By Ann Roosevelt
Army aviation is leveraging all available resources to produce a capable, qualified force that goes beyond combat capability to homeland security, homeland defense and into supporting foreign policy, according to a top general.
“Army aviation has a longer reach, it has a greater grasp in terms of representing not only our military capability but also allowing us to have that foreign presence, allowing us to have an extended reach over delivering our foreign policy for our country,” Maj. Gen. Virgil Packett, commander, Army Aviation Warfighting Center and Fort Rucker, said in a teleconference Jan. 31.
Since 9/11, Army aviation has flown more than 2.2 million hours in combat, while setting the standard in terms of quality.
“Our real charge here with regard to an Aviation Center of Excellence is to make sure that we optimize all of our national resources, quite frankly, into delivering the most capable, most qualified and right now the most experienced Army aviation the country’s ever seen,” he said.
Army Aviation and the Aviation Center of Excellence consists of eight physical locations, enabled by joining and engaging with the National Guard, Packett said.
“What we have is an opportunity that reaches across the Untied States and as we look at our requirements and as our requirements continue to expand we have engaged and embraced this collectively as we look down the road to the future,” Packett said.
The locations include the Eastern Army National Guard (ARNG) Training Site (EAATS) in Pennsylvania, the Western ARNG Aviation Training Site (WAATS) in Arizona, a fixed-wing area of expertise in West Virginia, a High Altitude Aviation Training Site (HAATS) in Colorado, and an Unmanned Arial Systems Training Battalion (UASTB) at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz. Also, there is a foreign training capability in Ft. Bliss, Texas, and a maintenance expertise and training asset in Virginia. At Ft. Rucker itself, training is conducted for air traffic controllers and all the aircraft systems and initial entry rotary wing training. Ft. Rucker is also home to NCO academies and some other specialities.
Col. Tim Hilty commands the EAATS, located at Ft. Indiantown Gap, Pa. The site offers 36 formal courses for those who fly, support, maintain and repair aircraft. Last year, the site trained more than 1,900 soldiers from 54 states and territories from the active component and reserve, and the site also does simulation training for international allies.
“The East operates the largest Reserve simulation complex in the United States, where we have full motion simulators in the CH-47, we have two UH-60 simulators, we have a AH- 64A combat mission simulators while we still have UH-1 cockpit trainers and starting in April we will receive the first LUH (Light Utility Helicopter) cockpit procedural trainer” and a second will follow in the next couple of years, Hilty said.
Later this year, East will create the first institutional LUH training course. The first two aircraft will arrive in the June-July time period, and the first course will be an instructor pilot transition course.
Col. Matthew Brown commands WAATS at Silverbell Army Heliport in Marana, Ariz., which is also known as “Gunfighter University.” With 29 courses, WAATS conducts all the AH-64A and OH-58 A-C model qualification courses, maintenance test pilot and instructor pilot training. The site also trains enlisted personnel in flight operations, maintenance and armament.
Soldiers about to deploy or getting ready to deploy go to WAATS to prepare for war. “That’s what we’re all about here,” Brown said.
Through cooperative agreements, other nations, such as Singapore, which has AH-64 Longbow Apache helicopters, utilize WAATS.
WAATS has some 3,600 square miles of training area similar in terrain to Iraq and parts of Afghanistan–a desert, high and hot environment.
Most of those at WAATS are full-time members of the Arizona National Guard.
There’s plenty of work in sight for the future, he said. For example, WAATS wants to do more with Apache Longbow, because National Guard units now using the Apache Alpha model are likely to move to the Longbow model in the future.
Another initiative could be to expand UAS work. The site is close to Ft. Huachuca, so partnering with the UAS training group there could facilitate simulation and National Guard and Reserve training. WAATS has gunnery ranges, as well.
Command Sgt. Maj. Danny Thurecht is the battalion sergeant major for the UASTB, at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. “The battalion is unique because what we teach out there primarily is how to operate an unmanned aircraft,” he said. There are also functional courses. UAS Courses teach soldiers about the Army’s Shadow, Hunter and Warrior Alpha aircraft.
Next year UASTB likely will start training on the third generation UAS, the Extended Range MultiPurpose (ERMP) aircraft.
“We teach approximately 1,192 students a year out there, which is probably going to double in the future,” he said. “Next year I believe we have 1,900 coming through the course.”
Maj. Joshua Day commands HAATS located in Gypsum, Colo.”We do one thing and I think we do it well. We teach aviators from the active component, the reserve component and some of our Euro-NATO partners to master the environment, their airframe, and themselves and we do it at an altitude that a lot of these pilots have never seen before,” he said.
HAATS does it by training at 6,500 feet at the airfield and flying up to 12,200 feet. Throughout the course, HAAT instructors will take aviators even higher–more than 14,000 feet during some enroute portions of flight.
HAATS trains using UH-60, CH-47, AH-64 UH-1 and OH-58A-C aircraft.
In the future, HAATS wants to train with LUH once the helicopter is fielded in larger numbers.
Packet said it is national resources such as these sites that train some 21,000 soldiers annually.
The kind of reputation that Army aviation has created today means we’re never going to have enough resources.
“The good news is that we’re all in this together,” Packett said, referring to the active, National Guard and reserve components. This week, Ft. Rucker is hosting the 2008 Army Aviation Senior Leaders Conference, with service leaders from around the world in attendance.