USAF "nuclear" UH-1 Hueys upgraded,replacement delayed again

[Stratofreighter]

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... on-370913/

USAF issues RFI for UH-1N modernization 

33 minutes ago

The US Air Force has issued a request for information (RfI) to modernize its ageing fleet of Bell UH-1N helicopters-potentially to keep the aircraft in service for another 30 years.

"In terms of mission capable (MC) rates, the UH-1 remains one of the most reliable platforms within the US Air Force inventory," the request reads.

"To provide the UH-1 with an additional 30 years of service and retain its MC rates, the rotary branch is attempting to resolve sustainability and capability shortfalls."

The notice was posted 17 April. The USAF wants responses within 14 days of the posting.

The USAF wants to increase the UH-1N's endurance, range, speed, all-weather capability, survivability and equip it with modernised communication and navigation system capabilities.

"The government is seeking interested sources to fulfil [fiscal year]14-18 requirements," the RFI reads.

The Hueys were supposed to have been replaced by the USAF's common vertical lift support platform (CVLSP), which had attracted interest from Sikorsky, AgustaWestland, Bell Helicopter and Boeing.

But the CVLSP funding was eliminated in the US Department of Defense's fiscal year 2013 budget proposal.

The USAF is also planning on taking some of the US Marine Corps' surplus UH-1Ns.

The Marines are replacing the UH-1Ns with some newly-built UH-1Y "Venom" helicopters.

But the USAF has yet to determine what it will do with the UH-1Ns.

and
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... nt-357446/
of last year...

12:30 2 Jun 2011 Source:

When three nuclear protestors broke into the E-9 Minuteman launch site in rural North Dakota on 20 June 2006, alarm bells rang all over the US Air Force.

Terrorists may have tried harder to gain access to the missile silo.
But these trespassers were dressed as clowns, and merely spray-painted slogans around the site.

Finished with their work, they waited patiently inside the launch site with hands raised until a helicopter-borne USAF security force arrived to arrest them.

Within the air force, however, the incident underscored the need to replace an ageing, under-powered fleet of 62 Bell UH-1Ns charged with responding to such alarms across vast distances.

The USAF's unguarded, remote missile sites dotting the Great Plains have always been vulnerable to potentially catastrophic security breaches,
and the trio of harmless clowns only seemed to mock that risk.

[Stratofreighter]

http://airforcemag.com/Features/Pages/2 ... _campaign=

USAF Upgraded Hueys to Address Operational Risk as Replacement Program Slows

3/20/2018

UH-1N Huey number 6648 hits the 18,000 hour flight mark Fairchild AFB, Wash, Jan. 11, 2018.

Air Force Global Strike Command has provided fuel and armament system changes
to current UH-1N Huey helicopters in use in the service's missile fields to help
the aging aircraft do its job
as the replacement program continues to languish in source selection
and a Government Accountability Office protest,
the head of US Strategic Command said Tuesday.

The Air Force is in the middle of source selection of the UH-1N Huey Replacement program,
but Sikorsky has filed a pre-award protest
with the Government Accountability Office on the selection process.

STRATCOM boss USAF Gen. John Hyten told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday
that his "frustration" with the program "won't go away."

He said he has been working to
"try to get a helicopter in the hands of the folks at the missile fields for more than a decade."

Hyten, speaking before the panel last year,
expressed intense frustration with the program by saying
"it's a helicopter for gosh sakes.

We've been building combat helicopters for decades.
… I don't understand why the heck it is so difficult."

Some good news has happened since then,
with USAF and Pentagon leadership showing interest in the program and moving it forward.

Within the past year or so, AFGSC has "put a number of adjustments" into the Huey fleet,
which focused on a shortfall in the Huey's capability
to fly protective over watch of the movement of nuclear weapons.

However, Hyten said he couldn't address the specifics of the changes in the unclassified hearing.
The Air Force's Fiscal 2019 budget includes $8.8 million for a service life extension program for the aircraft.

Much of his frustration at the hearing last year stemmed from this shortfall,
and since then the risk has "really been eliminated in the short term,"
Hyten said,
adding that he wants to be able to give a date for a contract award,
hoping that it is soon, but he can't because of the protest.