Move Could Be The Result If Kiowa Warrior Helicopters Are Scrapped

The adjutant general of the Tennessee National Guard said the Army's proposal to remove the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior from its inventory could lead to the closure of two flight facilities in the state of Tennessee.

Maj. General Max Haston said in a news release that Tennessee is the only state in which the National Guard operates the Kiowa Warrior. “I understand that the Kiowa is a legacy aircraft, but to eliminate them without a suitable replacement, simply doesn’t make sense,” Haston said. “This will have a tremendously negative impact on the Tennessee Guard. If the Army follows this course of action, Tennessee will lose 30 helicopters and the 692 soldiers who support them. It will also eliminate 113 full-time jobs and possibly two of the three Army flight facilities across the state,” he said in the release.

The Jackson (TN) Sun reports that the aircraft are based at Jackson and Louisville, TN. National Guard Spokesman Randy Harris said that the personnel are distributed fairly evenly across the two facilities.

No dates have been set for closure of the facilities because the plan is still just a proposal. The plan would assign missions currently flown by the Kiowa Warriors to AH-64 Apache attack helicopters until a replacement for the OH-58D is deployed. According to Haston's release, there are 30 Kiowa Warriors in the Army National Guard which bridge the acquisition gap until "the next generation is procured."

(Kiowa Warrior pictured in file photo)

FMI: www.goang.com