Replacement Of OH-58 Kiowa Warrior A 'Valid Requirement' Official Says

A replacement for the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior is still on the Army's radar, according to testimony given to the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on tactical air and land forces.

The Army ended its procurement process for an Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) aircraft last year without letting a contract, and said that it would shift AH-64 Apache helicopters into that role as the Kiowa Warrior is phased out. But Maj. Gen. Michael D. Lundy, commander of the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence, told the panel that a new AAS is still a "valid requirement."

"We made a fiscal decision, based on the original 40-percent cuts that came into the aviation modernization portfolio,” he told the panel at the hearing last week.

Aerotechnews.com reports that Lundy said the Army is looking at the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program to determine if it can support armored reconnaissance capability. "We are doing a number of analyses of alternatives associated with the armored reconnaissance variant. We’ve got the requirement already clearly identified for a conventional aircraft right now. We are looking again at FVL as being that next iteration of the armed scout.

“If something materializes between now and then we are going to remain agile enough we can look at it. It is a valid requirement. But we are certainly going to be dependent on the fiscal constraints that we have,” Lundy told the panel.

He also said that the modernization of the UH-60 Black Hawk is underway. The Army is converting the "L" variant to the UH-60V version, which includes a glass cockpit.

(Kiowa Warrior pictured in file photo)

FMI: http://www.rucker.army.mil/usaace/