AH-6 cable cutters?

[Joe Lippke]

Hi everyone, I noticed on many pictures of 160th SOAR´s AH-6 Little Birds there are no cable cutters. I´m curious if there is any special reason why they are not fitted with some, because the 160th mission profile would see the helos always in low altitudes where the risk of hitting cables is very high.



JOE

[sixgun]

Train hard, train every night, don't hit wires...

That seems a bit flippant, I know. There are other reasons, but this is much of it in a nutshell.

[Ace]

That's probably not the way I would have answered it but, lol, a good point none the less.

Joe,
Due to the weight of the Acft, it's not cutting a whole hell of a lot, no matter what it hits, so they are pointless.

[Joe Lippke]

You mean, if a AH-6 would hit a wire it would bounce off like a rubber ball?


JOE

[sixgun]

yeah, thats really not the way I should have answered it either, sorry, difficult day.

joe,

from a techinical standpoint if you examine the keel and frame structure of the aircraft and the requirements for "effective" mounting points for a WSPS system, while the two (WSPS & Little Bird) are not incompatable the actual degree of protection conferred by a WSPS on an AH-6 (the envelope for successfull engagement and shearing of a wire is miniscule) is small compared to the weight and profile penalty.

there are many reasons the WSPS is not installed on the AH-6. one of them is not, however, an ability of the little bird to bounce off wires, although that would have been a comforting thought on many occasions.

again, sorry about the flippant response earlier. there is more than a small grain of truth in it, but it was flippant nonetheless.

[Joe Lippke]

I hope I understood the answer, so this is the follow-up question: The OH-58 does have WSPS (what´s the exact meaning of that, by the way?), but it´s not much bigger or heavier than the AH-6. Comments?


JOE

[Ace]

WSPS stands for "Wire Strike Protection System"

It is generally made up of a guide (mounted to the center of the Acft windscreen) to guide the wire into the actual "cutter" which is the shark fin looking thing that is supposed to cut the wire.

[Ace]

Sixguns,
Check your PM's: go to "user pc" at the top of the page, then "private messages".

[sixgun]

Actually, the OH-58 is much heavier, depending on configuration. The big differences (and there are many) beyond weight are external stores, mission profile, and wire strike engagement envelopes.

Basically, somewhere along the way the advantages vs penalties to be paid for WSPS on an AH-6 were calculated and the answer came up a fairly decisive NO. What the calculus of that decision process was is not really important, only that it was made considering the unique mission profile of the particular A/C involved. As there is no comparison between the -58 and the -6 in mission profile, a difference in basic A/C configuration (such as WSPS) is not really surprising.