Combat search and rescue: whose chopper has the right stuff for the Air Force?

SUFFOLK, Va.--Three industry teams are competing to produce the Air Force's next-generation combat search and rescue helicopter, dubbed the CSAR-X.

The contractor teams--led by Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Sikorksy-- have widely different views of what it takes to win what could be a $13 billion contract.

All offer more powerful engines than those propelling today's platform, the HH-60G Pave Hawk, as well as a host of new electronic marvels. But some critics wonder whether the financially strapped Air Force couldn't do as well with one of the helicopters already in service.

The Air Force's helicopters, however, are getting on in years, with some of them predating the Vietnam War. They are being used heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and readiness is suffering, according to Maj. Gen. Stanley Gorenc, the service's operational requirements director.

During the first quarter of 2006, Air Force helicopter availability rates in Iraq ranged from 54 percent for MH-53 Pave Lows, to 57 percent for HH-60s and 70 percent for UH-1N Hueys, Gorenc told the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces. By comparison, availability rates in Iraq for all Air Force aircraft--including both fixed wing and rotorcraft--are running at about 90 percent.

In addition, the HH-60Gs are too small and slow, said Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne. They lack the range and power to perform combat search-and-rescue missions in the demanding and remote desert and mountain environments of Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. In 2003, one crashed in Afghanistan, killing all six Air Force personnel on board.

To correct such performance issues, the Air Force plans to begin replacing the current 101 HH-60Gs with 141 CSAR-X helicopters, Wynne told the House Armed Services Committee. The service intends to award the contract, worth a possible $13 billion, in September with aircraft deliveries to begin in 2010. The CSAR-X program is expected to reach initial operating capability by 2012.

"The CSAR-X will address the deficiencies of the current HH-60G by providing increased capabilities in speed, range, survivability, cabin size and high-altitude hover operations," he said.

The CSAR-X will be a medium-lift, vertical-takeoff and landing aircraft that can deploy quickly anywhere and operate from austere locations, as well as major air bases, Wynne said. It will be able to operate day and night, during adverse weather conditions and in all environments, including nuclear, biological and chemical conditions. The CSAR-X will be equipped with on-board defenses to enable it to fly in increased-threat environments, and it will be able to refuel in-flight, which will extend its airtime and combat mission range.

To meet these requirements, competitors for the contract are offering what they call advanced versions of their existing aircraft.

Team US101, led by Lockheed Martin Systems Integration, also includes Bell Helicopter and Europe's AgustaWestland. It is proposing the US101, an American variant of AugustaWestland's EH-101medium-lift rotorcraft, which was selected last year to become the next presidential chopper.

The Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation's candidate is its HH-92 Superhawk, a bigger, souped-up version of the company's H-60 family of platforms, which include the Pave Hawk, Black Hawk and Seahawk and have logged more than 5 million flight hours in combat.

The Boeing Company's contender is the HH-47 tandem rotor aircraft, which is similar to the firm's MH-47G special operations heavy assault helicopter, the latest descendant of the venerable, Vietnam-era CH-47 Chinook.

Bell and Boeing decided in 2005 not to offer a fourth candidate--the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, which takes off and lands like a helicopter and flies like a fixed-wing platform. Instead, Bell is participating in the US101 effort, and Boeing is promoting its HH-47. The two firms continue to cooperate in manufacturing the V-22 as a medium-lift, multi-mission platform for the Marine Corps and the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC).

Team US101 is touting Lockheed Martin's Suffolk laboratory--known as the Center for Innovation--as a major tool for developing strategy and tactics for the CSAR-X.

The 50,000 square-foot laboratory located amid the sprawling military complexes of Virginia's Hampton Roads region, specializes in collaborative experimentation and analysis between Lockheed and any of its military customers, which include the U.S. Joint Forces Command, based here in Suffolk, and the Air Force's Air Combat Command (ACC), at nearby Langley Air Force Base. The Air Force in April transferred control of most of its combat search and rescue assets from AFSOC to ACC.

The Lockheed center is being promoted as a hub for the Air Force's CSAR planners to work out new ways to conduct the most complicated combat search and rescue missions, asserted Daniel Spoor, the firm's vice president for the CSAR-X program. The center, he noted, contains a test bed for the global information grid (GIG), a growing worldwide network of electronic systems that collect, process, store, disseminate and manage data for war fighters, policymakers and support personnel.

"The GIG is a sort of Internet for war fighters," Spoor said. CSAR-X will be "a critical node" on the GIG, he added, because it must communicate with its headquarters, forces on the ground, nearby unmanned aerial vehicles and escort aircraft, other rescue units, and the personnel needing to be recovered. At the same time, Spoor noted, CSAR-X must locate, monitor, and either evade or neutralize possible enemy threats.

In the test bed, technicians use huge, interactive video screens and modeling, simulation, visualization and analysis systems to connect with the GIG and test various CSAR scenarios, explained Lockheed systems engineer Fred Keller.

During a recent press tour of the center, the test bed was running a simulated CSAR mission that required two US101 helicopters in southern Afghanistan to rescue a downed F-15 fighter.

"Like many CSAR missions--because of their unexpected nature--this one had to be developed on the fly, with no rehearsal and no pre-panning," Keller said. The helicopters had to coordinate with a combined air operations center which ran the mission, a UAV sent to locate the F-15, an HC-130 CSAR air-refueling platform and anA-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft to provide close air support against enemy forces in the area. In addition, the choppers had to communicate with friendly ground units and, if possible, the downed pilot.

To make such simulations as realistic as possible, Lockheed has installed a full-scale mockup of a US101's cabin in one of the center's six reconfigurable laboratory spaces. Team US101 officials used the mockup during the tour to point out some of the strong points of their product.

"The 101 has its own LAN [local area computer network], with eight ports placed throughout the cabin," said Tony Duthie, AgustaWestland's vice president for technical support. The entire aircrew, including gunners and pararescue jumpers, or PJs, can use them to stay informed about the mission, he explained.

"The PJs want that. The gunners want it. Everybody wants a piece of that," Duthie said.

Team US101 also touts the "superior survivability" of its platform. "We have three engines, unlike our competitors, which have only two," said Terry Higginbotham, managing director of AgustaWestland North America.

"We can shut one engine down and still complete our mission," he asserted. "If you have only two engines, and you lose one, you're going down. You may be able to land safely, but you're going down."

Also, Higginbotham said, the US101's rotor blades are designed to avoid brownout, the clouds of dust kicked up by helicopters taking off and landing in desert environments. Uncontrolled brownouts can destroy sensitive military operations in spectacular fashion.

In 1980, for example, during the aborted attempt to free 53 hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Iran, a Marine RH-53 helicopter became disoriented in the dust kicked up by its rotors at an isolated site, called Desert One. It collided with a nearby MC-130 special operations air-refueling tanker, killing eight personnel.

"Traditional helicopter blades push dust toward the fuselage, creating brownout," Higginbotham said. "The US 101's blades push dust away from the fuselage, improving visibility for the aircrew."

Another advantage of the US 101 is its low acoustic signature, minimizing the "wump-wump" sound associated with helicopters, Higginbotham said. "That allows it to make a stealth approach, without tipping off the enemy." By comparison, he said, older helicopters can be heard from a long way off.

In addition, Higginbotham said, the US101's main rotor has a relatively small diameter of 61 feet. "That means we can put it into tight spaces, such as urban areas and mountain terrain, and we can do it quickly:"

The two other competitors for the CSARX contract do not concede any technological edge to the US101.

Sikorsky's candidate--the HH-92--"is the most advanced technologically, not matter what anybody says," insisted retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael N. Farage, who heads the firm's effort to market the aircraft. Farage, a former CSAR pilot, once served as deputy commander of the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C.

"We've taken the best of the H-60 and the CH-53 [Sea Stallion heavy-lift helicopter], and merged those two into a new medium-lift platform with the best technology Sikorsky has to offer."

Survivability is built into the HH-92, Farage told National Defense. "It's designed to meet the latest safety requirements of the Federal Aviation Administration, and those are equal to or better than those of the military services."

For example, Farage explained, bird strikes are a common problem for all aircraft. The HH-92's blades and cockpit can survive a bird strike equivalent to a 10-pound hammer blow, he said. "That equates to being hit by a military round. In less robust helicopters, that could cause a catastrophic failure." The HH-92 is designed to survive hits by rounds ranging from 7.62 to 23 mm, he noted.

The HH-92's main blades include an anti-icing system, which is important, particularly in winter weather or flying over high mountains such as those in Afghanistan, Farage said "If you get ice on your rotors, you're going to go down."

Another safety feature: The HH-92's fuel is stored in crashworthy, breakaway cells located in the sponsons on both sides of the aircraft, not under the cabin floor. "That protects the occupants from possible fuel injuries when the aircraft is hit by enemy fire or fire breaks out, Farage said.

In addition, he claimed, the HH-92 is the only one of the competitors that meets or exceeds military requirements for crash worthiness. It can withstand a forward or downward crash of up to 20 times the force of gravity, meeting the military standard, and it can take an upward or lateral crash of up to 10 times the force of gravity, exceeding the military requirement, Farage said.

Sikorsky is developing a new fly-by-wire and avionic system for the HH-92 that replaces the mechanical linkage between the cockpit controllers and the actuators with a purely electrical system. "That reduces the chances for the kind of catastrophic failure depicted in the movie 'Black Hawk Down' [about the 1993 crash of a special operations helicopter in Somalia], and it takes 300 pounds of weight off the aircraft."

Farage concedes that the HH-92 is the smallest of the competitors. Its cabin is 20 feet long, and 6 feet both high and wide, compared to 21 feet long, 6 feet high and 8 feet wide for the US101's inside. The HH-47's internal space, on the other hand, measures 30.5 feet long, 6.5 feet high and 7.5 feet wide.

Despite the HH-92's relatively small size, Farage insists: "From my perspective as a former rescue pilot, it's the right size for the mission. It can carry everything required to safely get to the downed airman and return him or her to safety."

Boeing sees the HH-47's large size as a plus. "The cabin volume is a competitive advantage," Bill Riley, the project's chief engineer, said in an interview. "We have a bigger door, making it easier to get patients in and out of the aircraft, and increased cabin height enables crewmembers to treat patients without bending or stooping."

The HH-47 is built on a new airframe and equipped with advanced countermeasures and survivability enhancements similar to those installed in the MH-47G rotorcraft.

"It has terrain-following, terrain-avoidance radar," Ripley said. "When you're on the wrong side of the line, you want to go fast and low--right over the tree tops. This technology allows you to do that."

The HH-47 also is equipped with the latest radio frequency countermeasures, said Rick Lemaster, the aircraft's program manager.

"When an aircraft goes into enemy territory, it's likely to face threats, such as man-portable defense systems or heat-seeking missiles. This technology confuses those threats by spoofing or flares."

Boeing doesn't see US101's three engines as a big advantage over the HH-47's two. "The 101 has a triple redundancy," said Ripley. "That's not significant. We have a double redundancy. We can fly with one engine -not as fast, but we can continue to fly."

In fact, a third engine might even be a disadvantage, argued HH-47 proposal leader Van Horn. "Engines are the most expensive part of a helicopter. From that perspective, an extra engine could be a downside."

While the three contenders each make their own cases for the CSAR-X contract, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., the chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces, is holding hearings to question "whether the requirements for this program were over stated and whether the Air force had too readily discounted using a helicopter already in the department's inventory to meet its future combat search and rescue requirements."

The MH-47G is built in Ridley Park, Pa., which is in Weldon's home district, and the HH-47, if Boeing gets the CSAR-X job, would be, too.

To address Weldon's concern, the 2006 Defense Authorization Act ordered the Defense Department's Joint Requirements Council to review the CSAR-X proposal, Kenneth J. Krieg, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, to examine the procurement schedule, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to report on whether an existing aircraft can do the job.

In April, Krieg told a House hearing that the department reviewed the CSAR concept of operations and requirements, the Air Force's proposed acquisition strategy, the technical risk and the industrial base's capacity to support the program. The review, Krieg said, "affirmed ... that the department is on track" for the CSAR-X project.