The Chinook assists fire fighters in
New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Two weeks ago Boeing held a conference call with reporters to discuss "why they believe the HH-47 will be selected again," as the Air Force recompetes the CSAR-X competition that was overturned last fall by the GAO. Our regular readers will by now be familiar with the basic outline of the story (those who aren't can click here to read more), but the long and short of it is that the Boeing HH-47 was considered a long-shot to win, owing to concerns about downwash, transportability, brownout, acoustic signature, footprint, and a number of other perceived shortcomings. To Boeing's credit, the Chinook has some ardent defenders who write us with great frequency whenever we knock the aircraft as a viable CSAR platform...take this comment we got last time we posted on the subject (name withheld):
I am an active duty Infantry officer - I spent a year in Afghanistan with the 173rd AB BDE - The Chinook is hands down the best lift aircraft we have, I say again - hands down. Also - it is incredibly fast - few know this it can outrun the fabled Apache. In the high altitudes the Blackhawk is worthless. I flew on them at a minimum monthly during my year tour and were always impressed and amazed where we went with them.
That reader was responding to our reporting about a letter sent by Senator Mary Landrieu to Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne. The letter quoted Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn, director of the Army National Guard, as saying
"the need for a small, versatile helicopter became more apparent immediately after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, when choppers plucked survivors from storm-ravaged areas. Instead of looking around for where you're going to land when you're picking folks off roof tops, you could put this thing down in a small parking area."
Landrieu went on, "General Vaughn's comments refer to how the Army had to stop using its massive CH-47s [Boeing's Chinook] to hoist survivors from the water, as the massive whirlwind generated by these helicopters could possibly down the people the Army was trying to save." Which is a long way of getting back to the conference call with Boeing.
The Boeing conference call was almost exclusively focused on countering charges that the Chinook produces too much downwash, aka 'whirlwind', to serve as a reliable CSAR platform. The WWS asked what Boeing's response was to Landrieu's, and by extension Lt. Gen. Vaughn's, claim that the HH-47 had been pulled from rescue missions after Katrina because of downwash problems. Here's Boeing response at the time:
Boeing: One it wasn't pulled out of service as witnessed by all the clips that we saw of it working. I believe, and we believe, and I would encourage you to contact General Vaughn with those comments because we believe it was out of context--that he was referring to a different helicopter, not the Chinook. And, oh, by the way, the Chinooks that were there were cargo, in other words they didn't have the hoist. And since this was peacetime, had we had one equipped like the HH-47 will be, in that case we could have used 209 feet of cable. At 200 feet, it doesn't even blow the hair on your head...I do encourage you to contact General Vaughn and ask because I do believe he was misquoted and using another helicopter.
The WWS: Do you have any idea what helicopter he might have been referring to?
Boeing: No, I would ask you to chat with him. Clearly, on record, we respect what the Senator [Landrieu] and her opinions and what she was told. But I'm not going to quote the general, I would ask that you'd chat with him.
The WWS: Okay, I will do then.
Boeing: I think he'll accept your call and if he doesn't then come back to us.
Well, I spent a week trying to get through to General Vaughn, getting jerked around and transferred from one office to the next, but never could get a comment as to whether this quote was accurate and had referred to the Boeing Chinook. At that point I went back to Boeing and asked if they could get the general on the phone for me...still no luck, only a statement from the company spokesman that General Vaughn had "indicated to us that he was willing to talk to the media or I can assure you we wouldn't have said that."
At the time I thought it unlikely that a general would undercut a senator in public by stating that he had been misquoted...but it also seemed bizarre that Boeing would put words in the general's mouth without a high level of confidence that he would back up their claims. But there it is, another strange turn in the CSAR circus.
