Cayuse Warriors and MD 530Fs Bound for Middle East

MD Helicopters (MDH) has announced the signing of a contract by which the rotorcraft-maker will deliver six Cayuse Warrior Plus Attack/Scout aircraft with precision weapons capability and six MD 530F glass cockpit upgrades to a Middle Eastern Customer.

The twelve aircraft will support counter insurgency and counter terrorism operations by providing area-security, tactical reconnaissance, convoy escort, and drug interdiction throughout their destination region.

The Armed MD 530F aircraft will receive glass cockpit upgrades at MD Helicopters’s Mesa, Arizona facility.  

Deliveries of the aforementioned machines are scheduled to commence in 2024.

MD Helicopters president and CEO Brad Pederson stated: “We are honored for the trust ally forces have put in us to provide safe, reliable assets for their security missions. We are excited to showcase the capabilities of this purpose built, best value solution.”

MD Helicopters, LLC. (formerly McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems) is an American designer and manufacturer of light utility helicopters for commercial and military use. A former subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft, the company was renamed McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems following McDonnell Douglas’s 1984 acquisition of Hughes. McDonnell Douglas’s subsequent 1997 merger with Boeing saw McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems renamed to simply MD Helicopters.

Based on Hughes’s OH-6 Cayuse single-engine light helicopter, MD Helicopters’s MD 530F Cayuse Warrior is designed specifically for military operations in hot, high-altitude environs. Considered broadly, the aircraft is a two-place, single-engine VFR helicopter fitted with a five-blade, fully-articulated rotor-system with anti-torque provided by a two-blade, semi-rigid type tail-rotor. The main- and tail-rotor blades are of all-metal construction.

The MD 530F Cayuse Warrior is powered by a single 650-shaft-horsepower Rolls-Royce 250-C30 turboshaft engine derated to 425-shaft-horsepower for thirty-minutes and 375-shaft-horsepower continuous power. To support the increased takeoff performance demands typical of military operations, the engine is rated to transient power outputs 450-shaft-horsepower for thirty-seconds and five-hundred-shaft-horsepower for ten-seconds.

In 2017, MD Helicopters upgraded the MD 530F with an Electronic Flight Instrument System (EFIS) comprising Garmin’s G500TXi and Howell Instruments Inc. Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System (EICAS). The latter encompasses two independent displays providing indication of aircraft systems even in the event of single failure. The dual G500 TXi displays serve as a Primary Flight Display (PFD) and the Multi-Functional Display (MFD).

The Middle East deal includes a complete logistics package, including initial provisions, spares, and pilot and maintainer training.

MD Helicopters’s MD 530F is a proven tactical scout and light attack aircraft valued for its power, safety, speed, agility, and favorable confined-area capabilities. The machine’s Plus version features mission enhancements the likes of a precision weapons system, avionics improvements, and armor.

FMI: www.mdhelicopters.com/models/cayuse-warrior