The Army’s top aviation acquisition leader engaged industry members and community leaders at the way forward for Army aviation during an “Update for Industry” June 18 on the Summit.

Maj. Gen. Tim Crosby, program executive officer for aviation, spoke to members of the local chapter of the Association of the U.S. Army, where he emphasized balance, communication and shared resources, and ensuring that Army aviation maintains its relevancy with ground commanders.

“The reason our budget was so stable for thus long is that I’ve not had to fight for it,” Crosby said. Nothing happens within the battlefield in Afghanistan without Army aviation, he said, if it is to support Soldiers in combat, resupply, route clearance convoys, MEDEVAC support, or other missions.

“Our aviators available in the market today, working hand-in-hand with that ground commander, have established a rapport that has shown the cost of Army aviation, and we must maintain that,” Crosby said.

Modernization efforts to support Operations Iraqi Freedom, New Dawn, and Enduring Freedom had increased the aviation acquisition budget to about $8 billion to support overseas contingency operations. “With our current budget climate, it will be difficult to keep up what we’ve got,” Crosby said.

In order to stay relevant inside the eyes of the bottom commander, the military must continue to coach because it fights.

“We are their critical enablers inside the battlefield, and we shall break that bond if we don’t train together, and if we’re unable to support them on the level they want once they call on us,” Crosby said.

He said the Army’s natural tendency, with a declining budget, is to highlight individual training. “We have the right individual training on this planet,” he said. However the Army doesn’t do besides in collective training.

So what does this mean for the military aviation community?

“We must find the right way to reduce sustainment costs and to extend the efficiency with our training devices,” Crosby said. These include devices similar to flight simulators that more realistically simulate flight training on the proficiency levels aviators need. “We can maintain proficiency with less flight hours, in order that the flights hours that we do have, lets be doing the collective training with our brothers at the ground,” he said.

Other challenges, Crosby emphasized, are modernization programs that Army aviation must insert in a decreased budget climate.

“Every one in all our aircraft is approaching 50 years old, or near 50,” Crosby said. The CH-47 Chinook, OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, AH-64 Apache and UH-60 Black Hawk are the Army’s main aviation platforms. The only real new aviation assets the military is purchasing are unmanned aircraft systems.

“As we glance to the long run, we’re going to want some new system,” Crosby said. Citing the impressive Army aviation assets that supported Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Crosby said, had someone not had the vision to work out Army aviation’s future, the military would was fighting the Iraq war within the early 1990s with UH-1 Hueys and AH-1G Cobras.

“We should have a look at a better technology. Identify what’s that next capability, and we need to be willing to trade requirements,” he said.

Crosby emphasized that with today’s resource constraints, the military ought to be willing to trade with what’s available in technology, what’s affordable, in order that the purchase community can “feed substantiated information” to the necessities leaders at Fort Rucker, and together, make equitable trades.

Because 75 percent of the aviation fleet is in utility and attack, the main target of the long run Vertical Lift can be to resource that combined variant inside the FVL fleet. The FVL concept is to create a brand new rotorcraft that uses new technology, materials, and designs which are quicker, have further range, better payload, are more reliable, easier to take care of and operate, have lower operating costs and may reduce logistical footprints. “We wish to increase the variety, increase the payload, operate in high/hot, and increase our airspeed,” Crosby said.

In order to execute FVL and other modernization programs, the military must keep in mind that the necessities should be tradable. “We understand and quantify, what’s the cost of airspeed? And is the price of that airspeed worth it?” Crosby said. “We consider all those trades and determine, what’s the ‘best bang for our buck.’”

Crosby also discussed other modernization efforts including the enhanced Turbine Engine Program, that is being developed because the next generation engine for utility and attack helicopters. The ITEP will provide significantly increased operational capability, fuel efficiency, range and payload to fulfill Army mission requirements, including operations in high/hot environments, and lowers maintenance actions for the utility and attack variants of the Army’s helicopter fleet.

Combating Degraded Visual Environment in rotary wing aircraft would not pose as much of a challenge with newer platforms similar to the UH-60M, AH-64E, and CH-47F, nevertheless it presents a huge challenge with analog platforms, Crosby said. Digitized platforms are easier to enhance upon because much of that’s software development and software improvement.

One of PEO Aviation’s primary efforts is to modernize the UH-60L, taking existing airframes which have analog cockpits and updating them with digitized cockpits. The true goal, in response to the Army’s requirements, is to make the L as a twin of the M model as possible, in order that when an aviator steps into an M model or an L model digital, she or he sees the identical cockpit by way of graphics and digitized capability. The pilot might not necessarily see the identical box that displays the graphics, however it will look and operate the exact same.

“We also desire a new training helicopter. If we lose one in flight school, we can’t use that because we don’t build one anymore,” Crosby said.

The Army can be gazing replacing the C-12 fixed wing aircraft. “They were flying around for a similar period of time as we’ve been flying Chinooks,” Crosby said. “We have to replace it with a Future Utility Aircraft.”

Injecting these modernization programs in a declining budget might be difficult, and armed forces aviation can have its share of challenges, he said.

The natural tendency, because the Army faces budget down turns, force structure changes, and sequestration, is for everybody to place their silos and guards up, he said.

Crosby challenged industry members to think strategically, to observe the long-term goals and the results to government and industry in the event that they don’t interact. His biggest concern, are the aptitude implications to the third and fourth tier vendors.

“The big industry leaders will survive this,” he said. “The third and fourth tier vendors will struggle so much more.

“You are all leaders in industry. That’s why you’re here. I challenge you to knock those silos down. We have to lock arm-in-arm and understand each other’s challenges and work through it together.”

He gave the instance of the hot signing of the CH-47F multi-year two production contract, which brought the yank taxpayers greater than $810 million in cost savings, and put stability within the industrial sector for the following five years. Success may be achieved when industry and government entities partner as one team to realize quality and affordability goals.

“I believe we’ll all get through this if we interact,” Crosby said.

At the top of the breakfast, Kris McBride, newly inducted president for the local AUSA chapter, thanked Crosby for speaking with AUSA members and for answering all their questions. She presented him with a book titled “U.S. Army Aircraft Since 1947: An Illustrated Reference” that may be donated to the Post Library in Crosby’s honor.

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