That's all wishful thinking by the Army.
The training environment at Rucker is actually much tougher on the airframe and will require more maintenance, not less.
Do those costs include the additional $800M to buy 90 more UH-72s?
Bottom line is there has been no analysis done to see if the UH-72 was a good fit for as an INITIAL trainer. Not a helicopter used at a training center like Ft. Irwin then just saying its been used as a trainer like the Army has tried to allege already.......
This is simply a case of the Army making it all fit because it makes the ARI work and the Army won't look bad in the short run for not having a use for fairly new helicopters. In the long run they WILL, correction the tax payer WILL, pay more, training WILL suffer, and the Army will end up looking for a more appropriate INITIAL training helicopter. Just like they did when they replaced the Hueys with TH-67s. All will be forgiven because the people that came up with this silly plan in the first place will have moved on, and up. Never to be held accountable for a bad decision based on very little analysis.
I am glad the Army staff and OSD vetted it...... Rucker, at the instructor level, is already is scratching their heads at this one.
