MD530F Cayuse
The MD 530F is a relatively simple helicopter. The MD 530F helicopter is designed for high-altitude and hot-climate environments such as Afghanistan and has a more powerful engine than previous models. The MH-6 Little Bird (nicknamed the Killer Egg), and its attack variant AH-6, are light helicopters used for special operations in the United States Army. Originally based on a modified OH-6A, it was later based on the MD 500E, with a single five-bladed main rotor. The newest version, the MH-6M, is based on the MD 530F and has a single, six-bladed main rotor and four- bladed tail rotor.
MD Helicopters selected Kaman Corporation to supply fuselages for its entire line of single-engine helicopters, including the MD600N, MD520N, MD530F and MD500E helicopters. This multi-year program had an estimated potential value of $100 million. MD Helicopters also selected the corporation to supply composite rotor systems for its MD Explorer helicopter under a multi-year contract with an estimated potential value, including options, of $75 million.
MD Helicopters, Inc. (MDHI) fought off a legal challenge by Boeing that would have barred it from competing for key United States and foreign military contracts. An arbitration panel declared that Boeing could not prevent MDHI from offering its MD540F helicopter for the U.S. Army’s Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) competition. Although Boeing briefly owned what is now MDHI after its merger with McDonnell Douglas in 1997, it sold MD Helicopter Holdings Inc. in 1999. In 2005, Patriarch Partners, LLC acquired MD Helicopter Holdings Inc. and recapitalized it as the independent company MDHI.
In 2005 an agreement allowed Boeing to offer a Mission Equipped Little Bird (MELB) helicopter based on the MD530F for the U.S. Army’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) program, in exchange for which MDHI received a $10 million loan, restructuring of certain previous debt owed to Boeing, and a $15 million cash payment. Boeing was unsuccessful in its bid for the ARH contract, which went to competitor Bell Helicopter before the program was cancelled in 2008.
A Blackwater Security Company MD-530F helicopter aided in securing the site of a car bomb explosion in Baghdad, Iraq, on Dec. 4, 2004, during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. On October 20, 2010 the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Saudi Arabia of 12 MD-530F Light Turbine Helicopters.
A team of nine Soldiers from the U.S. Army Security Assistance Training Management Organization have been on the ground in Afghanistan since January conducting combat mission training on the MD 530F helicopter for the Afghan Air Force. The training has provided the Afghan government with combat-ready qualified pilots and on 01 August 2015 the first Afghan MD 530F Cayuse Warrior squadron was able to conduct aerial combat operations. The training is part of the Army's security assistance mission of building partner capacity or capability to support partner nations through the foreign military sales program.
The armed MD 530, which is a smaller, lighter aircraft, has required a complete change within the Afghan helicopter community. This mission is a total shift from previous Afghan air tactics, which had been based on the Soviet model and the MI-35. With the decrease in U.S. Army attack helicopter aircraft and the Afghan MI-35 helicopters reaching the end of their service life, the Afghan Army is without the helicopter close air support the US had been providing them. This squadron and the few armed MD 530F helicopters were the first steps to bridge this capability gap.
According to CENTCOM and the NATO Air Command–Afghanistan, as of October 11, 2014, the Afghan Air Force inventory consisted of 101 aircraft, including five MD-530F rotary-wing helicopters. Twelve additional MD-530F helicopters equipped with air-to-ground attack capability are on contract, as is conversion of five existing MD-530F helicopters to air-to-ground attack capability.
Solicitation Number W58RGZ15R0076 of 03 November 2014 was for Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) of the armed MD 530F aircraft, Flight Training Devices, and MTD, located in country in Afghanistan. There was a scope change that will result in (a)CLS coverage for a total of seventeen (17) MD 530F aircraft modified with the MD 530F mission equipment package / weapon system kit, (b) addition of the Interpreters, and (c) CLS coverage to support an increase in Operational Tempo (OPTEMPO) of the Afghanistan MD 530F fleet from 300 to 600 hours per month to include an initial spares support packagae for the increased OPTEMPO.
There is no change to the type of support required which include logistics program management, system sustainment, readiness management, Contractor Managed Supply and Maintenance (CMSM) support, equipment maintenance, forms and records, urgent repairs and services, logistics support, hardware and software configuration management, Flight Training Device, maintenance training, Continued Level III and Level II maintenance operations training, On the Job Training, logistics-engineering technical services, contractor field service operations, and Contractor Field Service Representative (CFSR) support. The CLS requirement also supported training Level I maintainers for the MD 530F inventory control an supply point operations, modeling and forecasting spares transportation and shipping support, depot-level materiel, repair of repairables and supply support, warranty management, and logistics automated systems.
MD Helicopters Inc., Mesa, Arizona, was awarded a $13,172,766 firm-fixed-price foreign military sales contract (Afghanistan) on July 13, 2015 for the procurement, installation, integration, testing, and Army-approved airworthiness qualification support of M260 rockets and the fixed forward weapon sights on the armed MD530F Mission Equipment Package (MEP) aircraft. Integration on one U.S. government furnished armed MD530F MEP unit will occur at the contractors facility in Mesa, Arizona, as well as the development and shipment of 19 MEP modification kits for installation. Work will be performed in Mesa, Arizona, with an estimated completion date of July 12, 2016. One bid was solicited with one received. Fiscal 2015 other procurement funds in the amount of $6,454,655 were obligated at the time of the award. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-15-C-0056).
The first of four MD-530F Cayuse attack helicopters was unloaded from a C-17 Globemaster aircraft at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 25, 2016. Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan oversaw the transfer of four MD-530F Cayuse attack helicopters and a C-130H Hercules transport aircraft to the Afghan air force.
