The Return of the Pink Team

you wouldn't think such a simple helicopter would be so difficult to mass produce, but it's deceptively complex, lots of parts, lots of man hours......the original loach cost hughes helicopters millions and millions of dollars in losses.....and the MD500 is still a difficult structure to mass produce..........that's where we in st. louis come in.   Design for Manufacture and Assembly.........how can we produce this machine as cost effectively as possible?  St. Louis has become the core within the boeing company for this kind of expertise......we recently demonstrated the same kind of approach towards the chinook by doing a DFMA redesign of the aft end to try and improve cost and increase the sales of the old bird.   If they go to the "chinook follow on" heavy lift proposal, I certainly hope we in St. Louis can garner a bigger chunk of that job.........we're good at it!!!

PW's right and I forgot to add in that one of the biggest issues with MD helicopters is that their parts supply chain is in shambles (at the admission of the company's CEO) and they wouldn't be able to meet the demand. 

I've just come into the program area for army aviation after being in a "time capsule" for the last 5 years.........I'm getting up to speed on things around here, and of course proprietary concerns being what they are, I'm not sure what all I'm at liberty to say.......however, I think I can say that a big part of why the highly modified little bird didn't win the ARH competition has as much to do with production lines (or lack thereof) as it had to do with anything else.......

Cobrahistorian wrote:

Sal, In fact I spoke to a couple 160th Little Bird guys here and they were dead set against the Army adopting the AH/MH/OH-6M.  That'd mean it would be come standard equipment and they would then have to standardize their birds, making them less flexible.  The 407 from what I hear from Kiowa guys (and from the project manager, who I happen to know) has everything that the Kiowa was left wanting for.  Sounds like its gonna be quite the nice interim platform. Jon

Bell 407s are not without problems of their own. The company I work for started buying them around 97-98, and there have been numerous flaws, glitches, and quirks that have shown up, one of the major problems was an airspeed limitation that was imposed because of a tail rotor problem.

I can't remember exactly what it was, or if it was fully resolved, but I know that the people from Bell spent a bunch of time at our main support center trying to resolve the problem. So, be careful what you wish for.

Jonathan Primm

Makes alot of sense.  Kinda funny though.  We've got mods on our birds that other Pavehawk units don't use, but we adopted them anyway to improve the mission capability and effectiveness.  Same for our HC-130N/H3's.

But that does make sense.  And I'm glad to hear that the 407 is gonna go a long way to fix the KW inefficiencies.  WOW!  You mean the ole' green machine aquisition system actually worked?  Outstanding!  Now if we could only be so lucky with the CSAR-X program.

And ditto to what Grandad said...with the addition of Always listen to your NCOs. 

Sal,

In fact I spoke to a couple 160th Little Bird guys here and they were dead set against the Army adopting the AH/MH/OH-6M.  That'd mean it would be come standard equipment and they would then have to standardize their birds, making them less flexible.  The 407 from what I hear from Kiowa guys (and from the project manager, who I happen to know) has everything that the Kiowa was left wanting for.  Sounds like its gonna be quite the nice interim platform.

Jon

Sal

 The 6 was always a better helo, but good old Howard Hughes increased repair parts to a hugh amount which caused the Army to replaced it with the 58. Wish the Army had stuck with it. At least I got a couple of flights in it and was qualified to work on it in my NG unit(also fly and work on 58's in some 58's), Was close to one of our pilots which helped, but that's another story.

Jon

You are in a good position, talk with all those old SEA pilots you known and learn from them, think we touched on this before. Leasons from the past need to be re-applied.

I know as a young 2nd or 1st LT, I know you can not change things but you can influence them

Understood.  Thanks John.  I just thought I remember reading that the -6M was a more capable asset, and thought they would have went that way instead.  But then what was I thinking...Probably a cost issue as well.  I just hope, considering the weight problems in the KW that the relacement is more effective.

How about historically though.  When the OH-5 went away and was replaced by the OH-58A, was that a political deal?  Got a little stick time in a 500D and some in a Jet Ranger and in my humble opinion there's no comparison...the 500D wins hands down.  Fun to fly to boot!

Most likely Sal, because the Warrior is standard in the Army inventory as a scout while the MH-6 is only used by the 160th. It would require the Army to take from the 160th or acquire new birds to fill the role

Sweet!

But enlighten me John as to why they didn't select the MH-6M for a Kiowa Warrior replacement?  Just wanted to know the rationale.