Army aviation’s major modernization plan of 2004 has accomplished most of its goals even as it supported and adapted to conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the Program Executive Official (PEO) says the job is never really done.
“You’re never through modernizing, especially in today’s world of obsolescence, where the improvements we’re finding in systems are happening so fast–couple that with how hard we’re flying and the (operational tempo ) optempo we’re working these aircraft in theater,” Maj. Gen. Tim Crosby said responding to a question from Defense Daily during a recent roundtable.
In 2004, the Army canceled its RAH-66 Comanche reconnaissance-attack helicopter program; redirecting $14.9 billion from the canceled Bell Helicopter [TXT]-Boeing [BA] program to buy more aircraft, upgrade and modernize others and buy more survivability equipment and unmanned aerial systems (Defense Daily, Feb. 24, 2004).
The Boeing AH-64D Apache Block III is one beneficiary of the Comanche termination, which had a planned fielding date of 2011, as indeed, happened earlier this month (Defense Daily, Nov. 3).
“This is not your granddaddy’s Apache,” Crosby said. “This is a brand new capability with significant improvements over the old ones.”
The 2004 aviation modernization restructuring reflected numerous studies and also aviation lessons learned, for example, from the 1999 Task Force Hawk deployment to support NATO in Kosovo. At the time, aviators saw the need for better battle command capability, better coordination and communication with the then-new UAVs, a restructuring of aviation organization, and increased survivability capabilities.
Lt. Col. Dan Bailey, today’s Army Apache Block III program manager, was a troop commander of the 11th Aviation Regiment, Illesheim Germany (2-6 and 6-6 Cav) in Task Force Hawk, under then-Brig. Gen. Richard Cody, who was given a special assignment to be his/their general in charge of the aviation task force; he was assigned to 4ID but temporarily assigned as Bailey’s commander. Cody drove many of the lessons learned after the operation. Bailey was the primary writer under 11th Aviation Regimental Commander, then-Col. Rick Rife, for the U.S. Army Europe Commander Gen. Montgomery Meigs who was working with Cody to get the issues captured and turned into action.
Those lessons became part of a 1999 memo Cody wrote to then-incoming Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, and also part of Cody’s congressional testimony.
By 2004, Cody was vice chief of Staff, through the Comanche termination and initiation of aviation modernization, Cody was Vice Chief of Staff.
In 2008, Cody, heading into retirement, said the Apache Block III had 90 percent of the required Comanche capabilities, minus the stealthiness. But the Block III is much more–more survivable, has better battle command and carries more than Comanche could. The helicopter also has more lift, a better drive train, and is more reliable.
A less successful modernization effort was the effort initiated in 2005 to produce an Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH). This struggling Bell Helicopter effort was canceled in 2008 after the program exceeded its budget estimate by more than 40 percent (Defense Daily, July 10, 2008).
However, the requirement still needs to be filled and the Army in 2011 continues to move toward through analyses of alternatives toward initiating a new competition.
Other modernization efforts are being achieved: the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) UH-72A Lakota; upgrading the Sikorsky [UTX] UH-60 Black Hawk A/L models to the M model, and upgrading the Boeing CH-47D Chinook to the F model.
Additionally, the Army moved forward on fielding unmanned aerial systems, such as General Atomics Aeronautical Systems ‘Gray Eagle, and improved the capabilities of smaller systems such as AeroVironment’s Raven, and AAI’s [TXT] Shadow.
Additionally, interoperability and networking is being demonstrated on upgraded controls. For example, the Apache Block III for the first time recently demonstrated cockpit control of a Gray Eagle unmanned aerial system.
As some senior aviation officials have said over the past decade, Army aviation is essentially and vitally less about the platform and more about connections, and not stove piping either one.
Further out, the Army plans to work on what it is now calling the he Joint Multi-Role helicopter.
With most of the 2004 aviation strategy in place accomplished during a time of conflict, budgets are expected to be reduced, though by how much remains to be seen.
Crosby said, “Nobody thinks there is going to be a large influx of money, additional monies, into our portfolio.”
The aftermath of conflict–World War 1, World War II and Desert Storm–has seen downsizing and reduced modernization, “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” but, modernizing must continue on some level to support and increase joint force capabilities.
“With the struggles we’re facing with the resources over the next few years, what we’ve got to do is focus our strategies on the future,” Crosby said.
The only aviation program that has not been touched is the armed scout program that would eventually replace the OH-58D Kiowa, Crosby said. Also, PEO Aviation is looking at some sort of multirole aircraft, whether it is a tiltrotor or rotary wing, but some sort of some sort of future vertical lift technology, and with the limited science and technology funds the office will focus on that.
“We’ve got a couple of scenarios on contract going in pursuit of that: the improved turbine engine program, working the power train enabler, doing the enabling technologies to tell us what’s out there that will then shape our vision for what that new capability is,” Crosby said.
However, that’s all good, that’s all visionary, and that’s all execution, that’s all planning. We also have to take “appetite suppressor” with what the budget is going to bring,” he said.
“Now, we’re trying to look for that balance and maintaining a modernization program while also looking to the future on what that new capability is in a constrained budget environment,” Crosby said.