The U.S. Air Force has released a request for proposals ( RFP ) for the combat rescue helicopter ( CRH ) program, a successor to the ill-...
The CRH will be a scaled-back version of the$15 billion CSAR -X program. The Pentagon settled on Boeing’s HH -47 Chinook in 2006 for the program but ultimately cancelled the order in 2009 after successive protests, amended proposals and delays.
The RFP defines an integrated, capability-based, best-value approach. It also includes specific factors for assessing the capabilities and risks inherent in each offer and identifies four goal requirements: hover performance, combat radius, payload and cabin space.
The primary mission of the CRH air vehicle is to recover isolated personnel from hostile or denied territory; it will also execute humanitarian missions, civil search and rescue, disaster relief, casualty and medical evacuation, and non-combatant evacuation operations.
The program will replace the Air Force's aging HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter fleet with new air vehicles, training systems, and product support elements as required for the personnel-recovery mission.
The CRH requirement is for 112 aircraft. The Air Force plans include leveraging in-production air vehicles and training systems while integrating existing technologies to deliver this new combat capability.
Col Chad Franks, commanding officer of 347th Rescue Group, said acquisition plans were made more urgent by the high demand for the aging HH-60G Pave Hawk, which was putting a strain on an already stressed fleet.
‘There have been a lot of major structural cracks in the last six years in the HH-60 and increased combat damage,’ explained Franks, speaking at the IQPC International Military Helicopter conference in London on 26 January.
‘The bottom line is our availability rate is declining and our maintenance guys are having a hard time keeping up. So it is really demanding a lot from our aircraft and our people.’
The HH-60G fleet carried out more than 9,700 sorties in 2010, recovering over 1,900 personnel, with the number of sorties only falling to around 8000 sorties in 2011. In the past six years there were 83 structural issues with aircraft that required unscheduled depot maintenance.
