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WSJournal - March 18, 2003
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U.S. Military Labors to Keep
Aging Helicopters Airworthy
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO , J. LYNN LUNSFORD and NICHOLAS KULISH
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
On a recent episode of the television show "The West Wing," the Pentagon's top military commander ordered two Comanche reconnaissance helicopters dispatched to rescue three Marines taken hostage.
When he heard about the fictional deployment, Maj. Gen. John Caldwell, head of the Army's acquisition programs, burst out laughing. "Those would be the only two we have," he said.
For more than a decade, ambitious plans to replace the U.S. military's aging helicopter fleet have been sidelined by funding constraints and developmental problems. The imposing-looking Comanche, which is supposed to have the ability to fly sideways and backward at more than 85 miles an hour, is the fruit of a $48 billion program that began in 1983 but isn't expected to become part of the U.S. arsenal until 2009 at the earliest. And the V-22 Osprey, a hybrid aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but cruises like an airplane at more than twice the speed of a conventional helicopter, has been grounded for much of the past two years after a string of fatal crashes. The V-22 was recently grounded again because of hydraulic-system problems, and top Pentagon officials say they are prepared to finally end the $46 billion program if it doesn't get on track soon.
So as they assemble for a potential conflict with Iraq, U.S. forces are relying on helicopters that in some cases are older than the troops they will carry. For example, massive twin-rotored CH-47 Chinook helicopters, which can carry dozens of servicemen or hoist heavy loads beneath them, remain the workhorse heavy-lifter for the Army, even though they were originally delivered before 1975. Most of them have been remanufactured by Boeing Co. and are scheduled for further updates that could enable them to keep flying for another 35 years, military planners say.
For the most part, the Vietnam-era Bell Huey helicopters, which flew en masse to drop troops into the jungles, have been replaced with larger and more capable Black Hawks. But two-thirds of the Black Hawk fleet now exceeds 15 years of age. Apache attack helicopters, developed in the 1980s, are the Army's newest choppers, but they haven't altogether replaced their Vietnam War predecessor, the Cobra.
The average life span of a military helicopter is 20 years, compared with about 30 years for a commercial one. But the circumstances these aircraft fly in, including brutal weather and difficult terrain such as the deserts of Iraq and the jagged mountains of Afghanistan, take a severe toll.
Because of the lack of funds to buy new helicopters, an ambitious remanufacturing program is under way aimed at improving performance and staving off safety problems, military officials say. The aircraft are stripped down, then their metal airframes are treated for corrosion, engines and rotors are rebuilt, and their cockpits are loaded with new digital electronics and radar.
Manufacturers such as United Technologies Corp.'s Sikorsky Aircraft unit, which builds and refurbishes about 65 Black Hawks a year, have scrambled since the Gulf War in 1991 to upgrade and modify their craft to withstand tough desert conditions.
All told, the U.S. military is spending billions of dollars to update its older copters. But military officials say they are still concerned on the eve of a potential conflict about the relative health of the fleet. There remains "a severe aircraft-aging problem in the helicopter fleet, causing serious safety and readiness issues," says Loren Thompson, executive director of the Washington-based Lexington Institute, a military think tank.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Bergantz, program executive director for Army Aviation, says: "Because of the aging, more things are starting to fail. Our readiness rates are lower now and are getting lower over the years."
Still, Gen. Bergantz and other military officials insist that only a small percentage of helicopter accidents are attributable to equipment failures. A recent Black Hawk crash in upstate New York that killed 11 soldiers is being investigated.
In a war with Iraq, Apaches and Cobras would be expected to take out Iraqi ground troops that might attempt to head off U.S. forces moving in from Kuwait. Black Hawks and Hueys would be the main vehicles to swiftly ferry platoons of soldiers and marines into fighting position.
The other services often use similar aircraft, outfitted for their special needs. The Air Force and Navy, for example, plan to use the V-22, but in a more limited way than the Marines -- if the V-22 isn't scrapped.
For helicopters operating in the desert, one of the most insidious threats is sand. Not only do sandstorms kick up without notice, but an improper approach to landing can envelop a chopper in a dust cloud that can instantly disorient a pilot.
Maintenance crews are working overtime to undo the damage done to copters by the desert. After a few hours of operation, many of the most delicate parts of the jet engines that power helicopters can become coated with glass, from sand ingested into the compressor sections.
Since the Gulf War, the helicopter manufacturers have developed new intake filters that better strain the air sucked into the engines. They also have developed a clear tape that is applied to the leading edges of rotor blades to cut down on the sandblasting damage caused by the rotors whirling through dust clouds.
For now, to minimize the risk that a combination of aging aircraft and tough climactic conditions will result in fatal mishaps, Marine pilots have been drilling at their high-desert base near Twentynine Palms, Calif., and near their temporary headquarters in the Middle East. One Cobra pilot with the call sign "Weasel" says, "there's a lot more emphasis" at present on repeatedly practicing takeoffs and landings to get a feel for conditions and how their choppers respond.
At their base near Iraq, the 3rd Marine Airwing of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force are reminded daily of the odds. Beneath the flight schedule hung on the wall in the mess hall, a posting declares, "In the Gulf War, 18 aircraft were destroyed. Only 3 were a result of direct enemy action." The squadron's commanding officer made it even clearer in a briefing last week for his pilots. "The enemy ain't going to kill you, probably. It's going to be these landings," he said.
The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing's safety officer, Maj. Bruce Laughlin, says in the 1991 Gulf War more than a third of Marine helicopter mishaps -- from minor equipment damage to fatalities -- were a result of brownout conditions or other weather-related visibility problems. He says in Afghanistan -- where he flew 75 hours in Cobras made by Textron Inc.'s Bell Helicopter, of Forth Worth, Texas -- the numbers followed a similar trend.
*****************************
U.S. Military Labors to Keep
Aging Helicopters Airworthy
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO , J. LYNN LUNSFORD and NICHOLAS KULISH
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
On a recent episode of the television show "The West Wing," the Pentagon's top military commander ordered two Comanche reconnaissance helicopters dispatched to rescue three Marines taken hostage.
When he heard about the fictional deployment, Maj. Gen. John Caldwell, head of the Army's acquisition programs, burst out laughing. "Those would be the only two we have," he said.
For more than a decade, ambitious plans to replace the U.S. military's aging helicopter fleet have been sidelined by funding constraints and developmental problems. The imposing-looking Comanche, which is supposed to have the ability to fly sideways and backward at more than 85 miles an hour, is the fruit of a $48 billion program that began in 1983 but isn't expected to become part of the U.S. arsenal until 2009 at the earliest. And the V-22 Osprey, a hybrid aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but cruises like an airplane at more than twice the speed of a conventional helicopter, has been grounded for much of the past two years after a string of fatal crashes. The V-22 was recently grounded again because of hydraulic-system problems, and top Pentagon officials say they are prepared to finally end the $46 billion program if it doesn't get on track soon.
So as they assemble for a potential conflict with Iraq, U.S. forces are relying on helicopters that in some cases are older than the troops they will carry. For example, massive twin-rotored CH-47 Chinook helicopters, which can carry dozens of servicemen or hoist heavy loads beneath them, remain the workhorse heavy-lifter for the Army, even though they were originally delivered before 1975. Most of them have been remanufactured by Boeing Co. and are scheduled for further updates that could enable them to keep flying for another 35 years, military planners say.
For the most part, the Vietnam-era Bell Huey helicopters, which flew en masse to drop troops into the jungles, have been replaced with larger and more capable Black Hawks. But two-thirds of the Black Hawk fleet now exceeds 15 years of age. Apache attack helicopters, developed in the 1980s, are the Army's newest choppers, but they haven't altogether replaced their Vietnam War predecessor, the Cobra.
The average life span of a military helicopter is 20 years, compared with about 30 years for a commercial one. But the circumstances these aircraft fly in, including brutal weather and difficult terrain such as the deserts of Iraq and the jagged mountains of Afghanistan, take a severe toll.
Because of the lack of funds to buy new helicopters, an ambitious remanufacturing program is under way aimed at improving performance and staving off safety problems, military officials say. The aircraft are stripped down, then their metal airframes are treated for corrosion, engines and rotors are rebuilt, and their cockpits are loaded with new digital electronics and radar.
Manufacturers such as United Technologies Corp.'s Sikorsky Aircraft unit, which builds and refurbishes about 65 Black Hawks a year, have scrambled since the Gulf War in 1991 to upgrade and modify their craft to withstand tough desert conditions.
All told, the U.S. military is spending billions of dollars to update its older copters. But military officials say they are still concerned on the eve of a potential conflict about the relative health of the fleet. There remains "a severe aircraft-aging problem in the helicopter fleet, causing serious safety and readiness issues," says Loren Thompson, executive director of the Washington-based Lexington Institute, a military think tank.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Bergantz, program executive director for Army Aviation, says: "Because of the aging, more things are starting to fail. Our readiness rates are lower now and are getting lower over the years."
Still, Gen. Bergantz and other military officials insist that only a small percentage of helicopter accidents are attributable to equipment failures. A recent Black Hawk crash in upstate New York that killed 11 soldiers is being investigated.
In a war with Iraq, Apaches and Cobras would be expected to take out Iraqi ground troops that might attempt to head off U.S. forces moving in from Kuwait. Black Hawks and Hueys would be the main vehicles to swiftly ferry platoons of soldiers and marines into fighting position.
The other services often use similar aircraft, outfitted for their special needs. The Air Force and Navy, for example, plan to use the V-22, but in a more limited way than the Marines -- if the V-22 isn't scrapped.
For helicopters operating in the desert, one of the most insidious threats is sand. Not only do sandstorms kick up without notice, but an improper approach to landing can envelop a chopper in a dust cloud that can instantly disorient a pilot.
Maintenance crews are working overtime to undo the damage done to copters by the desert. After a few hours of operation, many of the most delicate parts of the jet engines that power helicopters can become coated with glass, from sand ingested into the compressor sections.
Since the Gulf War, the helicopter manufacturers have developed new intake filters that better strain the air sucked into the engines. They also have developed a clear tape that is applied to the leading edges of rotor blades to cut down on the sandblasting damage caused by the rotors whirling through dust clouds.
For now, to minimize the risk that a combination of aging aircraft and tough climactic conditions will result in fatal mishaps, Marine pilots have been drilling at their high-desert base near Twentynine Palms, Calif., and near their temporary headquarters in the Middle East. One Cobra pilot with the call sign "Weasel" says, "there's a lot more emphasis" at present on repeatedly practicing takeoffs and landings to get a feel for conditions and how their choppers respond.
At their base near Iraq, the 3rd Marine Airwing of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force are reminded daily of the odds. Beneath the flight schedule hung on the wall in the mess hall, a posting declares, "In the Gulf War, 18 aircraft were destroyed. Only 3 were a result of direct enemy action." The squadron's commanding officer made it even clearer in a briefing last week for his pilots. "The enemy ain't going to kill you, probably. It's going to be these landings," he said.
The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing's safety officer, Maj. Bruce Laughlin, says in the 1991 Gulf War more than a third of Marine helicopter mishaps -- from minor equipment damage to fatalities -- were a result of brownout conditions or other weather-related visibility problems. He says in Afghanistan -- where he flew 75 hours in Cobras made by Textron Inc.'s Bell Helicopter, of Forth Worth, Texas -- the numbers followed a similar trend.
