{"id":194178,"date":"2008-10-17T23:08:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-18T04:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/10\/17\/little-bird-returns-in-the-autumn\/"},"modified":"2008-10-17T23:08:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-18T04:08:00","slug":"little-bird-returns-in-the-autumn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/10\/17\/little-bird-returns-in-the-autumn\/","title":{"rendered":"Little Bird Returns in the Autumn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sorry about the hed, I thought it sounded cool, like code words for two spies who meet for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s actually true too, as the AH-6 Little Bird scout light attack\/reconnaissance helicopter is <a href=\"http:\/\/defensenews.com\/story.php?i=3768841&amp;c=AME&amp;s=AIR\">experiencing a renaissance as a result of the problems with the Bell ARH-70<\/a>, which is behind schedule and over budget.  Boeing is not explicitly looking to replace the ARH-70 through the cancellation of the contract, though <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flightglobal.com\/articles\/2008\/10\/14\/317234\/boeing-revives-ah-6-as-us-army-weighs-arh-alternatives.html\">the US Army is considering this<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, they are pitching the AH-6 on the export market, which has viewed Bells problems with some alarm.<\/p>\n<p>[Update]<br \/>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aviationweek.com\/aw\/blogs\/defense\/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&amp;plckScript=blogScript&amp;plckElementId=blogDest&amp;plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&amp;plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3A06f73d58-724b-4f1b-8ea6-33e003c47f18\">Pentagon has declined to certify the ARH-70A Arapaho following a Nunn-McDurdy (budget) breach<\/a>, so the program is effectively canceled.<\/p>\n<p>Seeing as how Boeing has largely fixed the manufacturing capability issues that dogged their first bid, I expect them to come back and win the bid, but we know what my predictions are worth.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img261.imageshack.us\/img261\/5308\/6e8975b50673468f9309d40gl0.jpg\" width=\"500\" \/><br \/>ARH-70A Arapaho<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img529.imageshack.us\/img529\/2115\/750pxmh6littlebird25364ev3.jpg\" width=\"500\" \/><br \/>AH-6 Little Bird<\/div>\n<p>I will note that the AH-6 has seen combat service with the Israeli Defense Forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sorry about the hed, I thought it sounded cool, like code words for two spies who meet for the first time. It&#8217;s actually true too, as the AH-6 Little Bird scout light attack\/reconnaissance helicopter is experiencing a renaissance as a result of the problems with the Bell ARH-70, which is behind schedule and over budget. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1007,1008,1226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-defense-procurement","category-helicopters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}