The Army Needs A Long-Term Plan For Keeping Its Apache Helicopters Lethal And Survivable

This week the Army declared a winner in the competition to replace its most common combat aircraft, the Black Hawk medium-lift helicopter. The Army intends to buy a next-generation tiltrotor built by Bell/Textron similar in concept to the Marine V-22 Osprey.

It is an important moment for Army Aviation, but one award doesn’t resolve all the modernization challenges facing the rotorcraft fleet. The Army traditionally has operated four basic types of helicopters, and as of today only one type has a clear path forward to mid-century.

The service intends to award a second contract for a new armed reconnaissance (or “scout”) helicopter next year or the year after, and Congress has pretty much insisted that the service move forward on so-called “Block II” upgrades for its Chinook cargo helicopters.

That leaves attack helicopters, meaning mainly the AH-64 Apache APA , as the one major category of combat rotorcraft lacking a long-term plan. Apache is the world’s preeminent airborne tank killer, and plays a pivotal role in Army war plans.

The Army currently is upgrading 812 Apaches to the latest “E” variant, following its longstanding strategy of remanufacturing the attack fleet every dozen years or so since Apache joined the force in 1986.

The newest version will restore airframes to like-new condition while enhancing on-board systems for targeting, self-protection, and communicating with other elements of the force.

But the last of the Apache upgrades will be funded in 2025, and after that the Army has no real plan for keeping the helicopters relevant. That’s a problem, because the service envisions maintaining Apache in the active force through 2050.

Unlike in the case of Black Hawk and the scout helicopters, there is no proposed successor to Apache waiting in the wings. Like the Abrams tank, the Apache looks to be a durable contributor to overmatch on the battlefield for decades to come—if it is kept current with the latest warfighting technology.

However, the Army has requested only $10 million in 2023 for researching options beyond the AH-64E, and that suggests its attention is focused elsewhere. The House Armed Services Committee warned in its report on the 2023 defense authorization bill that more money needs to be allocated today for developing future modernization options if Apache is to remain lethal and survivable beyond the 2030s.

The committee recommended adding $25 million to the $10 million request for developing future upgrades.

In the aftermath of Monday’s decision to buy a Bell/Textron replacement of Black Hawk, the absence of an actionable long-term plan for modernizing Apache has important implications for the rotorcraft industrial base.

Apache is manufactured at the former McDonnell Douglas helicopter plant in Mesa, Arizona by Boeing BA (a contributor to my think tank). In fact, it is the principal product that keeps 4300 workers employed there, plus many others at 380 suppliers scattered across the country.

If the Lockheed Martin LMT -Boeing team bidding for a Black Hawk successor had won the competition, then Boeing might have smoothly transitioned its Mesa workforce to the new program. But assuming the competition outcome is sustained, there now is no program to take the place of Apache once the last “E” variant is delivered in 2028.

That means one of the nation’s four biggest rotorcraft industrial sites could close, with significant consequences for the Arizona economy.

The more important issue though, at least as far as warfighters are concerned, is that Apache will soon need further upgrades to perform its battlefield mission. The pace of innovation in military aviation has quickened to a point where improvements in on-board hardware and software need to be continuous to stay ahead of countries like China.

For instance, the Army is buying a next-generation engine to power its future scout helicopters, but without improvements to other dynamic components of the AH-64E like the gearbox, the helicopter will not be able to take full advantage of the horsepower delivered by the new engine.

The helicopter also needs to be equipped for a future generation of “air-launched effects,” meaning cheap unmanned vehicles that can extend the battlespace coverage of the helicopter. The “E” variant is already capable of controlling unmanned aerial vehicles, but the air-launched effects will require refinements beyond what the current variant can effectively utilize.

Many other improvements will be needed as the century progresses, from enhanced ballistic tolerance for the airframe to advanced electronics for joint interoperability to faster fusion of sensor collections. These upgrades, if and when they occur, should be accompanied by an open-systems architecture that maximizes the flexibility of future designs.

But you need a comprehensive, actionable plan to pursue all that, and right now the Army doesn’t have one.

The House Armed Services Committee was on the right track in recommending more money for developing future refinements of the Apache, and the Army ought to respond by putting together a long-term plan for how it will proceed.

One thing the Army doesn’t need is for Apache to get the same treatment that Chinook did, where lawmakers stepped in to force improvements because the service didn’t have a clear plan going forward.

The Army should maintain control of its aviation modernization agenda by generating a long-term modernization plan for its attack helicopter fleet that convinces Congress things are moving in the right direction.

As noted above, Apache integrator Boeing contributes to my think tank.