Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft

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The FARA program is to develop a successor to the OH-58D "Kiowa Warrior".

The Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft or FARA program is a US Army project with the aim of developing a successor to the light reconnaissance and combat helicopter OH-58D "Kiowa Warrior" . It is part of the “ Future Vertical Lift ” program.

history

In the Iraq war of 2003 it became clear that the OH-58D "Kiowa Warrior", which was originally developed in the 1960s and was already in use in the Vietnam War, could not meet the requirements resulting from an asymmetrical war . A total of 35 machines were lost in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. At this point in time, the RAH-66 "Comanche" had been in development as a successor for over 20 years . The costs of the RAH-66, which had long since gotten out of hand, as well as an operational concept that originated from the Cold War era and did not match the experiences from the Iraq war, led to the discontinuation of the Comanche program in 2004. In the same year, the "Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter" program was started instead. The resulting Bell ARH-70 could not meet the required performance parameters. When the projected acquisition costs were still 70% above budget, this program was also discontinued in 2008. Another attempt to develop a successor was started in 2012 with the " Armed Aerial Scout " program, but was discontinued in 2013 for budget reasons.

Ultimately, the US Army retired the Kiowa Warrior in 2014 without a successor available. The funds released were instead used to modernize the AH-64 Apache . Since then, he has also temporarily assumed the role of armed, helicopter-based battlefield reconnaissance.

ATCO program

As early as 2004, investigations into what the future helicopter fleet of the US armed forces could look like began. In 2009 the Future Vertical Lift program started, which is to develop successor models for existing helicopter types in up to five different weight classes. As part of the ATCO program, the FARA program started on June 22, 2018, which is intended to produce a new armed reconnaissance helicopter in the lightest weight class. The requirements are that the designs may have a fuselage length and rotor diameter of a maximum of 12 m, a cruising speed of at least 180 kn (333 km / h) and an operational radius of 250 km. A single turbine from the US Army's Improved Turbine Engine program, the General Electric T901, will be used as the engine.

Competitor

In June 2019, five designs were selected by the US Army for further investigation:

MD Helicopters, which offered a variant of the MD902 Explorer , did not receive a development contract from the US Army. In the summer of 2020, two companies are to be selected that will receive further contracts for the construction of prototypes. Flight testing of the two prototypes is scheduled to begin in 2022.

On March 25, 2020, the US Army announced that Bell and Sikorsky would further develop the designs into prototypes.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ US Army triggers design competition for future attack reconnaissance helicopter. DefenseNews.com, October 3, 2018, accessed March 23, 2020 .
  2. ↑ US Army awards five FARA prototype contracts. Flightglobal.com, April 24, 2019, accessed March 23, 2020 .
  3. ↑ US Army selects Bell, Sikorsky for FARA-CP programs. Jane's 360, March 25, 2020, accessed March 26, 2020 .