May 27, 2007:
Due to age, combat losses and high maintenance costs, the U.S. Army,
Navy and Marine Corps will be spending billions of dollars over the next
several years to revitalize their helicopter fleets. Although designed and
built for 30 years or more of service, helicopters, must eventually be rebuilt
or replaced with new aircraft. Remanufacturing and modernizing existing
aircraft has been the most appealing
option, since it is usually much less expensive than new builds. The costs are
generally on the order of 1/3 to half, as the aircraft structure and many
component parts are refurbished and reused. The process typically involves
refurbishing the airframe to extend service life, replacing or upgrading
cockpit avionics, sensors, communication gear, engines and transmissions. The
decision on whether to rebuild or buy new is based on which approach will give
the services the best "bang for the buck" in terms of capability, service life,
maintenance and overall program costs. However, due to the escalating costs of
remanufacturing old aircraft, the decision to rebuild aircraft or buy new
aircraft is becoming increasing difficult.
The Army's program for their heavy lift CH-47
Chinooks is a combination of new build and remanufacture. They are remanufacturing 397 existing CH-47Ds, turning
them into CH-47Fs, as well as building approximately 55 new CH-47Fs and a small
number of MH-47Fs (special forces version with specialized equipment). The new
build aircraft will be replacements for combat losses. The CH-47F aircraft has
significantly greater capability then the "D" model. For example, it is able to
lift over 3,900 lbs. more cargo (a total of ten tons). The Army program is
going well with the first CH-47F delivered in 2005, but one significant change
has been made. Due to the costs involved in refurbishing the existing
aircraft's airframes, it is more cost effective to build new more durable
composite airframes. This is not really surprising since these helicopters have
been rebuilt more than once (from A models to D models) and in some cases are
40 years old or more. The Army anticipates flying these rebuilt (again)
aircraft until 2030, giving many of them a total service life of 70 plus years.
The Marine Corps program involves the remanufacture
of two helicopters, the UH-1N utility helicopter and the AH-1T/W attack
helicopter. Most of these aircraft were originally manufactured in the 1970's,
with some 44 AH-1W models built in the 1980's. The goal of this program is not
only to deliver a much more capable aircraft, but also to have an 84 percent
commonality of parts between the two, thus greatly reducing maintenance costs.
The original program intended to remanufacture 180 AH-1T/W attack helos into
AH-1Z Vipers models and 100 UH-1N utility models into UH-1Ys Venoms. This
upgrade will give the aircraft a new 4 bladed composite rotor system,
transmission, strengthened structural components, and modern digital cockpit
avionics. However due to several factors, including combat losses and most
importantly, the high unanticipated costs in remanufacturing Vietnam era
airframes, the Marines concluded that it was more cost effective to build
entirely new UH-1Ys.
The Navy's helicopter modernization program has
been completely revamped due to high remanufacturing costs. The intent of the
program was to convert anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare optimized
SH-60Bs and anti-submarine and search and rescue SH-60Fs into the SH-60R
configuration, which is capable of performing all these missions. The upgrades
include new cockpit avionics, upgraded radar, and modifications to the airframe
to allow the carriage of Mk-46/Mk-50 torpedoes, Penguin and Hellfire missiles,
machine guns, and extend the aircraft's service life for 20 more years. The
Navy came to the conclusion early in the program that the cost of
remanufacturing the existing helos was only slightly less than the cost of new
ones, therefore the Navy will now buy 243 new SH-60Fs and remanufacture only
seven. On the surface this decision by the Navy is intriguing, since the Army
and Marines have chosen to rebuild helicopters that are 30 to 40 years old,
while the Navy's aircraft were built in the 1980's and 90's. It will be
interesting to see how the U. S and other militaries will modernize their
forces in the future as the cost for both new and rebuilt aircraft continues to
soar.