Apache

[The Nr Fairy]

Heliport :. .. . Already a thread running on Mil Pilots - <a href="http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=46;t=002668" target="_blank">Apache Problem ?</a> with some responses if people want a quick look.

[Lu Zuckerman]

I posted this on the Military thread. .. .Impingement of rocket motor debris (remnants of the plug and pieces of the solid propellant) on the tail rotors of helicopters is an old problem. On the Cheyenne they were concerned about not only the tail rotor but also the pusher propeller being hit by debris so they placed deflectors on the exhaust end of the missile carrier to deflect the exhaust downward. But, being of ribbed construction much of the exhaust was allowed to pass through while eliminating the solid parts, which were deflected downward. This was for the TOW missiles.. .. .When the Apache was designed it carried TOW missiles and FFAR rockets and I suggested that they incorporate the same deflectors on the TOW missile carriers and they refused. The Hellfire Missile was made available to the Apache designers later in the design process and the TOWs were eliminated.. .. .Much later while working on the Agusta A-129 I suggested that they incorporate the deflectors on the TOW/HOT missile tubes and they complied. Later on the 129 was equipped with a sighting system similar to the Apache and Hellfire missiles were installed. I do not know if the deflectors were retained.

[Vfrpilotpb]

Well if it was a proper "Apache" it would make do with the bow and arrow, like all us little injuns all used, Eh! and beside that why not do away with the old tail rotor and use some horse's to blow through a Notar system, Must be heap big plenty spare horses in two motors, or is that too far forward for the mil boys. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" />

[ppheli]

This story was not from Defence Weekly. It was from Defence Helicopter and hosted on Rotorhub.com as I saw it this morning.

[Heliport]

Ooops!. .Quite right.. .Now edited.

[Lu Zuckerman]

Lifted from the Military forum:. .. .Please excuse the excessive use of the servers memory.. .. .Here is some of the history of the Apache and its’ design evolution as well as explaining its’ poor performance in the field:. .. .Even though the AAH-64 was a better design than the Bell AAH-63 Hughes should never have received the contract because they were incapable of designing and supporting the helicopter.. .. .There was minimal talent in the engineering department to fully flesh out the design and this resulted in the farming out of the design and construction of the major elements of the helicopter to include the fuselage. The gearboxes were designed and built by Litton Gear Systems. The hydraulic system was designed and built by Parker Bertea. The landing gear was designed and built by Menasco. Contract engineers at Hughes did the Basic design of the fuselage and Ryan Aeronautical finalized the design and Ryan also built the fuselage.. .. .Hughes AAH-64 Design manager: Claim to fame was the design of the skid gear for the model 269.. .. .Hughes AAH-64 Hydraulics design manager: Claim to fame was the design of the shock absorber on the 269-skid gear and he monitored the hydraulic servos in the tail of the Spruce Goose.. .. .Product support was having a difficult time in supporting the LOACHs in Vietnam and the support for the civil 269s and the 500 was also minimal. And, the ramp up to support the AH-64 was a very steep curve, which required the hiring of additional personnel to include technical writers and technical illustrators on a contract basis.. .. .The support concept required by the US Army was based on a concept developed by the USAF. The Army did not want to invest a lot of technical schooling on a first term enlistee so the first term enlistee was sent to a basic aircraft maintenance school that taught helicopter basics and equipped the man to use tools. When the enlistee finished his first hitch and he re-upped he would then be sent to a factory school on the AH-64. The concept required that the first time enlistee would work under the guidance of an experienced mechanic and use the technical manuals developed to support the Apache. The manuals addressed the first echelon maintenance on every component on the helicopter. If the newbie was directed to remove a specific part he went to the tech manual and looked at the picture of that unit. The instructions were highly simplified telling the man to use the green screwdriver and insert it in a specific screw and he was told to turn the screw counter clockwise until it came out. Next to those instructions was a picture of a clock and counter clockwise was illustrated. These books cost about $5000.00 per copy and because of that they could not be brought out onto the flightline so Hughes had to put all of the manuals on either microfiche or on microfilm so that they could be printed out. The technical manuals and the additional rewrite cost over $16,000,000. The tech manuals were like old medical manuals that showed the different levels of the internal workings by peeling back the individual pages.. .. .What was eventually demonstrated was that the Apache was too complex for US Army mechanics and contract mechanics had to be hired to perform the first and second level maintenance.. .. .Regarding the poor reliability and maintainability of the Apache, these concepts were totally alien to Hughes and they were totally ignored. As senior maintainability engineer I identified 27 different problems that impacted Maintainability and availability. It was within my purview to send this material directly to the Army R&M engineers in St. Louis, Missouri. Somehow it got sent to the assistant chief engineer and he refused to allow it to go out because I had used the term shall instead of will. By the time I had located an Army writing style manual to justify the use of shall as opposed to will it was too late as the material; was time sensitive and the design was frozen. Almost every one of those 27 items manifested themselves and many were included in the GAO report referenced above.. .. .The manager of R&M was a quality engineer with no background in R&M. The Reliability manager was a statistics engineer with no experience in Reliability or helicopters and the manager of maintainability was a former records clerk on the OH-6 program and he had no experience in maintainability. The design manager would not let the R&M engineers talk to the designer or the vendors and he would not let us review the design drawings. What he did do was to gather up several hundred drawings and call us in and he gave us an hour to review and sign off the drawings or to possibly reject them. If we didn’t finish the job in that one-hour the engineering department would sign them off for us. It would normally take an hour to review the average drawing and this was followed up with a discussion with the designer of that part or system. Naturally, we could not review the drawings for impact on Reliability and Maintainability and what was bad was incorporated into the design with no over sight.. .. .I could go on-and-on but I think you get the point.. .. .One other thing, the Apache was originally bid at 6 Million per unit (A Model). That eventually went up to 16 Million and now with the added equipment (D-Model) I can’t count that high.. .. .When MacDac took over the major part of the engineering management staff was let go. Most of them ended up at Hiller and they drove the FH 1100 program into the ground in one year.. . . . <small>[ 29 March 2002, 17:38: Message edited by: Lu Zuckerman ]</small>

[owe ver chute]

I am trying to find some sort of official acknowlagement of this problem. Standby.

[Wunper]

This puts it into the right perspective from the WHL Apache Head shed note the contact number if more detail required.

UK Press looking for a scoop as usual

Wunper

""""""""

RECENT ADVERSE PUBLICITY FOR APACHE

· No doubt you have all seen the spate of adverse publicity for Apache and its Hellfire Missile in the UK National Press.

· The reports are largely incorrect and whilst containing a grain (excuse the pun as you will see later) of truth greatly exaggerate the consequences of a known issue

· The version of Hellfire missile bought by the UK from InSys (formerly Hunting Engineering Ltd) not WHL are configured with a motor that does have a debris problem

· The debris comes from a so-called “grain spacer” (the aforementioned pun).

· It is by no means clear that this debris represents any safety hazard and the UK are undertaking trials to quantify the risk

· The UK will either accept a minor risk or adopt a US developed modification that removes the grain spacer from the design The US has incidentally cleared for Operational use Hellfire missiles fitted with the same motor as the UK

· In the meantime, WHL has issued the Certificate of Design that permits the Army to fire the missiles in Training pending a full Operational release. This approach was adopted in agreement with the Army.

· Contrary to UK press reports, Apache has acquitted itself well in Afghanistan as can be seen from the attached Army Times report

· Also attached is the text of a short article from rotorhub.com which counters the adverse press reports

· It is not WHL policy to publicly rebut this sort of adverse publicity because it can become counterproductive. We have issued a statement to the MoD press office dealing with the issue. We will seek positive press opportunities.

· UK Apache continues to be one of the MoD’s most successful equipment programmes and you should all be proud of your contribution to that success

· If any of you are approached by any members of the National or Local Press you should politely decline to comment but redirect them to David Bath, Director Public Affairs on tel [phone]. Please advise me if anyone makes such an approach to you.

· Positive progress has recently been achieved on a wide range of fronts. eg software qualification, Certificates of Design, UK flight trials, first flight of #27 and #28 on Monday 25 March and excellent availability of Apache at Middle Wallop, to name but a few.

· Thank you and keep up the good work.

Chris Haynes
Head of Apache
27 March 2002


"""""""

[Used Ink]

UK Apache to deploy.

I have it on good authority that the Apache has flown over 1000 hrs in training and there are 20+ QHI's trained/qualified on type.

Now then, what a good opportunity to prove both man and machine with the war looming in the gulf.

The aircraft are in service, the groundcrew are trained, there are enough qualified aircrew (albeit QHI's) to man at least a flight and the tactics will be spot on (QHI's again).

This is the ideal opportunity to prove to the other services that we can deal with the beast. (or answer b, lets just not go!)

I'm suprised the papers haven't picked this one up!

[BlueWolf]

This is a personal opinion.

I'm way too rusty now on current types for it to be classed as a proper informed one, and I'm more than happy to be corrected; but.....

IMHO, the Apache is a white elephant.

It's too expensively high-tech, too fragile, too unproven and too costly to actually risk it in combat.

I know it can't be proven without going into battle, but you have to admit, it is very expensive, and very fragile.

If I may further humbly suggest.....send the AH-64 back to the Yanks, and swap them for some more Chinooks. Then, buy some AH-1Zs instead?

Just a thought.

[solotk]

AH-1W/Z is the way to go....

http://www.bellhelicopter.textron.co...0328_0930.html

http://www.bellhelicopter.textron.co...icopters/ah1w/

Hell they must be good, after all, the other team has them in depth

[rivetjoint]

Can the Apache fire its load yet without clogging up its tail rotor?

[A/Tpr Cooper]

Used Ink, I am curious, in a previous thread (which has now disappeared) wasn't it you who was suggesting that the Apache program should be cancelled?
You appear to have a keen disliking for QHI's, you are having a pop, is it that you've had a bad 6 monthly recently, or maybe you've been turned down for a course. I remember a few years ago an old and bold Lynx pilot who had a dislike for QHI's, he got out of the Army slating every last one of 'em, the thing is he got back in to become a QHI!!
You are also digging at the AH, again have you been knocked back there as well.
It would be my advice that instead of sounding off and talking ****e, keep your opinions to yourself and direct your energy into areas which you have some impact, though I can only wonder what that might be. The corps needs unity right now, not gob****es.

[fenestronuk]

Agree with you A/Tpr Cooper, although I am unsure what the A in A/Tpr stands for.

Blue Wolf, the AAC has wangled the best AH on the market and you want to trade it in for some modified Huey. Jeez the AAC's biggest enemy isn't us (RAF) its the AAC.

We had a superb AH presentation up here (Shawbury) last week from one of the QHI's being abused above. It was excellent and he appeared to know exactly what he was talking about and fielded some testing questions without batting an eyelid.

The RAF won't have to fight to get AH (and we do want it) because you are going to end up giving it to us on a plate if you don't follow the advice from A/Tpr Cooper. You should be renamed Cry Wolf not Blue Wolf.

[BlueWolf]

fenestronuk, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. Well spotted.

The Cobra is proven. The Apache is too expensive and too delicate to ever be proven, IMHO.

We know it works fine against civilians and the lightly armed (Panama, Gaza etc), and where AA capability has been taken out already (DS1).

But when the enemy is capable of hitting back - for example, the Serbs - the sheer cost of this massively advanced, awe-inspiring piece of technological wizardry is simply far too great to risk exposing potential weaknesses in its survivability.

By all means, take it to war. If the Defence budget allows you to give it a crack, and the thing manages to destroy some targets instead of itself, and it proves of value in the face of danger....I mean this quite seriously and genuinely, the sauce bottle is poised above my slice of humble pie.

I love the machine, I really do, and I honestly wish you the best. I want it to work. I just happen to think that the Cobra is a much safer bet, and far better value for money.

I have nothing to do with the AAC, by the way.

Good luck.

[Always_broken_in_wilts]

It can't go anyway as there are only QHI's currently qual'd on type............................and as we all know those who can do and those who can't...........instruct

all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced

[mutleyfour]

Here we go again.....

used Ink

Its too early in the programme....good grief..why don't we ask if Typhoon will be making an appearance?

Stop trying to feed the press with mumbo jumbo, as I'm sure they are not V interested.

Blah Blah Blah

[ORAC]

Too delicate?

In Shah-e-Kot, Apaches Save the Day

The soldier's weather-beaten face was streaked with tears of gratitude. Just days earlier, separated from his buddies and pinned down by intense fire from al-Qaida soldiers in the ridgelines around the Shah-e-Kot valley, he thought he was going to die. Then, like fire-spitting avenging angels, Apache attack helicopters sliced through the thin mountain air pouring rocket and chain-gun fire on his would-be killers.

"We came in and took the fire away from him," said Capt. Bill Ryan, the commander of those Apaches. He said it matter-of-factly, as if there were nothing remarkable about piloting a helicopter through hails of bullets and rocket-propelled grenades to save a man's life.

Now safely back at Bagram Air Base, that soldier had come to thank his deliverers.

As Operation Anaconda wound down, a string of well-wishers stopped by to pay homage to the dozen or so Apache pilots who had kept the al-Qaida troops at bay. Not every visitor broke into tears. But all echoed the sentiments of Lt. Col. "Chip" Preysler, commander of 2nd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment. Preysler's battalion was one of two that flew into the teeth of entrenched al-Qaida positions March 2, the first day of the operation. Their very lives depended on Ryan's seven Apaches for close air support.

When he came out of the battle nine days later, Preysler immediately sought out Ryan. With a smile on his face and his hands spread wide, he said, "You guys have huge balls."

The Apache exploits on this first day of the battle of Shah-e-Kot have done much to bolster the reputation of an aircraft that saw its battlefield role called onto question after its role in Albania in 1999. In that bleak period in the helicopter's history, 24 Apaches were sent to Task Force Hawk for use in the war against Yugoslavia. But the choppers were held back from combat after two crashed and two pilots died during mission rehearsals. The Apache community complained that ignorant journalists and casualty-averse Pentagon officials had unfairly turned their beloved killing machine into a scapegoat.

Now, three years later, the contrast could not be starker. The Apache drivers are being lauded as heroes, and their helicopter is receiving what to many pilots is praise long overdue.

With al-Qaida fighters so close to U.S. troops that close air support from "fast mover" jets was often out of the question, the Apaches became the only fire support available to ground commanders. In the crucial hours of that first day, when the carefully scripted battle plans had been rendered irrelevant and the outcome hung in the balance, Apaches saved the day.

"The weapon that changed the face of the battle for us was the Apache," said Col. Frank Wiercinski, commander of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)'s 3rd Brigade and in charge of all conventional U.S. troops in the battle.

"I was just so impressed by its capability," he said. "I had never seen the Apache in combat before, though I've always trained with it. I am a firm believer right now that a brigade combat team commander needs his Apache battalion in an air assault division - its ability to protect us en route, its ability to set the conditions on the landing zones and then its close combat attack capability to take out fires. Artillery is a wonderful asset, but you need an observer, you need a sensor, and then you've got the artillery [tube] as the shooter. An Apache can do all of that, and it's always moving."

On station in the valley from dawn on the battle's first day, the Apaches flew again and again through withering small arms, heavy machine-gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire to provide fire support to the beleaguered infantry troops.

Five Apaches were present at the start of the battle, a sixth arrived later that morning and a seventh flew up from Kandahar to join the fight that afternoon. None of the helicopters was shot down, but four were so badly damaged they were knocked out of the fight. The fire the Apaches braved was so intense that when the day was over, 27 of the 28 rotor blades among the seven helicopters sported bullet holes, said Lt. Col. James M. Marye, the commander of the 7th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment.

Marye's aviation task force included the Apaches of Ryan's A Company, 3rd Battalion, 101st Aviation.

Beneath the cold numbers are tales of heroism and extraordinary achievement. None are more dramatic than the story of Chief Warrant Officer 4 Jim Hardy.

At about 6:45 a.m., an RPG exploded under the nose of Hardy's Apache, sending shrapnel slicing through the helicopter's innards.

"I looked up and there was a black puff of smoke, like World War II flak," said Chief Warrant Officer 2 John Hamilton, who was flying nearby.

"There was major damage to that aircraft," Ryan said. "They had lost the weapons systems and the target-acquisition systems."

Despite the fact that Hardy's Apache was now essentially unarmed, he stayed on station. He later told Hamilton that his plan was to fly up the valley and draw fire, allowing the other Apaches to engage enemy gunners once they had revealed themselves.

About 10 minutes after an RPG struck Hardy's aircraft, another hit the Apache piloted by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Keith Hurley, smashing into the left Hellfire missile launcher. "The RPG struck me on the left, rocked the aircraft, and a microsecond after that, a bullet came through the cockpit," Hurley said. By the end of the day there were 13 bullet holes in Hurley's aircraft.

Lights immediately started flashing on Hurley's control panel, warning him that he was hemorrhaging oil. Hardy, one of the company's most experienced pilots, realized Hurley was in trouble, and got on the radio.

As Hurley recalls it, Hardy told him, "I've got to go back to the [Forward Arming and Refueling Point], fall in trail and follow me, and we've got to go quick."

The two wounded Apaches headed for the FARP, a way station for the helicopters roughly halfway between the valley and their temporary base in Bagram, north of Kabul. They didn't make it very far. About a mile west of "the Whale," the humpbacked ridgeline that marked the western edge of the valley, more lights came on in Hurley's cockpit, including one that told him he had no fluid left in his transmission.

"I called off the lights to Mr. Hardy and he said, 'You've got to land, you've got to land now,' " Hurley said.

The two landed in a dried-up riverbed, within range of the al-Qaida positions. With bullets flying around him, Hardy, who Hurley described as "the unit maintenance god," shut the helicopters down and went to work on Hurley's aircraft.

"He did sort of a triage of the aircraft, examining it like a doctor," Hurley said.

Hardy took the three one-quart oil cans that each helicopter carried as spares and poured all six quarts into Hurley's [transmission]. Then he told Hurley they were going to swap helicopters and fly back to the FARP.

"He told me, 'Don't dick around, when I get it started, I'm going,' " Hurley said. Hardy was drawing on his deep knowledge of the Apache to take a calculated risk.

With Hurley's chopper leaking fluid like a sieve, he knew the six quarts of oil he had just poured in would not last long. But he also knew that the Apache's [transmission] was supposed to last 30 minutes without oil before seizing up.

Hardy was gambling that he could nurse Hurley's Apache 50 miles to the FARP in less than half an hour. The alternative was to strap two of the four pilots onto the side of Hardy's helicopter, leaving Hurley's Apache behind as a dead loss. Hardy's gamble paid off. Twenty-six minutes after taking off under fire from the riverbed, the two damaged Apaches landed safely at the FARP. Hardy's colleagues were in awe.

"There are not a lot of folks out there who would have taken that aircraft off the ground," Ryan said. "It was an incredible action by Mr. Hardy."

Hamilton said: "He's a hero, no doubt about it."

Marye recommended Hardy for a Distinguished Flying Cross. He also recommended Ryan, who continued flying despite being nicked on the chin by a bullet, for the Silver Star and several other pilots for the Air Medal with "V" device.

(source: Army Times, 03-25-02)

[MightyGem]

And what about Desert Storm. US Army Apaches flew the equivalent of Italy to UK to take out Iraqi radar sites in Iraq to clear the way for the air war to start. A battalion destroyed 140 vehicles in 30 minutes.

The reason they never worked in the Balkans was because when they deployed the crews weren't fully up to speed.

[Sloppy Link]

A-B-I-W

I would like to point out that you are correct in what you say....Those that can, do, those that can't, instruct. Don't forget that those that can't instruct become....examiners!