Helicopters selected by US Air Force to replace the UH-1N Huey

It is announced by US Air Force earlier this week that they have decided to replace their fleet of UH-1N Huey Helicopter by MH-139. USAF has awarded a 375 million dollars firm fixed price contract on September 14^th, 2018 for the non developmental item integration of four new helicopters.

If the initial contract goes in perfect manner we are looking at a program valued at 2.4 billion dollars for the following items until 2031.

84 helicopters
Training device
Associated support equipments

These new helicopters are based on the design of Leonardo AW139 and are being offered by the main contractor Boeing. These choppers are expected to reach the Initial Operational Capability (IOC) until 2021. This will also be the time when these new helicopters are going to b used for replacing the following duties of the old Huey helicopters by USAF.

Protecting America’s ICBM missile silos
VIP transportation
Utility tasks

These new US Air Force MH-139 will be equipped with following upgrades.

Sensor turret under the nose with electro optical and infrared cameras
Provision for machine gun mounting
Possible hoists

In plain words this new helicopter will not be much difference from the HH-139A helicopter which is in service of Italian Air Force currently.

HH-139A is multirole helicopter equipped with following features.

Integrated NVG-compatible Glass Cockpit
4 axis Digital AFCS with SAR modes & FMS SAR patterns
Weather and search radar
Traffic Collision Avoidance System
Forward Looking Infrared
Health and Usage Monitoring System
Digital Video recorder
Video Downlink
Moving map on flat display
Auto Deployable ELT
Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System

Some of the other features offered by HH-139A are as follows.

Secure communication suite
Hoist
Search light
Wire cutters
Cargo hook
Loudspeaker system
Emergency floatation gear

The helicopters also offers provision for two wing mounted pods for pacing 70 mm unguided rockets.

Due to this Italian air force helicopter’s ability to carry bambi bucket, they can also be used for aerial firefighting activities. In fact since the start of 2018, HH-139A is carrying out the firefighting tasks in Sicily, Italy.