Bell OH-58A Kiowa - Pima ASM, Tucson, AZ - Static Aircraft Displays on Waymarking.com

The Bell OH-58 Kiowa is a family of single-engine, single-rotor, military helicopters used for observation, utility, and direct fire support. Bell Helicopter manufactured the OH-58 for the US Army based on the 206A JetRanger helicopter. The OH-58 has been in continuous use by the Army since 1969.

The latest model, the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, is primarily operated in an armed reconnaissance role in support of ground troops. The OH-58 has been exported to Austria, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia. It has also been produced under license in Australia.

On 14 October 1960, the US Navy asked 25 helicopter manufacturers on behalf of the Army for proposals for a Light Observation Helicopter (LOH). Bell Helicopter entered the competition along with 12 other manufacturers, including Hiller Aircraft and Hughes Tool Co, Aircraft Division. Bell submitted the D-250 design, which would be designated as the YHO-4. On 19 May 1961, Bell and Hiller were announced as winners of the design competition.

Bell developed the D-250 design into the Model 206 aircraft, redesignated as YOH-4A in 1962, and produced five prototype aircraft for the Army's test and evaluation phase. The first prototype flew on 8 December 1962. The YOH-4A also became known as the Ugly Duckling in comparison to the other contending aircraft. Following a flyoff of the Bell, Hughes and Fairchild-Hiller prototypes, the Hughes OH-6 Cayuse was selected in May 1965.

When the YOH-4A was rejected by the Army, Bell went about solving the problem of marketing the aircraft. In addition to the image problem, the helicopter lacked cargo space and only provided cramped quarters for the planned three passengers in the back. The solution was a fuselage redesigned to be more sleek and aesthetic, adding 16cuft/0.45m3 of cargo space in the process. The redesigned aircraft was designated as the Model 206A, and Bell President Edwin J Ducayet named it the JetRanger denoting an evolution from the popular Model 47J Ranger.

In 1967, the Army reopened the LOH competition for bids because Hughes Tool Co, Aircraft Division could not meet the contractual production demands. Bell resubmitted for the program using the Bell 206A. Fairchild-Hiller failed to resubmit their bid with the YOH-5A, which they had successfully marketed as the FH-1100. In the end, Bell underbid Hughes to win the contract and the Bell 206A was designated as the OH-58A. Following the Army's naming convention for helicopters, the OH-58A was named Kiowa in honor of the Native American tribe.

In the 1970s, the Army began evaluating the need to improve the capabilities of their scout aircraft. The OH-58A lacked the power for operations in areas that exposed the aircraft to high altitude and hot temperatures, areas where the ability to acquire targets was a critical deficiency in the tactical warfare capabilities of Army aviation.

The power shortcoming caused other issues as the Army anticipated the AH-64A's replacement of the venerable AH-1 in the Attack battalions of the Army. The Army began shopping the idea of an Aerial Scout Program to industry as a prototype exercise to stimulate the development of advanced technological capabilities for night vision and precision navigation equipment. The stated goals of the program included prototypes that would "...possess an extended target acquisition range capability by means of a long-range stabilized optical subsystem for the observer, improved position location through use of a computerized navigation system, improved survivability by reducing aural, visual, radar, and infrared signatures, and an improved flight performance capability derived from a larger engine to provide compatibility with attack helicopters."

In early March 1974, the Army created a special task force at Ft Knox to develop the system requirements for the Aerial Scout Helicopter program, and in 1975 the task force had formulated the requirements for the Advanced Scout Helicopter (ASH) program. The requirements were formulated around an aircraft capable of performing in day, night, and adverse weather and compatible with all the advanced weapons systems planned for development and fielding into the 1980s. The program was approved by the System Acquisition Review Council and the Army prepared for competitive development to begin the next year. However, as the Army tried to get the program off the ground, Congress declined to provide funding for it in the fiscal year 1977 budget and the ASH Project Manager's Office (PM-ASH) was closed on 30 September 1976.

While no development occurred during the next few years, the program survived as a requirement without funding. On 30 November 1979, the decision was made to defer development of an advanced scout helicopter in favor of pursuing modification of existing airframes in the inventory as a near term scout helicopter (NTSH) option. The development of a mast-mounted sight would be the primary focus to improve the aircraft's ability to perform reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition missions while remaining hidden behind trees and terrain. Both the UH-1 and the OH-58 were evaluated as NTSH candidates, but the UH-1 was dropped from consideration due to its larger size and ease of detection. The OH-58, on the other hand demonstrated a dramatic reduction in detectability with an MMS.

On 10 July 1980, the Army decided that the NTSH would be a competitive modification program based on developments in the commercial helicopter industry, particularly Hughes Helicopters development of the Hughes 500D which provided significant improvements over the OH-6.

The Army's decision to acquire the NTSH resulted in the "Army Helicopter Improvement Program (AHIP)". Both Bell Helicopter and Hughes Helicopters redesigned their scout aircraft to compete for the contract. Bell offered a more robust version of the OH-58 in their model 406 aircraft, and Hughes offered an upgraded version of the OH-6. On 21 September 1981, Bell Helicopter Textron was awarded a development contract. The first prototype flew on 6 October 1983, and the aircraft entered service in 1985 as the OH-58D.

Initially intended to be used in attack, cavalry and artillery roles, the Army only approved a low initial production level and confined the role of the OH-58D to field artillery observation. The Army also directed that a follow-on test be conducted to further evaluate the aircraft due to perceived deficiencies. On 1 April 1986, the Army formed a task force at Ft Rucker, AL, to remedy deficiencies in the AHIP. As a result of those deliberations, the Army had planned to discontinue the OH-58D in 1988 and focus on the LHX, but Congress approved $138 million for expanding the program, calling for the AHIP to operate with the Apache as a hunter/killer team; the AHIP would locate the targets, and the Apache would destroy them in a throwback to the traditional OH-58/AH-1 relationship.

The Secretary of the Army directed instead that the aircraft's armament systems be upgraded, based on experience with Task Force 118's performance operating armed OH-58D helicopters in the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Prime Chance, and that the aircraft be used primarily for scouting and armed reconnaissance. The armed aircraft would be known as the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, denoting its new armed configuration. Beginning with the production of the 202nd aircraft in May 1991, all remaining OH-58D aircraft were produced in the Kiowa Warrior configuration. In January 1992, Bell Helicopter received its first retrofit contract to convert all remaining OH-58D Kiowa helicopters to the Kiowa Warrior configuration.

The OH-58D introduced the most distinctive feature of the Kiowa family — the Mast Mounted Sight (MMS), which resembles a beach ball perched above the rotor system. The MMS by Ball Aerospace & Technologies has a gyro-stabilized platform containing a TeleVision System (TVS), a Thermal Imaging System (TIS), and a Laser Range Finder/Designator (LRF/D). These new features gave the aircraft the additional mission capability of target acquisition and laser designation in both day or night, and in limited-visibility and adverse weather.

One distinctive feature of operational OH-58s are the knife-like extensions above and below the cockpit which is part of the passive Wire Strike Protection System. It can protect 90% of the frontal area of the helicopter from wire strikes that can be encountered at low altitudes by directing wires to the upper or lower blades before they can entangle the rotor blade or landing skids. The OH-58 was the first helicopter to test this system, after which the system was adopted by the Army for the OH-58 and most of their other helicopters.

Maj Gen John Norton, commanding general of the Army Aviation Materiel Command (AMCOM), received the first OH-58A Kiowa at a ceremony at Bell Helicopter's Ft Worth plant in May 1969. Two months later, on 17 August 1969, the first production OH-58A Kiowa helicopters were arriving in Vietnam, accompanied by a New Equipment Training Team (NETT) from the Army and Bell Helicopters. Although the Kiowa production contract replaced the LOH contract with Hughes, the OH-58A did not automatically replace the OH-6A in operation. Subsequently, the Kiowa and the Cayuse would continue operating in the same theater until the end of the war.

On 27 March 1970, an OH-58A Kiowa was shot down over Vietnam, one of the first OH-58A losses of the war. The pilot, Warrant Officer Ralph Quick, Jr, was flying Lt Col Joseph Benoski, Jr as an artillery spotter. After completing a battle damage assessment for a previous fire mission, the aircraft was damaged by 51-cal/13mm machine gun fire and crashed, killing both crew members. Approximately 45 OH-58A helicopters were destroyed in Vietnam due to combat and accidents. One of the last combat losses was of an OH-58A from A Troop, 3-17th Cavalry, flown by 1st Lt Thomas Knuckey. On 27 May 1971, Lt Knuckey was also flying a battle damage assessment mission when his aircraft came under machine gun fire and exploded. Knuckey and his observer, Sgt Philip Taylor, both died in the explosion.

In early 1988, it was decided that armed OH-58D (AHIP) helicopters from the 118th Aviation Task Force would be phased in to replace the SEABAT (AH-6/MH-6) teams of Task Force 160th to carry out Operation Prime Chance, the escort of oil tankers during the Iran–Iraq War. On 24 February 1988, two AHIP helicopters reported to the Mobile Sea Base Wimbrown VII, and the helicopter team ("SEABAT" team after their callsign) stationed on the barge returned to the US. For the next few months, the AHIP helicopters on the Wimbrown VII shared patrol duties with the SEABAT team on the Hercules. Coordination was difficult, but despite frequent requests from TF-160, the SEABAT team on the Hercules was not replaced by an AHIP detachment until June 1988. The OH-58D helicopter crews involved in the operation received deck landing and underwater survival training from the Navy.

In November 1988, the number of OH-58D helicopters that supported Task Force 118 was reduced. However, the aircraft continued to operate from the Navy's Mobile Sea Base Hercules, the frigate Underwood, and the destroyer Conolly. OH-58D operations primarily entailed reconnaissance flights at night, and depending on maintenance requirements and ship scheduling, Army helicopters usually rotated from the mobile sea base and other combatant ships to a land base every seven to fourteen days. On 18 September 1989, an OH-58D crashed during night gunnery practice and sank, but with no loss of personnel. When the Mobile Sea Base Hercules was deactivated in September 1989, all but five OH-58D helicopters redeployed to the continental US.

In 1989, Congress mandated that the Army National Guard would be a player in the country's War on Drugs, enabling them to aid federal, state and local law enforcement agencies with "special congressional entitlements". In response, the Army National Guard Bureau created the Reconnaissance and Aerial Interdiction Detachments (RAID) in 1992, consisting of aviation units in 31 states with 76 specially modified OH-58A helicopters to assume the reconnaissance/interdiction role in the fight against illegal drugs. During 1994, 24 states conducted more than 1,200 aerial counterdrug reconnaissance and interdiction missions, conducting many of these missions at night. Eventually, the program was expanded to cover 32 states and consisting of 116 aircraft, including dedicated training aircraft at the Western Army Aviation Training Site (WAATS) in Marana, AZ.

The RAID program’s mission has now been expanded to include the war against terrorism and supporting US Border Patrol activities in support of homeland defense. The National Guard RAID units' Area of Operation (AO) is the only one in the Department of Defense that is wholly contained within the borders of the United States.

During Operation Just Cause in 1989, a team consisting of an OH-58 and an AH-1 were part of the Aviation Task Force during the securing of Ft Amador in Panama. The OH-58 was fired upon by Panama Defense Force soldiers and crashed 100yds/91m away, in the Bay of Panama. The pilot was rescued but the co-pilot died.

On 17 December 1994, Army Chief Warrant Officers (CWO) David Hilemon and Bobby Hall left Camp Page, South Korea, on a routine training mission along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Their flight was intended to be to a point known as Checkpoint 84, south of the DMZ "no-fly zone", but the OH-58C Kiowa strayed nearly 4mi/6.4km into the Kangwon Province, inside North Korean airspace, due to errors in navigating the snow-covered, rugged terrain. The helicopter was shot down by North Korean troops and CWO Hilemon was killed. CWO Hall was held captive and the North Korean government insisted that the crew had been spying. Five days of negotiations resulted in the North Koreans turning over Hilemon's body to US authorities. The negotiations failed to secure Hall's immediate release. After 13 days in captivity, Hall was freed on 30 December, uninjured.

The Army has employed the OH-58D during Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Due to combat and accidents, over 35 airframes have been lost, with 35 pilots killed.

The age of the helicopters and the loss of airframes resulted in the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter program to procure a new aircraft, the Bell ARH-70, which was later canceled in 2008 due to cost overruns.

Source: Wikipedia

Type of Aircraft: (make/model): Bell OH-58A Kiowa Tail Number: (S/N): s/n 69-16112 Construction:: original aircraft Location (park, airport, museum, etc.): Located at Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, AZ inside / outside: outside Other Information:: Pima Air & Space Museum 6000 E Valencia Rd Tucson, Arizona 85756 Phone 520-574-0462 Open 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM Daily Last admittance at 4:00 PM $15.50-Adults $12.50-Pima Co Residents $12.75-Seniors $ 9.00-Children FREE---Children 6 & under $ 7.00-AMARG $13.50-Group Rate Access restrictions: None

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