« Congress Takes Action on '98-99 Offshore Drilling Leases | Main | Vice President Sought Elimination of Secrecy Oversight Office »

Jun 21, 2007

Comments

Joe Katzman

RE: is the Chinook in more frequent brownout situations - the answer is yes. The CH-47 (along with the CH-53E) has seen very disproportionate use in Afghanistan, due to the hot weather and high altitudes that rob helicopters of their lifting capacity. Which is why you don't see very many Blackhawks used as troop transports or supply carries in Afghanistan. Even the C-130E/H Hercs have problems there - and you won't like to hear this, but the C-130J can carry up to 3x more cargo in that theater after "hot and high" subtractions are factored in.

Given that this is also the theater in which one must expect the most brownouts (many of the Iraqi zones are not sandy), a higher brownout total is only to be expected. If you're serious about getting the best SAR helicopter, the data needs to be looked including helicopter flight-hours in Afghanistan, and then see how the CH-47 compares to the CH-53E in particular. Otherwise, it's very likely to be a false issue driven by other helicopters' LACK of capability.

Of course, if your SAR helicopter is going to be operating in those areas, and it must, it needs to have that lifting capacity too. Not to mention survivability (EH101's extra fuel tanks in the floor is fine for picking sailors out of the North Sea, but in a hot SAR combat zone I'd be very nervous - and their maintenance /safety record in Britain, Canada et. al. sucks), and redundancy (the H-92 has just two engines and verges on underpowered - how does that work for you in "hot and high" conditions like Afghanistan, or when an engine gets shot out?). Then there's the CH-47 (twin-rotor design allows precision maneuvers others can't match - but you still have to fit into small areas sometimes, least stealthy re: radar or noise, highest maintenance, can't travel on amphibious ships - but could 'lily pad hop' to/from one).

ALL of the CSAR-X candidates have significant negatives, in my opinion, and the V-22 would have been a lethally bad choice (terrible visibility due to few and small windows, no weapons coverage, huge downwash to the point of being dangerous, no autorotation). My personal take: the best aircraft for this mission would be a CH-53K "Pave Low-21" variant - but the USAF wants the helicopters much sooner than that... which means that unless they split the CSAR-X into 2 phases with potentially different winners, we're down to a choice of which sub-optimizations we decide we can live with.

That's why I'm not as surprised by the USAF's choice as many other people seem to be.

Given R&D to address the brownout issue via "Project Sandblaster" et. al., brownouts rank far lower on the list for me than other problems with the various designs (EH101's fuel tank placement and safety/maintenance record, H-92's questionable power level, H-47 least stealthy, and potentially slowest-deploying due to amphibious ship constraints).

Project Sandblaster:
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2007/03/darpas-sandblaster-program-is-on/index.php

Nick Schwellenbach

FYI, POGO received the following anonymous message. But before you read it, let me respond to some of its charges.

"The information that I've read seems to be based on historical information, some of which seems to be dated."

Of course the information we presented is "historical," it happened in the past--between 2002 and 2005. However, the anonymous author's standards for something being "dated" seem to be extraordinarily high.

"If the the H-47 flew a higher number of its hours/missions where brown-outs were more likely to be an issue than the hours/missions of the other helos then it is very possible that the percentage to be disproportionate, and would make sense."

We presented all the data we have, which should lead to the question you suggest--does the Chinook disproprortionately suffer from brownout accidents than other helos because it is put into tougher situations more often? A good question, and one we would like to see answered as well, which is why we made this post.

I'd also like to suggest that folks check out a comment on the "CSAR-X Tips Welcome" post:

"Now there are plenty of reasons that the Chinook is the incorrect choice as a CSAR-X platform, but downwash probably isn't one of them unless you examine closely how hard it is to safely accomplish a litter hoist recovery through the side door of a 47."

The following are the anonymous comments we received:

Concerning the CSAR-X program article....

How about showing data indicating each of the missions of the brown-out accidents in relation to the the accidents and flight hours.

If the the H-47 flew a higher number of its hours/missions where brown-outs were more likely to be an issue than the hours/missions of the other helos then it is very possible that the percentage to be disproportionate, and would make sense. Without this data, you are skewing the facts and make is appear that you are in someone's pocket for doing so.

You don't show the proposal test data results for the down-wash yet you seem to indicate that the Air Force disregarded this information in making their decisions. How can you say that? The information that I've read seems to be based on historical information, some of which seems to be dated.

Additionally, perhaps you could review the footage of the Mt. Hood rescue attempts where the H-47, on national television dropped rescuers at the top of the mountain and hovered in the area, at high altitude, for quite a long period of time. I don't recall the rescuers being blown off the top of the mountain as they would surely have been if the down-wash was to an extent to prevent a safe attempt at rescue. Seems that it was quite successful in the safe delivery and extraction of the rescue team.

Thanks for listening. Let's hope you have enough integrity to go back and show all of the data, and if you don't have the data, at least mention that these figures could be skewed by a disproportionate number of missions being undertaken that could cause these facts to appear as they do.

The comments to this entry are closed.