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The Impact Of First Apache Helicopter On The United States Army

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THE LIFING APPLIED BY THE UNITED STATES The first Apache helicopter was delivered to the United States Army in 1997 by Boeing. The United States Army now has more than 800 Apache aircraft in service. It has also exported over 1000 Apache helicopters worldwide to countries such as, the Netherlands, Singapore and Israel to name a few. In this time, the US Apache has had no recorded CSD incidents from over 4 million recorded flight operating hours. There has been no un-commanded initiation of the CSD system either in flight or on the ground (discounting human error causes) in over 20 years of operation. The current lifing applied by the US can be seen in Appendix E, which shows the comparisons for all 19 CSD components between the UK and the …show more content…

To give a full representation of how other platforms utilise a crew escape system, 4 rotary wing aircraft were chosen. These were the UH-60 Black Hawk, the CH-47 Chinook, the AH-1 Cobra and the AW-159 Wildcat. For simplicity and to give a better comparison for the Apache AH Mk1, only the cockpit crew escape systems have been analysed, not the cabin escape system. UH-60 BLACK HAWK The UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter is manufactured by Sikorsky and has been in operation since 1978. It is primarily used as a troop personnel carrier and provides a logistical capability. The UH-60 Black Hawk has a purely manual operation of door release. It has emergency release handles located on the inside of each of the cockpit doors. If these handles are subsequently pulled with approximately 40-45 lbs. of force, the doors can be separated from the locating points. The door will then be separated from the aircraft, allowing the aircrew to egress the aircraft. CH-47 CHINOOK The CH-47 Chinook is manufactured by Boeing, and has been exported to both military and private operators worldwide. It is primarily used as a troop and logistics transporter, as well as providing essential medical evacuation on operations. The CH-47 Chinook emergency release handles are located above both cockpit doors. They can be operated by either pulling or pushing the handles with approximately 35-40 Ibs of force. Once the handles are operated the doors will simply fall out. The CH-47 Chinook

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