By B.C. Kessner
EADS North America‘s Armed Scout 645 looked like a real helicopter indoors and on carpet because it was, and it seemed to be attracting the kind of attention the company wanted for making its pitch that the rotorcraft was ready now–even if the requirements for what it must be ready for will not be known for a year or more.
“We decided to do some things to show that this helicopter was better and a more capable fit for the requirements than some thought after the initial look,” Gary Bishop, the company’s vice president and program manager for Armed Aerial Scout (AAS), told Defense Daily Wednesday at the AUSA annual meeting at the Washington, D.C., Convention Center
He was referring to the feedback from last year’s sources sought, the Army’s judgment that none of the potential AAS competitors yet touched on the “one solution” and the Army’s transition into the Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) phase that is likely to stretch 12 to 18 months or more.
While the Army appears to be following a traditional or non-accelerated acquisition timeline for AAS, Bishop said EADS North America set out to prove the Armed Scout 645 capable of meeting the three most critical performance activities highlighted in the sources sought requirements.
The first necessity for a next-generation armed scout helicopter would be the ability to operate in “high and hot” combat environments, as the Army is learning in Afghanistan. “We did this earlier this year in [Alamosa], Colorado with an Armed Scout demonstrator from a takeoff elevation over 7,000 feet…with 2,300 pounds of ballast simulating the mission payload,” Bishop said. “It successfully hovered-out-of-ground-effect at 6K-95,” he added. This means at a density altitude of 6,000 feet and 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
The second critical activity was an endurance test that was fulfilled during a flight with the same mission payload weight that exceeded two hours and 12 minutes with a 20- minute fuel reserve.
Transportability was the third issue, and the company, piggybacking on the Army’s UH-72A Lakota program office activities, demonstrated that it could put five helicopters inside a C-17 aircraft. “This is important, because this is half a company, a platoon’s worth of Armed Aerial Scouts that could be put on the same transport with minimal disassembly,” Bishop said. Armed Scout 645s and Lakotas are both derivatives of Eurocopter’s EC-145 helicopter, with essentially the same footprint and transport volume requirements.
The company also took the flight tests a step further, adding in performance degradations that would come with adding features such as infrared (IR) suppressors on the engines and other weight and drag penalties a combat-ready helicopter would accrue with additional systems.
Again, Bishop said, the Armed Scout 645 demonstrator validated its ability to perform the 6K-95 hover and the rest of the Army’s previously-stated armed aerial scout performance requirements. “I don’t know of another aircraft out there that could be competing for this that can make that claim,” he said. “They might say it, but they haven’t demonstrated it.” EADS North America’s industry team for the Armed Scout 645 includes Lockheed Martin [LMT] as the Mission Equipment Package integrator, and American Eurocopter, which would build the aircraft at its Columbus, Miss., facility where Lakotas are currently manufactured, Bishop said.
In terms of mission payloads, the aircraft can be equipped with a full combat mission package including an electro-optic (EO)/IR sensor, VUIT-2, which provides video from unmanned aircraft systems for level-2 interoperability teaming, 2.75-inch rockets, HELLFIRE missiles, a 7-shot rocket pod and a .50 caliber machine gun.
Between 70 and 90 percent of the mission package systems are already operational and in the Army’s inventory, further reducing the risk of increased program developments costs and delays, Bishop said.
The Lakota production in Columbus is up to a rate of 55 per year and could be ramped up to 155 per year over time if the Army decides on Armed Scout 645 for AAS, Bishop added. “For now, we’re still waiting and we don’t know what the requirements are yet…[but] this is a low-cost, reliable and capable platform.”