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Aviation History
1991
1991 - 1694.PDF
Vietnam, where the UH-1 picked up the "Huey" nickname THE HUEY QUESTION It is called the venerable Huey, but the US Army's legendary UH-1 Iroquois helicopters are. showing their agt, Kieran Daly examines the options. J ust three years ago the question of how to replace the US Army's huge fleet of Bell UH-1 Iroquois appeared to be settled. A combination of Sikorsky UH- 60 Black Hawks and the utility variant of the Army's new Light Helicopter (LH) would have filled the role. Budgetary pressures killed both compo nents of the plan. Firstly, the utility LH was cancelled outright, leaving only the attack version — now the Comanche — and then the total UH-60 order was cut to some 1,000 aircraft fewer than requested. The cuts have opened a serious contest to follow the Iroquois' remarkable act. Just how many of the Army's 3,000 or so examples of the type will be replaced remains to be seen, however. Army director of combat developments Col Ted Sendak says that the service's current position is that, as the UH-60 fleet reaches full strength and the Army com pletes its force reduction, there will be 1,143 utility Iroquois left. The competing contractors guess that the final requirement will be about 800 to 1,000. Sendak sees the Iroquois as having three main roles, with a lesser fourth task. He lists command, control and communica tions (C3), medevac and liaison. Additionally, it will carry out mainte nance and combat service support, but that role is shared with other types — even with fixed-wing aircraft. It was the first main role that was most prominent in the Gulf war. In that case, C3 meant lifting Army staff ML 19 - 25 June 1991
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