On Sun, 16 May 2004 18:09:53 -0700, "Bill"
wrote:


Ah, yes. The memories return. Back in the enlightened age of his Royal
Highness Lyndon of Johnson it was required that a new jet light helicopter
replace the old piston-engined craft, and moreover, this would be the one
and only Light Observation Helicopter, there would be no more, and a
winner-take-all competition was held to bequeth the award to Bell Helicopter
of (guess where?) Fort Worth, Texas. But the army judges were approached by
Hughes Aircraft with a novel and outperforming design which won the
competition. Now guess what? It seemed that there was indeed a role for
another light helicopter and so Bell got its sole source contract anyway, at
the expense of a number of Hughes Helicopters. Maybe that's why they sold
out to McDonnell Douglas.

Anyway, everything you say about the Hughes design is true. Lower cost,
less maintenance, quiet, lasts a long time, etc - now if its name were
Bell!!!



This is somewhat of a spurious history - the LOH contract and
competition stem from a requirement written in the late '50s, which in
itself derived from studies made in the late '40s and early to mid
'50s.

The first seven YOH-6s (the prototypes) were contracted for out of
FY62 funds, i.e. prior to LBJ being President.

The Hughes entry (Model 369) was not in the first "official" LOH
competition. Hughes later got shoe-horned in by a general who may/may
not have had ties with Hughes. Initially the Army thought that the
Hughes entry was too technologically advanced an entry. Once Bell,
Hiller, and Hughes delivered their prototypes it turned out that the
Bell entry (YOH-4) was the lowest performing of the three. The Hiller
and Hughes entries were roughly comparable, but the Hughes model was
far cheaper. The Army knew that Hughes was under-bidding but
contracted for it anyway. Around this same time Hughes also got the
Army training helicopter contract (TH-55), so in the space of a few
months they took most of Hiller's DOD sales away.

Hughes had a huge amount of trouble revving up their OH-6 production
line in Culver City. The first OH-6s didn't get fielded to Vietnam
until late 1967. Hughes was simultaneously trying to crank up
production of the civilian 500C, which didn't make it to the market
until 1969. Hughes got burned on the follow-on LOH contract because
they significantly jacked up the price, triggering a Congressional
investigation. Both Hughes and the Army got burned as a result, and
Bell got the contract with the OH-58A, a derivative of a derivative of
their original anemic entry in the LOH competition.

Not well known is that there was a spook component to the original
OH-6 competition. More airframes were manufactured than made public.
40+ airframes were built and flown/tested/crash tested prior to and
during the LOH flyoffs, and some of those aircraft were later used by
three-letter agencies.

John Hairell )