As the US military digests the impact of the end of its involvement in Iraq, the prospect of withdrawal from Afghanistan and budget cuts exacerbated by economic crisis, a coherent picture of its future rotor-craft fleet is coming into focus. The US Army, Navy and Marines are all receiving substantially upgraded aircraft that will fly well into the third decade of the century, while the USAF has re-started the effort to replace its combat rescue helicopters, which ground to a halt with the 2009 cancellation of the CSAR-X programme. Together, they have also embarked on a joint effort intended to yield new technologies that will form the basis of an entire new generation of rotorcraft.
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