See Flight Global for interview
The aircraft have 85% commonality, offering simplified sustainment across a wide portfolio of rotary-wing missions. The two H-1 aircraft are primarily operated by the US Marine Corps (USMC), which practises an expeditionary fighting style Schloesser says fits well with the wartime demands and abilities of the Ukrainian army.
Schloesser says the UH-1Y and AH-1Z feature sophisticated countermeasures that would help them survive modern threats, though he declines to elaborate, citing security classification.
From an operational perspective, the USMC has already demonstrated the ability of the AH-1Z to perform air-to-air and counter-UAS missions in test environments.
A cost-effective means for both those functions is in high demand by the Ukrainians, as Russia overpowers conventional air defences with massed wave bombardments of low-cost, one-way drones.
Come on! Dooo it already!!! Give Ukraine the AH-1Z and UH-1Y NOW! These could save so many lives simply being used as air defense assets alone not to mention all the other uses they have including peacetime search and rescue contexts. The biggest problem with the AH-1Z for Ukraine would be that there isn’t a lot of space to paint confirmed shahed kills on the fuselage and crews would quickly run out unless they painted veryyy tiny.
These are the most advanced, battle tested helicopters on earth next to the AH-64 and the AH-1Z has been upgraded over the years to expand capability to replicate the design successes of the AH-64 (vice versa I imagine too) so in many ways both helicopters are peers in indirect conversation rather than truly entirely unrelated helicopter programs.
Someone could easily get Trump to sign off on the “silly vietnam era obsolete helicopters” so he can get a lazy PR boost that he and his advisors likely won’t think much of compared to drones or patriot missiles and we all can loudly proclaim what a silly outdated thing for Trump to do! Then Russia can get smashed in the face…
A crucial advantage the AH-1Z and UH-1Y have is they are designed to be operated and supported in the field. Fighter jets by comparison are confined to networks of large, static fragile and impossible to hide infrastructure/airbases in order to operate. If as a Ukrainian you want an air defense/precision close air support and long range strike platform that will survive a mass coordinated strike and be able to keep operating in an ad-hoc emergency defense utilizing radar to assist friendly forces and rearming literally in the backyards of houses to takeoff and keep fighting… this is it. There is no more deadly effective choice here than the AH-1Z and UH-1Y especially given bell-textron doesn’t have a waiting list and could focus immediately on supplying them to Ukraine.
see Kyiv24 news report segment for more details and test range footage of the AH-1Z and UH-1Y
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=ZfnUYcZifVU
^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfnUYcZifVU
Details on the radar and sensors the AH-1Z can carry, which is where the real value of the platform comes into play in conjunction with the capacity to network and share targets with other unmanned and manned friendly assets in realtime.
Sensors
Targeting for the AH-1W is provided by the night targeting system (NTS), jointly supplied by Tamam Division of Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd and Kollsman.
NTS integrates a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) which provides automatic target tracking with a laser designator / rangefinder and video recorder.
Lockheed Martin developed a longer range AN/AAQ-30 target sight system (TSS) for the AH-1Z to replace the NTS. TSS includes a third-generation four field-of-view FLIR based on a 3-5-micron staring array, CCD colour TV, Kollsman eye-safe laser rangefinder / designator and multi-target auto-tracker. L-3 Communications Wescam supplies the turret assembly. Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract to supply the first 16 systems to the USMC in March 2008. The first TSS, which serves as the fire control system for the AH-1Z Viper, was delivered to the USMC in June 2009.
Lockheed Martin received follow-on contracts worth $150m from the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Crane division, for the lot 13 and 14 production of TSS for the USMC’s AH-1Z Viper fleet. The company delivered more than 100 TSS units to the USMC by 2017, with production and sustainment expected to continue through 2026.
Longbow International (a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman) developed the Cobra Radar System for the AH-1Z, based on the Longbow millimetre wave radar on the AH-64D Apache. Cobra is a pod-based radar that can be mounted on a wingtip or in a stores position. Cobra can automatically search, detect, classify, and prioritise multiple moving and stationary targets. It has a range of 8km against moving and 4km against stationary targets.
The two-way connection between AH-1Z Viper helicopter and ground control station using Link 16 was successfully demonstrated for the first time in June 2021. Developed by Northrop Grumman, the Link 16 package includes the Link 16 system, a digital moving map, a security architecture, and advanced networking wideband waveform (ANW2) datalinks.