How many people does it take to operate and maintain a military helicopter?

Posted 5Jun2017

David Anderson had several good points, which I have to add to a bit…

It really depends on the mission type, frequency of flight requirements (OPTEMPO), and, to a certain extent, the environment. From experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, helicopters like the UH-60 can be a pain in the butt when it comes to pulling Medevac in dusty/sandy locations – leading edges of the blades need to be painted frequently, washes need to be done, and maintenance will dictate the mission. While the entire crew can assist with some of the basic tasks, it falls upon the crew chief to legally turn wrenches and perform the necessary inspections, and that can eat into one’s duty day, effectively reducing the crew of four down to three (for Medevac missions, the crew is typically a crew chief, a flight medic, a pilot-in-command, and a co-pilot). At a bare minimum, this would be plausible for a few days – perhaps even a week or so, if necessary – to provide basic Medevac support from a secure location in Iraq with a conservative daily flight hour requirement of less than an hour.

Now that I think of it, it could be put in more simpler terms: what you get out of having “a military helicopter” at your disposal depends on how much you are willing to invest into its presence in terms of resources and support.

In 2006–07, we flew a lot and managing maintenance, missions, and manpower was much like the circus act where one person tries to keep as many plates spinning as possible. One aircraft would develop a leak in the primary servo hydraulic manifold while at the same time another is starting to fail it’s daily engine health indicator (HIT) check due to repetitive landings in what can best be described as “moon dust.” While those plates are spinning, missions keep coming in with the crews skipping meals, coming back bloody (necessitating a wash, along with restocking of consumable medic supplies), and still more missions would come in… Four people could not manage that for very long, by themselves. However, we had [cough] nearly[cough] sufficient support from our parent Battalion to keep from dropping any missions due to any failure on our part.

Afghanistan was a different story – with flights somewhat consistently scheduled 24 hours out, we were able to manage the maintenance and manpower with considerable ease. Whatever frayed tempers were usually personal friction in nature and things flowed smoothly, more or less.

So, the minimum number of people necessary to maintain and operate a military helicopter is not an easily simplified answer of “four.” Many other factor come into play.