If you turn back the clock a little more than 50 years, one would find that most of our helicopter fleet was derived from civil certified machines. This was in part due to the US Army’s lack of having any formal aircraft evaluation system in place. I don’t believe that the US Army’s AVSCOM included helicopter procurement until around 1964. Until 1964 any aircraft that vied for US Army procurement had to be civil certified. The UH-1, CH-47 and UH-3A were all civil certified machines. The kicker back then was that only straight forward modifications (armor, armament & specific communications equipment) were required to field the machines. The same can be said of the recent fielding of the UH-72. COTS is a viable solution for some of the more straight forward missions. No one can argue that the S-92 is very capable SAR aircraft that has been proven operationally around the world. There is a significant leap when one attempts to insert any civil certified airframe into the very demanding world of military ASW or CSAR missions. The cost of participation increases dramatically.
Last edited by Jack Carson; 12th Feb 2013 at 20:19.