The first AH-64 Apache helicopters equipped with systems that allow aircrews to view streaming video from unmanned aerial systems, as well as Air Force and Navy video from advanced targeting pods on fighter jets, are set to deploy to Iraq in the coming weeks, Army sources said recently.
An Apache unit from Ft. Stewart, Ga., will be the first to deploy with Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] Video from Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Interoperability Teaming-Level 2 (VUIT-2) kits this fall, the sources said. The Army public affairs office at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., confirmed that the first VUIT-equipped Apaches are scheduled to deploy “this fall.”
VUIT-2 is a kit that provides Apache crews with improved target acquisition and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) collection capability. The video collected by UAS and the Lockheed Martin-built Sniper advanced targeting pods on Air Force and Navy jets can in turn be down-linked to the ground by the VUIT Mini-TCDL for simultaneous display to soldiers equipped with ground terminals.
Meanwhile, a new Air Force contract for Sniper pods is expected this month, according to a Lockheed Martin official.
“We’ll have another big contract award [from the Air Force] this month,” Mark Fischer, Fixed Wing business development representative at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, told Defense Daily during a Sept. 25 telephone interview. He would not specify the dollar value of the contract or how many more systems the Air Force plans to purchase.
The company’s original contract with the service was for 522 pods, and deliveries have been ahead of the contract schedule for the past three years, according to briefing slides provided by Lockheed Martin. “We did increase our production rates to meet the needs of the theater,” Fischer explained. This month’s contract will continue that trend.
“We have a proven capacity for, easily, 12 a month here at the factory,” he said. “And we can go higher than 12 a month if needed. We would have to reconfigure the factory, and it is designed to be reconfigured.”
The current production rate is eight per month, with plans to increase that rate next year to an unspecified number dependent upon the contract to be announced this month, according to the briefing materials.
Foreign sales have also increased. Lockheed Martin currently has nine international customers for the system, according to Fischer.
“We have discussions with potential new customers on awards,” he said. “We’ll have announcements over the next three to four months on more significant international sales to foreign air forces.”
“Coalition partners joining us is helping Air Force cost efficiencies,” he added.
The Sniper was first deployed in combat in January 2005 and is now incorporated into four U.S. platforms: the F-15E, F-16, B-1 and A-10 aircraft. The B-52 is next in line to receive the system. Boeing announced a $15 million integration contract last week.