Preliminary Airworthiness Evaluation UH-1H Helicopter Equipped with Multiple Target Electronic Warfare System (MULTEWS)
Abstract
The United States Army Aviation Engineering Flight Activity conducted a Preliminary Airworthiness Evaluation (PAE) of a UH-1H helicopter equipped with a Multiple Target Electronic Warfare System (MULTEWS) from 13 August through 2 December 1977. The evaluation was conducted at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and required 45 flights for a total productive flight time of 41 hours. The test program was terminated when the test aircraft sustained major damage during height-velocity testing. The addition of the MULTEWS equipment to the UH-1H airframe caused significant degradation in performance and handling qualities. Changes in the operator's manual should be made to reflect the changes in performance for MULTEWS configured aircraft. The MULTEWS installation also generally degraded the vibration characteristics of the UH-1H, increased structural loads, increased the maintenance workload, and degraded aircraft crashworthiness. The degradation in performance and handling qualities as well as the excessive vibrations and structural loads in the MULTEWS configured aircraft were attributed to the extremely high drag and turbulent wake of the externally mounted MULTEWS components.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1978
- Accession Number
- ADA078476
Entities
People
- John F. Hagen
- John S. Tulloch
- Mathews S. Mathews Iii
- Sherwood C. Spring
- Vernon L. Diekmann