An artist's rendering of the U.S. Air Force's future Combat Rescue Helicopter. (Image courtesy of Sikorsky)
By Marc Selinger |
@marcselinger
6 years ago |
05/30/2017

The U.S. Air Force’s Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH) program has successfully completed its critical design review (CDR) for the HH-60W aircraft, paving the way for Lockheed Martin [LMT] unit Sikorsky to begin building and testing the aircraft, the parent company announced May 30.

“Conducting the air vehicle CDR demonstrates this helicopter system is well on its way to meeting the key program requirements of the Air Force,” said Dave Schairbaum, the Air Force’s CRH system program manager.

An artist's rendering of the U.S. Air Force's future Combat Rescue Helicopter. (Image courtesy of Sikorsky)
An artist’s rendering of the U.S. Air Force’s future Combat Rescue Helicopter. (Image courtesy of Sikorsky)

To prepare for the milestone, the Air Force and Sikorsky conducted 17 sub-system CDRs, designed 3,000 new parts and created and reviewed more than 50,000 hardware and software requirements, Lockheed Martin said. The air vehicle’s preliminary design review occurred in April 2016.

Sikorsky was awarded a $1.3 billion contract in June 2014 to develop the HH-60W, build four helicopters, and deliver aircrew and maintenance training systems (Defense Daily, June 26, 2014). A $203 million contract option exercised in January added five helicopters, bringing the total to nine (Defense Daily, Feb. 2).

The training suite will include full-motion simulators and individual aircraft systems, such as the hoist and landing gear. A training systems CDR is slated for September.

The HH-60W will be a derivative of the UH-60M Black Hawk utility helicopter. Its main fuel system will carry 660 gallons, almost twice that of the UH-60M, to boost its range.

Jim Andrews, Sikorsky’s CRH chief engineer, said the program will use “digital design tools to generate manufacturing efficiencies that will reduce cost and schedule. This approach will lead ultimately to the HH-60W becoming the first Black Hawk derivative to have a paperless assembly line.”

The Air Force plans to buy a total of 112 CRH aircraft to replace its aging HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters, which perform combat search and rescue and personnel recovery for all U.S. military services. The HH-60W will be equipped with General Electric [GE] T700-701D engines and will have its first flight in late 2018.

The Air Force’s fiscal year 2018 budget request contains $354.5 million for CRH, up from $319.3 million in FY 2017.