LUH Taking Fire

[unhappycamper]

LUH Taking Fire
The Associated Press has a critical news report on the UH-72A Lakota, which is the army's new light utility helicopter based on the Eurocopter EC145.

The report focuses on the aircraft's lack of an air conditioner, but this should be an easily fixed problem.

More interesting is the comment by Representative Duncan Hunter, an outspoken US protectionist, who says the Lakota should be replaced by a US made helicopter. Says the AP article:

"In my view, we would be well advised to terminate the planned buy of 322 Lakota helicopters and purchase instead additional Blackhawk helicopters," Hunter said in a letter this week to Army Secretary Pete Geren."

Interestingly, Sikorsky had the same basic idea nearly four years ago, just as the LUH requirement was coming into focus. Here's my article published in Flight International on February 11, 2004:

Sikorsky is planning to compete for a US Army requirement for a light utility helicopter fleet with a lower-cost version of the UH-60L. Freshly marketed as the LUH-60 Black Hawk, the helicopter uses the UH-60L engine and transmission, a UH-60M digital cockpit and adds a health usage monitoring system. Sikorsky officials say the design can be competitive for LUH at $3 million per aircraft and operate at under $1,000 per flight hour. The engines would be operated at 80% maximum power.


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