms.… we get stuck with absolutley nothing after wasting all that money…
	KiWarrior April 2nd, 2009 at 9:20 am How the Heck did Bell screw up this ARH deal. It was a refit of a commercial already designed system as opposed to the Sikorsky design-from-scratch Comanche.
	Dave Tucker April 2nd, 2009 at 4:11 pm Just think what we could have done with the 8 billion that was wasted. How can you waste that much money and no one goes to jail. Hell I can remember young GI’s loosing their army carreer over a jar of mayo that was sold on the local market. I too miss The AH-1S.
	Answerman April 2nd, 2009 at 4:14 pm Can anyone out there tell me what the so called up grade consist of?
	cvn April 2nd, 2009 at 8:45 pm the commanche would have been flying in force by now.… Sikorksy X2 is the next step
	bob April 2nd, 2009 at 9:04 pm My guess would be avionics, and sensors…maybe overhaul of the heli so that its structurally sound… it is really old and worn… i mean not much more you can update right?
	Answerman April 3rd, 2009 at 12:05 pm Thanks Bob. Found out they are replacing the XM 294(?)machinegun with used M3P 50 Cal’s that are used on the AVENGER Air Defense Missile system.
	Chief Houston April 5th, 2009 at 10:14 am Sounds like we need a Chopper Olympics. Teams of top mechs and pilots building what they want with what they can get there hands on against the big defense contractors.
	KW_pilot May 21st, 2009 at 11:33 pm Hello gents, I fly the OH-58D/I model and I am in the last unit in the Army that still has “I” model KWs. Our KWs have not been upgraded to the /R yet. We (as a unit) were supposed to be the first group to receive the new airframes. I have spoken to test pilots assigned at the testing facility for procurement of the ARH. These gentlemen explained to me how horribly underpowered the ARH was (even more so than the KW) due to its weak transmission. The test were conducted with FMC birds with no ammo loaded and still they were “very prone to over-torques”. Furthermore, other reliable sources say that Gen Cody is directly responsible for killing the ARH when he requested it have the common architecture software and components so it could interface with F-22s and other new aircraft. This requirement was not in the list of “must-haves” when it was being designed and built under the reign of Gen. Shooemaker. Bell tried to respond as best they could as quickly as they could by hiring personnel, building a new assembly line and beginning tests. As you can see that one “little” request put the project over budget by two fold and cost the pilots of the OH-58D their deserved upgrade. The interim aircraft we are flying is literally on it’s last leg, without getting into TTPs too much we do have certain conditions that we can not take off in and therefore cannot complete the mission. KWs are a laughing stock in Afghanistan, considering they can only do FOB security. I agree with most folks here when they say “how can this keep happening” who is asleep at the wheel? Yes the M3p was retrofitted to the KW as our new MG but, what is not said is if it has a jam or cannot recock then the electric motor will burn up. Guess how much a simple little recocking motor costs. 25,000$ Yeah, can you believe it, not even a circuit breaker to prevent this costly mistake and there is no indications that the weapon has a problem unless if stopped firing in the middle of an engagement. I could keep going on and on. If someone with some clout reads this I invite you to come see these aging beasts yourself.
	Joe November 4th, 2009 at 2:46 am Wow, How much you little you all know, first of all the ARH PM, kept adding systems and Bell wanting to make $$ never refused once. Also there were weight problems down to counting ouches. The engine was never the problem, it was the transmission. When the OH-58D received this transmission it was rated at 100%, the ARH was carrying the torque to 140% when that 140% was re-base lined to 100% the ARH was still over torquing basically carrying this OH-58D transmission to 150+ %. Also Bell canceled its commercial 417 program, which parts of the ARH were 417 parts and the production of the commercial off the shelf parts were now costing more because fewer were needed, also the Army had to buy the plans for these parts. SInce there were now military parts, no longer commercial raising the price of the ARH to the point of a Nunn-McCurdy breach at which point it was canceled. Plans to upgrade the transmission were already being planned and the first production model had not even been built. There was also one that crashed which didn’t help. The Army along with Bells non existent commercial line both killed this program.