What lies beyond these evergreen helicopters is yet to be fully defined, but all three US Services have a future requirement for a heavy lift rotary wing capability - and recently mastered or emerging technologies may hold the key to the future.
At the present time, the US Army is procuring the CH-47F variant of the Chinook as its major battlefield medium lift and assault helicopter, whereas the US Marine Corps still uses the only western platform that is actually classified as a heavy lift helicopter, the CH-53E, to be replaced with an upgraded version in years to come.
The innovative Bell-Boeing CV-22 Osprey tilt rotor craft is replacing the smaller CH-46 Sea Knight and augmenting the CH-53s with the Marines, and a Special Operations optimised version is entering service with the US Air Force. Recent deployments to Iraq have demonstrated the increased efficiency that the Osprey's relative high-speed brings to the battlespace and the type will soon see service in Afghanistan.
So what will the next helicopter look like? Will it be a tilt-rotor craft; will it be a single, tandem, or even quad rotor helicopter; will it be required to have a high speed; will it be manned or unmanned; or will it even be a single type, to satisfy the requirements of the Army, Marines and Air Force?
Such a program has been mooted, in the form of the Joint Heavy Lift Rotorcraft (JHL), which is often talked about in the context of the US Army's Future Combat System (FCS). The JHL will transport some of the major ground vehicle elements of the future US Army. The size and weight of such equipment will dictate the rotorcraft's size and lift capability.