CTR wrote:

Vygg,

The Army is requesting that the ARH have civil certification and is
funding the FAA costs to obtain it. They are requesting FAA
certification to improve the resale value of aircraft when they divest
them.

You are partially correct in your statement that the specification for
the ARH has become "midget Apache". In a bizzare deviation from
conventional military specifications, the ARH specification
requirements are not all manditory. Requirements are broken down into
catagories ranging from must have to not required but would be nice to
have. Very different.

Still, having both qualified military hardware and FAA certified
civilian aircraft, I will take military hardware any day. Life is
easier when the certifying agency and the customer are one and the
same.

Take care,

CTR

Yeah. Makes it a real pain in the tookas to try to bid, too. Instead of
just sending out an RFP stating "Based on an existing civil airframe,
build a helicopter that does this . . . ", the AMCOM guys have muddied
the waters to the point that the bidders are left guessing at what the
Army really wants in this thing. They want something that's just like
the SOF MELB only different - and cheap. The winner of this competition
could wind up wishing they'd lost it.

The user community has been telling us for years that they want more
weapons, more armor and more fuel. AMCOM instead gives them more Comm
gear. What an attack helicopter needs with an HF radio is beyond what
anyone that flies it has been able to figure out. Maybe the boys in
Huntsville want to be able to tune in to the action in Iraq. Rumor has
it that the Block III Longbow is going to drop the HF radio.

It will be interesting to see what happens in July - or maybe September
- or maybe next January - or whenever AMCOM actually decides to pick a
winner.

Vygg