Critical Test For Bell ARH Next Month

Defense Daily, Oct 16, 2007 by Ann Roosevelt

By Ann Roosevelt

The Limited User Test (LUT) for the Army's Bell Helicopter Textron [TXT] Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) early next month is key to getting the program back on track, officials said.

"This is a critical point, the LUT in November," Col. Tim Crosby, deputy program executive officer aviation, said at the Association of the United States Army annual conference last week. "This is what the Congress is looking for, this is what the Secretary of Defense is looking for, and what the Secretary of the Army is looking for."

The Army wants 512 ARH at a potential cost of $5 billion. Bell won the ARH $3.6 billion contract in 2005. The acquisition was part of the Army's planned aviation transformation after terminating the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter in 2004 (Defense Daily, Feb. 24, 2004).

The LUT will focus on the integration of the cockpit and sensor.

Brig. Gen. Steven Mundt, director of Army Aviation, said at the same briefing that the Army testers are concerned with getting the results they are testing against.

Both Mundt and Crosby agreed that if there are problems, there will be a two-year slip in the program.

Maj. Gen. James Miles, commander of Aviation and Missile Command and Redstone Arsenal, Ala., said if ARH slips, obsolescence and weight issues will have to be addressed with the aging OH-58D Kiowa Warrior the ARH is to replace.

In theater, Kiowa Warriors are flying at a rate of 85 hours per month per aircraft, Myles said.

Mundt said the Army will work on the Kiowa Warriors because, "you know, they're one flight safety from being grounded."

The Kiowa Warrior has to be replaced, he said. "There's nobody anywhere that disagrees with that statement."

The LUT follows hard on the heels of a scheduled Oct. 30 Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) review that will consider the Army's ARH restructuring.

"I won't sign up to a cost to date because I don't have a program that's approved by OSD at this point for the restructure," Crosby said.

Mundt said, "it was news to many of us when Bell Helicopter Textron CFO stood up and said there was a pricing problem" that the company couldn't build ARH at the price they said they could.

However, in May, the Army decided to move forward with the program after a special Army Systems Acquisition Review Council (Defense Daily, March 22, May 22).

Additionally, there are two other important efforts under way in the program, Mundt said.

While there is no requirement to do so, Bell will load a jig--the frame the aircraft is built in, Mundt said. Bell is expected to bring their first jig on line in January, and will continue to load jigs every month to show they can build to production.

The third effort is to move production from Canada to Texas, to be in place next summer.

"If all three of those things occur as they are scheduled to the level that they are supposed to occur, then we will award a contract this fiscal year '08 for 16 LRIP aircraft and the long lead items for 10 additional aircraft," Mundt said.

One of the restructure discussions has been on production capacity.

"What you'll see is aircraft being built at one per month for about eight months and then they go to two per month for about four months, then they'll ramp up to three," Mundt said. That is an achievable goal.

Once that comes to pass, the next LUT will be a full-up airframe test, now slated for December FY '09, Mundt said. That test is expected to provide enough information to move forward and award an additional 33 airframes in the second LRIP. That puts the aircraft in the field in the hands of the user in the 4th quarter of FY '10.

The Army now plans to detail progress to Congress in January or February.

As defense bills continue to wend their way through Congress, support is key, Mundt said.

"If in fact the money doesn't come this year, then all the long lead items that Bell has gone out at risk and purchased they've got to put back in the commercial market and if they do that we're going to extend the time of our contract 18 to 24 months," Mundt said.

That would push delivery out to late FY '12 or '13.

"We can't do that. So what we really ask and no kidding, there are no more eggs for this omelet. Bell knows that, the Congress knows that, DoD knows that. We are going to produce this aircraft together and we can."

[Copyright 2006 Access Intelligence, LLC. All rights reserved.]

TICKER(S): Bell Helicopter Textron [TXT]: