Ray

Source: Armor, July-Aug 2004.

Attack helicopters offer armor leaders third-dimension maneuver

Steve Miles

CPT Stephen W Miles is commander, C Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment (Attack), 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Hood, TX, currently in Tikrit, Iraq.
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Maintenance

Helicopters, like modern tanks, are very maintenance intensive by virtue of their complex systems, but the sky has no tolerance for malfunctions. If a tank throws a track, it stops; if a helicopter throws a blade, it is catastrophic. As a result, helicopters have many inspections required at intervals as short as 10 hours of flight time. These inspections and the inevitable repairs they require take significant amounts of maintenance time. Further, Apaches are required to be completely overhauled after just 250 hours of flight time, which is called a "phase" Just as an armor leader takes care to ensure his tanks do not all require semiannual services at the same time, aviation leaders must ensure their aircraft do not all reach phase at the same time. While in Iraq, our battalion completed an average of four phase overhauls per month and this drove our sustainable flying rate of 1,000 hours per month, or 333 hours per company.

Flight Time

Based on the above sustainable flying rate of 333 hours per company per month, that equates to about 12 aircraft hours a day. Maintenance test flights, required pilot training, and evaluations will take a portion of this time, so do not think an operational control (OPCON) company "owes" exactly 12 hours of air missions per day--12 hours is more of a total target pace to sustain continued mission support. Twelve aircraft hours flown by a team of two Longbows, results in six mission hours per day.

Fighter management is a tool that keeps aviators and aircraft safe to fly another day. Inadequately rested crews flying $24 million aircraft just does not pass the common-sense test. In our unit, crew rest means 10 hours off between 14-hour duty days, and aviators who do not get quality rest can self-ground. One might think that this self-grounding option would lead to abuses, but in practice, it really does not. Attack aviators are professionals with a strong sense of personal responsibility and duty.

Each aviation unit has a standard operating procedure (SOP) that specifies dally flight hour limits. In Iraq, we used a rough guideline--8 hours of day flight or 5 hours of night flight during one duty day, assuming the aircraft has sufficient flight time before the next maintenance inspection or component replacement. Finally, aircrews may not fly at night past the 10th hour of their duty day.

Our attack company has six aircraft and six crews. Just like with armor crews, the number one attack aviation crew rule is "never leave your wingman," so we are organized into three teams of two aircraft each. [b] Our default posture is one day team, one evening team, and one late-night team. Each team adjusts sleep schedules to wake just prior to their shift. This provides the ability to support short-notice missions, 24 hours a day. If a unit requests more than one team in the air, we can adjust if given enough notice. We require about a 12-hour notice for two teams, and a 24-hour notice to mass all three teams.

The Apache has several components that warm up slower than Grandma's vacuum-tube television. In the heat of the desert, run-up times are extended due to waiting for components, such as the FLIR, to cool down. Without an advance mission notice, it takes approximately 2 hours to get Apaches airborne. If we receive a forewarning that we may be required to fly, we will preflight and run-up the aircraft in advance to make sure everything checks out. This is called "REDCON 3," and allows ns to be airborne within 30 minutes. If we really think we will be needed, we can sit in the aircraft with the auxiliary power unit running, which is referred to as "REDCON 2," and be airborne within 15 minutes, but this burns fuel and is not sustainable in high temperatures. One might think Apaches should always be at "REDCON 3," but remember, getting the aircraft preflighted and ready to go starts the aircrews' duty day and could significantly curtail them from flying when they are needed.

Our attack company has a total of 27 personnel on the modification table of organization and equipment and less on the ground in Iraq. Consisting of only officer pilots and enlisted crew chiefs, these personnel can be considered 10-level operators. All 20-level unit maintenance takes place at the battalion or above. If an attack company is physically separated from battalion-level maintenance, it's just a matter of time until there are several nonmission-capable aircraft. Keep in mind that broken aircraft cannot just be towed back to the unit maintenance collection point. Apaches cover large distances rapidly, 100km is a 25-minute flight; weigh the value of dislocating an attack company from its parent battalion carefully. In most situations, a liaison officer (LNO) from the attack company and/or forward aviation refueling will be a better solution.

Ground troops know that the enemy does not attack when Apaches are flying overhead. Commanders want air cover 24/7 because it keeps the enemy at bay. Unfortunately, keeping "iron in the sky" indefinitely is not sustainable, so we must make efficient use of the time we can fly.

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"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

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HAKUNA MATATA