McDONNELL DOUGLAS plans to offer the EH Industries EH101 to meet a US Navy requirement for a fleet-support helicopter. Other likely competitors include Sikorsky, with a cargo version of the Navy's SH-60 Seahawk anti-submarine helicopter, and possibly Kaman, with a military derivative of the K-MAX external-lift helicopter.
McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems (MDHS) has an agreement with the Agusta/Westland joint venture to market the EH101, as the MD101, to the US Department of Defense. The EH101 is in production for the UK Royal Navy and MDHS says that the triple-turbine helicopter is already suited to the USN's needs.
The new fleet-support helicopter is required to replace USN Boeing CH-46s in the vertical-replenishment and search-and-rescue roles. Sikorsky has provided details of a CH-60 cargo version of the SH-60, an upgraded CH-53D+ and a variant of its proposed S-92 .
AlliedSignal Aerospace has won a US Marine Corps contract to upgrade the Boeing CH-46 cockpit with liquid-crystal displays. Electro-mechanical horizontal-situation indicators will be replaced by a flat-panel display, which will also replace the hover indicator.
AlliedSignal has supplied an initial eight of the 100 x 100mm displays for flight tests of the upgraded cockpit. The company is already supplying 150 x 200mm flat-panel displays for the US Air Force's Lockheed C-141B cockpit-upgrade programme.
Source: Flight International
