New aircraft, UAVs to shape future fight

Blackanthem Military News, WASHINGTON, D.C., January 18, 2006 15:53

More than 300 aircraft of all types will roll off assembly lines and improve the Army’s war-fighting capability during the next seven years, according to Army aviation leaders at a forum here.

Speaking to more than 400 attendees during the Institute of Land Warfare and Aviation Symposium Jan. 12, Claude M. Bolton Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, said new Apaches, light utility helicopters, cargo fixed-wing aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles will be built. He also stressed the importance of future aircraft development programs.

Monies drive momentum

"When we terminated the Comanche program, I put up a chart from time to time to remind us what we promised ourselves, what we promised Congress, and more importantly, what we promised Army aviators," Bolton said, "that we would take the nearly $15 billion coming from the termination of the Comanche program and we would fix Army aviation.

"It is imperative that we stay the course on the plan that we laid out because if we falter one nano-second, the money for that program is gone," said Bolton. "We also believe that when this fight is over that we will require two years of supplementals to refit and put things back in a readiness state.

"Because when the fighting stops, people of this country - through their elected officials - do the same thing over, and over, and over again; they take the money from the military," he said. "It’s been that way for 230 years. …So, I say plan accordingly, regardless of where you are in industry or in the government."

Eye in the sky

The two-day Army aviation conference, sponsored by the Association of the United States Army, featured exhibits and lectures from many of the leaders of commercial aviation industry. Unmanned aerial vehicles emerged as a major player for the future of battlefield.

"Unmanned aerial vehicles is an interesting market to watch grow over the last five to six years," said Bolton. They’ve come a long way as we’ve seen how to really use these operationally, with hand or rolling launches that quickly get eyes-on situational awareness that is unbelievable. They don’t cost all that much and when they occasionally crash, you fix a wing and fix a motor and they’re good to go again.

"When we think about the future, for example, you’ve got our units’ UAVs, another units’ UAVs, the Air Force UAVs, and the Navy might want to through one in there too - and it wouldn’t surprise me if the media had their own UAVs. We’re concerned about who would be controlling all this stuff, so we’re looking at future combat systems and all the categories of UAVs. The contingency operations with UAVs is going to be interesting."

"The role of unmanned aerial vehicles in the integration of Army aviation is engaged in is huge," said Sinclair "We continue to conduct every type of mission possible, weather they’ve been manned or unmanned to protect convoys from being ambushed and I’ve challenged people to find a mission we haven’t done since 9-11.

Unprecedented combat flight hours

"In fact, within the next few days, we will have flown 1 million combat flight hours since 9-11 and that is truly a phenomenal number for Army aviation and a great recognition of our pilots and our air crews and maintainers on what they’ve been able to accomplish," Sinclair said.

"We have 58,000 aviators in our branch and since 9-11, 48,000 have deployed," Sinclair said. "To put that in perspective, some of those Soldiers are on their third deployment. That’s truly a huge commitment that we have for our aviation forces worldwide. We have more than 600 aircraft deployed in OIF and OEF and we will continue to have that many aircraft deployed for the foreseeable future to support combat operations."

Source : By Sgt. Ken Hall

Army News Service