Implications of Using Commercial Rotorcraft for Military Missions

Recently, the U.S. Army initiated the Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) program leveraging cost and schedule by using a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)/Non-Developmental Item (NDI) aircraft certified and maintained in accordance with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirements. Having selected the Eurocopter EC-145, it was renamed the UH-72A Lakota and brought into service in 2007. The UH-72A Lakota is but one of many examples where military services have used COTS/NDI equipment, certified through the FAA, to balance cost, schedule, and performance. Consequently, the need to understand the FAA process and how it differs from a service’s airworthiness, operations, and logistics procedures is critical. Fundamentally, the FAA focuses on providing a minimum level of safety. Consequently, civil certification does not necessarily translate to operational effectiveness and suitability. Given this, military services must understand the intricacies between civil and military processes so that differences can be indentified and impact on mission accomplishment assessed.