Army asks EADS to provide six UH-72A light utility helicopters and aircraft data radios
REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala., 9 Dec. 2013. U.S. Army aviation leaders are buying six UH-72A Lakota light utility military helicopters and six Raytheon AN/ARC-231 aircraft voice and data radios under terms of a $33.2 million contract announced Friday.
Officials of the Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., are awarding the contract for the helicopters and aviation radios to EADS North America in Herndon, Va.
The UH-72A Lakota is a military version of the Eurocopter EC145 helicopter and is built by American Eurocopter division of EADS North America. The UH-72A as selected in 2006 for the Army's Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) program.
The Eurocopter UH-72 is a twin-engine helicopter with one four-bladed main rotor. . In October 2006, American Eurocopter was awarded a production contract for 345 helicopters to replace aging UH-1H/V and OH-58A/C helicopters in the Army and Army National Guard fleets.
The AN/ARC-231 Skyfire airborne software-defined radio from the Raytheon Co. Integrated Defense systems segment in Marlborough, Mass., is a line-of-sight VHF and UHF radio, as well as a satellite communications (SATCOM) terminal.
The Raytheon Skyfire aircraft radio is on military helicopters ranging from the MH-60L/M and UH-60L/M Black Hawks, MH-47E/G and CH-47G Chinooks, UH-1N Hueys, A2C2S Black Hawks, and AH-64 Apaches, as well as the UH-72A Lakotas. The radio also is on several military fixed-wing aircraft.
The ARC-231 operates on frequencies from 30 to 512 MHz, with frequency agile modes electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM), UHF SATCOM, demand assigned multiple access (DAMA), integrated waveform (IW), and air traffic control (ATC).
Data communications that sends and receives text, still images, and video, uses an internal data controller, and sends data as fast as 56, 64, and 76.8 kilobits per second.
For more information contact EADS North America online at www.eadsnorthamerica.com, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems at www.raytheon.com, or the Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal at www.acc.army.mil/contractingcenters/acc-rsa.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
