Stanno lavorando alla messa punto del programma ed hanno stilato un calendario dei lavori ..... ma l'entrata in servizio è ancora lontana .....
Requirements Review For Rescue Helicopter .....
Marc V. Schanz (4/14/2015)
Air Combat Command officials have made progress in defining key requirements for the HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter since the Air Force awarded the $1.28 billion development contract to Sikorsky Aircraft last June, ACC officials told Air Force Magazine.
The HH-60W program's system requirements review is underway, said Maj. Joel Soukup, rotary wing branch chief in ACC's personnel recovery requirements division.
ACC anticipates that the preliminary design review will be held by April 2016, with the critical design review taking place by spring 2017.
HH-60W flight testing is scheduled for Fiscal 2019, added Soukup in the recent interview, with the target of Fiscal 2021 for having the first unit of combat-ready HH-60Ws available for use.
Programmers have a good amount of confidence in the schedule because many of the variables the program office must work out are "non-developmental," he said, since the HH-60W is modeled on the same airframe as the service's existing HH-60G Pave Hawk.
"The state of the program is very good, and we have a way forward," said William Young, ACC's personnel recovery weapons systems division chief.
"We recognize the CRH is not a revolutionary leap in technology; it's more evolutionary," he added.
Nonetheless, when fielded, it will be "the most modern rescue helicopter in the world … with a ton of capability that the Air Force has never had," said Young.
Lo definiscono 'evoluzionario' piuttosto che 'rivoluzionario' (il che corrisponde al vero) ..... ma ho l'impressione che da questo anziano elicottero (ripescato con una competizione tagliata su misura) stiano pretendendo troppo ..... per quel che lo aspetta in futuro .....
Si augurino dunque che, nel volerci imbarcare troppi ammennicoli, non si vengano poi a trovare nell' imbarazzante situazione che li portò, a suo tempo, a decretare l' infausta fine del programma
VH-71A .....
Don’t Let the Airframe Fool You .....
Marc V. Schanz (4/14/2015)
Although the Air Force's new HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter is a slimmed-down reboot of the cancelled CSAR-X rescue platform, the CRH will share many of its performance requirements, Air Combat Command officials told Air Force Magazine.
While the HH-60W will be built on Sikorsky's H-60 airframe, "it will be different in many ways" from the Air Force's legacy HH-60G Pave Hawk model, said William Young, ACC's personnel recovery weapons systems requirements chief.
The payload, for starters, is an area of improvement, said Maj. Joel Soukup, rotary wing branch chief in ACC's personnel recovery requirements shop.
ACC wants the HH-60W to be able to pick up two patients simultaneously on more mission profiles.
Currently, with a fully loaded maximum gross weight of around 22,000 pounds for systems, crew, and fuel, the HH-60G is dependent on air refueling support to execute longer and higher flying missions, said Soukup.
Personnel recovery planners also want to integrate sensors and flight systems more uniformly in the HH-60W, he said.
This equipment is far more "federated" in the Pave Hawk, he noted.
Planners also want upgrades to defensive systems, to provide better field of view for the flight crew to detect threats.
The new platform, most importantly, will offer improvements in maintainability, said Soukup.
HH-60G mission-capable rates are floating around 75 percent and fleet availability is around 59 percent, as of early April, according to ACC.
Fonte ..... il 'Daily Report' dell'
AFA .....
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