According to Defense Industry Daily
Mar 15, 2016 00:20 UTC by Defense Industry Daily staff
The US Navy has awarded Bell Helicopters a $461 million contract to supply the force with 12 Lot 13 UH-1Y and 16 Lot 13 AH-1Z helicopters. The contract includes the provision of 16 auxiliary fuel kits. Completion of the sale is expected by February 2019 as part of the Navy’s H-1 upgrade program. Bell Helicopters has also signed a teaming agreement with BAE Systems Australia to offer the AH-1Z as a potential replacment for the Australian Army’s Tiger fleet.
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AH-1Z helicopters: HERE
UH-1Y helicopters
The UH-1Y Venom was developed from the previous UH-1N Twin Huey, introduced in the early 1970s. Extremely successful, versatile and reliable airframe of the UH-1 was integrated with modern avionics and new propulsion. It uses a lot of off-the-shelf technology. It has a high degree of commonality with the AH-1Z Viper, which was developed under the same program. Even though these air vehicles serve to totally different missions. Viper is premier attack helicopter while Venom is utility transport chopper. However they share 85% of replaceable components. These helicopters share engines, rotor system, transmission, tail boom, avionics, controls and displays and other components. Such commonality allowed to reduce production, maintenance and overall operational costs.
Entered service | 2009 |
Crew | 2 men |
Dimensions and weight | |
Length | 17.78 m |
Main rotor diameter | 14.88 m |
Height | 4.5 m |
Weight (empty) | 5.37 t |
Weight (maximum take off) | 8.39 t |
Engines and performance | |
Engines | 2 x General Electric T700-GE-401C turboshafts |
Engine power | 2 x 1 800 hp |
Maximum speed | 286 km/h |
Cruising speed | 248 km |
Service ceiling | 6.1 km |
Ferry range | ? |
Combat radius | 241 km |
Payload | |
Passengers | 8 |
Payload capacity | 3 t |
Armament | |
Machine guns | 2 x 12.7-mm or 7.62-mm |
Other | 70-mm unguided rockets |
Source military-today.com