Army Sends Choppers by Truck

June 21, 2000 10:42 AM, EDT

Twenty-one of the Army’s top combat helicopters took off on flatbed trailers pulled by an equal number of tractors for a 1,400-mile trek to a retrofitting plant in Arizona, marking the first time trucks were used in the process.

	U.S. Army
	Landstar Inway and Trism Inc. hauled 21 Apache helicopters like these 1,400 miles on flatbeds from the Port of Tacoma, Wash., to a Mesa, Ariz., Boeing facility for improvements.

“It was more economical to ship the helicopters by truck than flying them,” said Bud Sowers of the Army Attack Helicopter Program Manager’s Office at the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama.

The AH-64A Apache helicopters arrived from South Korea May 17, and immediately headed out of the Port of Tacoma in Washington on a caravan of 21 flatbed trucks from Landstar Inway and Trism Inc. Their final destination was a Boeing Co. facility in Mesa, Ariz., for equipment upgrades.

Sowers, whose agency oversees modernization of the choppers, said using trucks saved the Army about $1.4 million in transportation costs, compared with usual method of flying the helicopters to the plant.

For the full story, see the June 19 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.