The Military Application of Commercial Off-the-Shelf Rotorcraft

As the U.S. Army and the world’s other major military helicopter operators work to juggle changing operational requirements with strained defense budgets, the importance of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) systems continues to grow. This increasing reliance on COTS equipment has in part been enabled by a convergence in civil and military certification standards as commercial operators and regulators demand ever more stringent operating capabilities. This paper studies the rationale behind this adoption by the military of COTS equipment, and focuses on one successful example of this approach, the EADS North American UH-72A Lakota, selected in 2006 to meet the U.S. Army’s requirement for a light utility helicopter.