Department of Defense assistance to partner nations often entails supporting their helicopter fleets, but the U.S. military often lacks a large base of expertise to support these aircraft because they are not part of the standard U.S. inventory. RAND researchers quantified the cost-effectiveness implications of migrating partner nation fleets to alternative aircraft.

Cost-Effective Helicopter Options for Partner Nations

Christopher A. Mouton, David T. Orletsky, Michael Kennedy, Fred Timson, Adam R. Grissom, Akilah Wallace

ResearchPublished Mar 2, 2015

Department of Defense assistance to partner nations often entails supporting their helicopter fleets. In some cases, these fleets are composed of nonstandard rotary-wing aircraft, usually Soviet-era or Russian, European, Chinese, or outdated American equipment. Partner use of these aircraft poses particular problems for U.S. security cooperation activities; understandably, the U.S. military does not have a large base of expertise to support these aircraft in such areas as flight crew training, maintenance, and supply chain management. RAND's National Defense Research Institute identified the aviation requirements of important partner nations, applied this understanding to an analysis of the relative efficiencies of a variety of helicopter platforms, and used these findings to quantify the cost-effectiveness implications of migrating partner nation fleets to alternative aircraft.

Key Findings

Utility Helicopters

  • Our analysis indicates that among utility platforms, the Boeing CH-47D, Sikorksy S-61T, Eurocopter AS-332L1 Super Puma, and the AgustaWestland AW139 are consistently more cost-effective than the reference helicopter, the Mi-17v5. The Sikorsky S-61T+ performs similarly well, but is in development.
  • In these cases, the margin of increase in cost-effectiveness over the Mi-17v5 often is such that these aircraft achieve greater efficiency even when additional tail requirements are applied.
  • Several small utility helicopters also had good cost-effectiveness, including the Eurocopter EC-145 (LUH-72A Lakota) and the AgustaWestland AW109.

Attack Helicopters

  • For attack aircraft, the AH-1Z and the AW129 are able to accomplish many of the same routes as the Mi-17v5. That makes these aircraft feasible candidates for providing armed escort, and for overwatch of mobility helicopters.

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Document Details

  • Copyright: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Available
  • Year: 2015
  • Print Format: Paperback
  • Paperback Pages: 86
  • Paperback Price: $37.50
  • Paperback ISBN/EAN: 978-0-8330-8716-4
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/RR141.1
  • Document Number: RR-141/1-OSD

Citation

RAND Style Manual
Mouton, Christopher A., David T. Orletsky, Michael Kennedy, Fred Timson, Adam R. Grissom, and Akilah Wallace, Cost-Effective Helicopter Options for Partner Nations, RAND Corporation, RR-141/1-OSD, 2015. As of September 11, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR141z1.html
Chicago Manual of Style
Mouton, Christopher A., David T. Orletsky, Michael Kennedy, Fred Timson, Adam R. Grissom, and Akilah Wallace, Cost-Effective Helicopter Options for Partner Nations. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2015. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR141z1.html. Also available in print form.
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This research was sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.

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