The Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow will need further upgrades if it is to stay in operational service until at least 2027, the US Army acknowledges. It is prioritising a list of Block 3 improvements recently proposed by the programme office.
"You can't allow a high technology platform like the AH-64D to sit around for another 25 years without doing something to it. The question then comes when do you want to do it," says Col Ralph Pallotta, US Army Apache project manager. The army wants funding in the 2004-09 budget planning cycle for at least some of the upgrades that are being sought.
Top of the list is improving the performance of the Longbow radar, resurrecting axed funding for the ITT Suite of Integrated Radio Frequency Countermeasures and BAE Systems Suite of Infrared Countermeasures, and improving the helicopter's transportability. The army also wants to standardise the Apache's engine on the General Electric T700-710D planned for the upgraded Sikorsky UH-60M.
Source: Flight International
