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Aviation History
1994
1994 - 2090.PDF
D£r£tt<J~. - US Army study recommends limited upgrade for the Huey RAMON LOPEZ/WASHINGTON DC AUS ARMY study has conclud ed that a Bell UH-1 helicopter service-life-extension programme (SLEP) should only involve new avionics since an engine upgrade would be too costly. The studies also say that, if a UH-1 SLEP is undertaken, the modernisation effort should only be applied to fill the Army National Guard's requirement for up to 130 Light Utility Heli copters (LUHs). The upgraded UH-ls would be fielded in the three Army Guard LUH battal ions which operate the Huey. US lawmakers have pressured Army officials to upgrade the age ing in-service UH-ls. US Congress provided $15 million to initiate a Huey SLEP. Senior US Army officials oppose UH-1 upgrades, except for those in the Army National Guard. Money for a Huey SLEP would be better spent on addi tional Sikorsky Aircraft UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, the offi cials argue. A funding shortfall will keep nearly 1,000 UH-ls in active ser vice into the next century, however. Three industry teams are offer ing to re-engine UH-ls for between $750,000 and $1.5 mil lion for each aircraft: Bell with the Textron Lycoming T53-703- powered Huey II; Global Helicopter with the LHTEC T800-powered Huey 800; and UNC Helicopter with the General Electric T700-701C- powered Ultra Huey. All hope that foreign UH-1 upgrades would follow US Army contracts. Only the UH-60, UH-1 and OH-58D were evaluated to fill the LUH requirement. The study recommends that only the UH-1 be considered a candidate for the LUH mission. It says that a UH-1 upgrade should meet the recom mendations found in the compan ion UH-1 SLEP study. The US Army study conducted by the Training and Doctrine Command and Aviation Center concludes that die UH-1 avionics suite is obsolete and that repair parts are hard to find. It also says that a T700 engine upgrade would be too expensive. The T53 and T800 provide only slightly better performance, and are only slightly less costly than the GE engine, it continues. The UH-1 SLEP study recom mends that, if the UH-1 is select ed to fill the LUH rule, only 130 Hueys should receive new avion ics. It calls for a new study which considers replacing engines only when they become unsupportable. The follow-on study should again evaluate all engine alternatives for the UH-1, it says. • P&W to test new F119 turbine PRATT & WHITNEY plans to rig-test a revised high-pres sure turbine for the Fl 19 fighter engine this month. The compo nent was redesigned after ground tests of the Lockheed/Boeing F-2 2 powerplant uncovered vibratory blade-stress and lower-than-pre- dicted turbine efficiency. Limited proof-of-concept test ing of the redesign has been com pleted, according to Fl 19 business-development manager William Richey. A development engine on altitude test at the US Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC), Tullahoma, Tennessee, was sched uled to be run in late August with a version of the new turbine. Definitive turbine hardware for ground-test engines is scheduled to be available in April 1995. Three development Fl 19s are under test and a fourth will be added in October. A total of eight development ground-test engines is planned, plus 27 Fl 19s for nine development flight- test F-22s, with a first flight in February 1997, fol lowed by 12 engines to power four pre- production-verifi cation aircraft. Richey says that the Fl 19 develop ment programme is now "slightly ahead of schedule", having been behind sched ule in 1993 follow ing the discovery of the turbine problem. The AEDC altitude-test engine has been run at pressures and temperatures representing the extremes of the flight enve lope "...and we have not see any more surprises," he says. The 155kN(35,0001b)-thrust- class Fl 19 has 40% fewer parts than does the P&W F100. Both F119 development is now ahead of schedule engines have three-stage fans, but the Fl 19 has integrally blad- ed rotors. The high-pressure compressor, which is "meeting or beating per formance predictions", has six stages, compared with the FlOO's ten, and the high- and low-pres sure turbines and each single- stage, rather than two-stage.Q AlliedSignai plans new TCAS extra I ANEW FORMATION and rendezvous flying capability for military-transport aircraft is being developed by Allied- Signal Aerospace as an adjunct to a traffic-alert and collision- avoidance system (TCAS II). The development of the forma tion-flying system, which is called E-TCAS, will be completed by the end of this year and provides a 1.6km (0.85nm) display of other aircraft locations. AlliedSignal is developing the capability for tanker rescue/ren dezvous and refuelling missions under contract to Lockheed and the US Air Force. The E-TCAS will be included as a modification to the standard TCAS II systems which are used in the USAF Lockheed C-130H and in the forthcoming C-130J version of the aircraft. The E-TCAS has been desig nated as standard equipment on both H and Js. • NEWS IN BRIEF • PAKISTANI LYNX DELIVERY Pakistan has taken delivery of two ex-Royal Navy Lynx HAS 3 helicopters. The air craft were loaded on to the Pakistan Navy Auxiliary PNS Maoviin at Devonport don 18 August. A third is due for transfer in 1995, with possi bly three more to follow later in the decade. • RNOAF TAKES TIGER PAWS The Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNoAF) has taken delivery of the last two Tiger Paws modified Northrop F-5A/Bs. The aircraft have been updated with a digital avionics sys tem by Sierra Tech nologies. The update will improve the aircraft as a lead-in trainer for the RNoAF's Lockheed F-16s. Norway began operational flying of the Tiger Paws F-Ss in October 1993. 32 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 7 - 13 September 1994
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