Facing a spending freeze, the U.S. military is concentrating on maintaining its mostly legacy rotary-wing fleet, with upgrades and improvements driven by demands from combatant commanders in Afghanistan.

Most people "would characterize this as a helicopter war," says Army Brig. Gen. William Crosby, program executive officer for aviation. "We're fighting in an austere environment and we're living in an austere budget environment." With no new clean-sheet helicopter designs on the near horizon, the services are shifting their focus to maintainability, affordability and reliability.

Crosby notes the brisk operating tempo, combined with sand, heat and high altitude, creates tremendous wear and tear on the platforms. "I'm trying to address [these issues] for the long term," he says. Army logistics leadership has asked Aviation and Missile Command (Amcom) to look at the future of helicopter reset programs. This month, the first report on the so-called Deep Maintenance program is due, after which several months of follow-on analysis will help flesh out the program's scope.

"We want to maintain a fleet life of 10 years between upgrades," Crosby suggests as an example. "How do we do that? We're trying to be proactive. We don't want to wake up one day asking, 'What do we do now?'"

The Army flies more helicopters in combat every day than the other services, says Col. Neil Thurgood, project manager for utility helicopters, pointing to the 350 Black Hawks currently deployed. The 1980s-era UH-60A, and newer L and M (Alpha, Lima and Mike) models are all flying. The A and L models have all been modified and upgraded, and the first unit equipped with the new UH60M is in Afghanistan and "doing very well," Thurgood says.

The Army's requirement is for 1,931 UH-60s, but the service has only 1,750, according to Thurgood. "The Army needs more aircraft than they have on hand." To get to the goal of two model types--the L and M--the Army is bringing all its Alpha aircraft into depot for reconfiguration to the Lima, which takes about 290 days. The next step, the Mike upgrade aircraft--featuring fly-by-wire, full-authority digital engine control (Fadec) and the common avionics architecture system (CAAS) cockpit--will be in developmental testing for at least two more years.

The need for increased capabilities is so great, however, that the Army will take pieces of the Mike upgrade aircraft and plug them into the baseline aircraft as developmental testing evolves, Thurgood says. "It's a work in progress," he adds. "As we get close to cutting [new capabilities onto baseline aircraft], we'll refine a date. Those discussions are ongoing."

Boeing has been incorporating lessons from Iraq since Operation Desert Storm, says Jack Dougherty, Boeing's director of H-47 Chinook programs. "We were eating engines like candy," he says. "[Desert Storm] taught us a lesson." As a result, Dougherty says the Chinooks are well-suited to Afghanistan and Iraq. Improvements to counter the corrosive effects of sand include engine barrier filters and the engine air particle separator (EAPS).

When Chinooks return to the U.S. for maintenance, Dougherty says people are often surprised at "how much sand you can get out of the EAPS. That's what it's supposed to do, but some say it's like bringing home half of Afghanistan."

The older D model Chinooks get small modifications based on what Boeing hears from the Army. "It's a continuous process of listening to the field," Dougherty says. "We work with the Army to see if they can afford to make the changes."