The Pentagon’s decision to cancel the large-scale (Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft) FARA helicopter program is more than an unexpected decision, which means the cessation of the development of helicopters to replace all Bell OH-58D Kiowa reconnaissance helicopters and half of the AH-64 Apache strike fleet.
At the same time, the project was canceled at the stage of almost completed prototypes because Sikorsky and Bell had already produced them “in metal” and were approaching the first flights, which was preceded by long-term scientific and technical work on the development of new generation machines. Of course, these achievements will not be forgotten, but you can objectively forget about Bell 360 and Raider X.
But, as The War Zone writes, in general, the Pentagon’s decision is more than well-argued and correct for a number of reasons, and most importantly, it demonstrates that Washington is moving to a different paradigm based on the realities of the battlefield, and not the perception of them.
The first reason is that a reconnaissance and attack helicopter are not really needed. The FARA project itself was supposed to be a replacement for the Bell OH-58 Kiowa, which was first used during the Vietnam War and had the role of a reconnaissance vehicle, which in the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior version was maximally developed due to a powerful optical sighting station that allowed illuminate targets with a laser.
But what only large manned vehicles could do in the 60s and 80s, small unmanned ones can now do at least with the same efficiency and more because they are cheaper and allow pilots’ lives not to be risked.
At the same time, the main feature of FARA was speed, which became the key requirement for the new machine, for which Sikorsky and Bell resorted to tricks. The first made a thruster; the second used a fairly large wing.
But whether high speed guarantees survival on the battlefield – the question is not really obvious. Of course, it is a component of the concept of survivability, but what specific percentage is a debatable issue, especially when we are still talking about a maximum of about 460 km/h.
And this leads to the next question – Is there still any point in attack helicopters? And the answer to this in the American edition is again not so obvious. For the US, a new theater of military operations is becoming increasingly important – the Pacific Ocean, with its network of islands and vast distances that are not very suitable for helicopters due to their limited combat radius.
The latter means that some of the helicopters in the Pacific Ocean will be severely limited in maneuverability, tied to base points, and will require a complex and vulnerable logistics system. And all this cancels out any profits from such machines.
But for the US, there is still a European theater of military operations, in which Ukraine also showed that despite the presence of the enemy’s much larger number of attack helicopters, their use is extremely limited.
Although the publication indicates only the vulnerability of vehicles to anti-aircraft weapons, Defense Express can also add that the development of high-precision, long-range missiles turns helipads into convenient and achievable targets. And the extremely limited number of outdated versions of ATACMS missiles on Russian heliports proved it.
That is why the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft was quite logically closed. This, of course, does not mean that all the achievements of this program will be thrown into the trash and may well be implemented in other defense programs.
Via: Defense Express
