The MH-47G Chinook is one of the special operations aviation aircraft the Technology Applications Program Office (TAPO) is working to improve for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne).
“Our singular focus is to support the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment,” said Col. Pat Mason, project manager, TAPO, at a recent Army conference. “We interface daily and hourly with the customer, focused on special operations Chinooks, Black Hawks and Little Birds.”
For the Boeing [BA]-produced MH-47G Chinook, TAPO works to leverage to the “maximum extent possible” the commonalities of the regular Army aviation D and F models to see what can transition to the G model.
Extending the life of MH-47Ds and E helicopters sees them cycle back through Boeing and emerge as MH-47Gs. To date, 59 Gs have been delivered, with the final two delivering shortly–the last one in the first quarter of 2011. The regiment will then be up to its full requirement of 61.
Special operation aviators would like eight more MH-47Gs for a total of 69 aircraft.
“We’re working on the proposal that we’ve received from Boeing” for those eight aircraft, he said. The delivery schedule would be out in 2014-2015.
“For the future, we’ve got the new build aircraft–new build really following what the Chinook office and F model is already doing–which is a machined airframe, harvesting the same dynamics, rotor blades, mission systems that would transition over,” Mason said. For example, instead of using the sheet-metal and truss structure, TAPO utilizes the technology the F-model community and the Boeing Cargo Team put together.
TAPO is responsive to user needs, from “enlarging windows so we can have better range with manned weapons systems for assault type landings, to a longer aft-gunner window,” he said.
Work now is under way to integrate the BAE Systems Digital Advanced Flight Control System (DAFCS), a successful system used on the CH-47F. When the G model was initiated, DAFCS was not ready, so “the decision was made, given the need to get the G’s into the field” to go ahead without it, he said.
“We are working to try to integrate the DFACS into the G now and give the special operations pilots the capability the regular army aviator has now,” Mason said.
The office is also looking at a solution for the requirement for a hostile fire indicating system that fits all the larger platforms, not just Chinook. This is something that started in the Apache helicopter community years ago, he said. Now it’s an official requirement.
“We’ve got some technology that is readily insertable on the aircraft and it’s a good solution and there are some good opportunities out there that we’re looking at right now,” Mason said.
Ultimately, TAPO looks hard at where the Army is going and what it is looking at doing, “because any time we diverge from the Army and we try to integrated a system that’s unique there are lots of logistics burdens and other things that come along with it,” he said.
A focus area is on environmental effects and “how we can continue to operate, whether it be in poor weather, or brown out conditions, as we look to the future.”
The regiment can execute full spectrum operations today, but TAPO wants to be able to improve capabilities into the future.
“As we look to the future the one thing I like to smile about is that no pilot in the 160th is ever satisfied with anything, they’re always looking for more, whether that be payload, range, or speed,” Mason said.