Longbow Apache Trainer: First Deployable Simulator for Army.

AuthorColucci, Frank

Deployable training devices promise new flexibility for the U.S. Army, which wants to become a more mobile fighting force. They are especially important to attack-helicopter battalions, with their expensive aircraft and weapons.

The AH-64D Longbow Apache attack helicopter currently costs about $3,400 an hour to fly and a full load of 16 Hellfire missiles is priced at about $2 million. With the introduction of a new Longbow trainer, crews will be able to fly basic and tactical maneuvers, and engage targets with all onboard weapons--for a few hundred dollars per flight hour.

Economics aside, Apache units in Europe and elsewhere simply don't have live-fire ranges big enough for safe laser-designated missile engagements. The troubled Apache deployment to Albania in 1999 also showed that training flights over difficult, unfamiliar terrain--at night or in adverse weather-can cost lives.

Crews flying the Longbow Apache will be able to train for combat on the first production simulators able to deploy with their aviation battalions. The first trainer should be ready in 2002.

According to the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM), the Boeing Co. Aerospace Support Group has demonstrated that the Longbow Crew Trainer (LCT) can be prepared for shipment by C-5 jet transport in less than five days and ready for training in another five days.

Boeing says that tear-down and setup could be done much faster in a crisis, with contractor crews working around the clock.

The high-fidelity LCT can be used at home bases or deployed in a single C-5 sortie to theaters of operations. Its purpose is to sharpen mission-critical skills of AH-64D pilots and co-pilot/gunners. Longbow Apache crews will be able to fly in accurately-represented AH64D cockpits--in a detailed visual environment filled with interactive threats.

In addition to the LCTs, a deployable Longbow Collective Training System (LCTS) will enable six AH-64D crews to train as a fighting company. Ultimately, Longbow crew trainers and the collective trainers will be networked with other forces over the Defense Simulation Internet. "We've never had a training capability like that in the Army," explains Jim Reynolds, Boeing program manager for Apache aircrew training devices.

Helicopter Modernization

So far, the U.S. Army has funded the modernization of 227 AH-64A Apaches to Longbow AH-64Ds. The service expects to buy 501 Longbow Apaches, and the most recent aviadon force-structure plan--which is reportedly being postponed--puts 10 modernized attack helicopters and one LCT in each multi-function aviation battalion. The D-model Apache requires a new simulator, because it comes with new components, such as a glass cockpit, mast-mounted fire control radar, second-generation thermal imager and digital interconnectivity.

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