Earlier this week, rotary-wing maker, Bell Textron
TXT
While it sounds like a lot of flight time, the milestone likely represents only about one-third of the fleet’s anticipated lifecycle.
Bell delivered the 189th and last AH-1Z Viper to the Marine Corps late last October, completing the Program of Record (POR) for the latest version of the storied H-1 platform. The company completed deliveries of the AH-1Z’s sister-ship, the UH-1Y in 2018. With 160 UH-1Ys handed over to the USMC, the combined modern H-1 POR came to 349 aircraft.
The final H-1 variant deliveries for the U.S. military capped a seven-decade run for Bell of producing of H-1s that began in 1959 and included the Vietnam icon that was the UH-1 Iroquois (nicknamed “Huey”).
The UH-1Y entered service in 2008 and the AH-1Z in 2010 with new-build aircraft progressively delivered over the last decade. When the last AH-1Z was handed over to Colonel Nathan S. Marvel, commander of Marine Aircraft Group 39, in a ceremony at Bell’s Amarillo Assembly Center in Texas last fall, Marvel observed that the Viper (and by implication Venom) would likely serve for two more decades or beyond.
The fleet will fly on, not only in U.S. service but with the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Czech Republic.
The H-1 production line has remained active producing AH-1Z Vipers for Bahrain and manufacturing eight UH-1Ys and four AH-1Zs for the Czech Republic in 2023. It’s not clear that Bell has lined up any further customers for the Viper or Venom though the company was actively courting Asia-Pacific buyers at last year. Bell’s view of the future potential of the Viper/Venom is reflected in a statement Mike Deslatte, Bell H-1 vice president and program director, made in the release recognizing the 500,000 flight-hour milestone.
“The H-1 continues to be the premier example of a family of aircraft that can do more with less and deliver unmatched interoperability and expeditionary agility. We are thrilled to reach this tremendous milestone and excited for the future of both the Viper and the Venom as they continue to grow in number and capability around the world.”
That future rests in part on the Marine Corps’ Structural Improvement Electrical Power Upgrade (SIEPU) program. The program seeks to boost onboard power, enabling a host of future weapons and capabilities. They include integration of a distributed-aperture infrared countermeasures system to protect against incoming missiles and an AN/APR-39 digital radar warning receiver.
In addition to the AH-1Z’s ability to fire the AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missile, the Marines have also integrated the AIM-9M Sidewinder air-to-air missile onto the attack helo and plans call for adding the more-advanced AIM-9X in the future.
As The War Zone noted, the data-link equipped AIM-9X Block II, can “leverage targeting data from other aircraft, surface ships and Marines on the ground through the military’s joint battlefield networking systems. It also has an enhanced capability to engage cruise missiles, which the Navy and Marine Corps are certain to encounter in any war with China.”
SIEPU will reportedly increase the helicopters’ available electrical power by about 200 percent. That would suggest that future integration of directed energy weapons like lasers is a possibility. BRITE Star Laser Spot Trackers and Target Sight System Laser Spot Trackers are already on the menu of expected improvements. A more powerful data processor and a new ethernet backbone for the helicopters is also planned.
An AH-1Z and UH-1Y were expected to undergo SIEPU upgrades in Bell’s Amarillo Assembly Center this year. The company did not provide detail on the progress of the effort nor an overall update on the program.
The added electrical power could also enable new offensive and defensive electronic warfare (EW) capabilities for the helicopters. The upgrade could put them in line to carry the Navy-Air Force developed High-Powered Joint Electromagnetic Non-Kinetic Strike Weapon (HiJENKS) high power microwave system.
HiJENKS can create invisible beams of electromagnetic energy within a specific spectrum of radio and microwave frequencies that can cause a range of temporary or permanent effects on electronic targets. Examples include non-kinetic disabling of computer systems, damaging targeted electronics, disrupting security and industrial control systems, etc.
Electromagnetic energy from an HPM weapon can couple to an electronic target directly through a transmit or receive element (like an antenna), or indirectly, through an aperture or cable points of entry (e.g., cracks, seams, external wires). The system would also be highly useful in disabling future electric tactical vehicles that militaries, including the U.S. military, are aiming to introduce to the battlefield.
Relatively low-flying Vipers or Venoms could also employ HiJENKS to disable fleets of enemy UAVs at standoff ranges as well as certain air or ground-launched missiles. The addition of all of the aforementioned capabilities combined with the need for rotary wing aircraft capable of amphibious operations from ship platforms in the Indo-Pacific signals the probability that half-a-million hours of flight time will one day be remembered as an “early milestone” for the Huey-inspired UH-1Y and AH-1Z.
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