Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES
The US Army has cancelled an engineering and cost study contract to retrofit the Boeing AH64A/D Apache with a new second generation forward looking infrared (FLIR), but says it is committed to upgrading the attack helicopter with a new system by 2004.
The study contract was axed after Lockheed Martin protested to the US Army that it had not been given the usual 45 days to prepare a bid. The original contract proposal, which appeared to favour Boeing, has given way to a longer-term contest which will pit the Lockheed Martin system against an advanced FLIR developed by Raytheon TI Systems.
The US Army says $75 million has been allocated for the programme and is "in the Congressional funding pipeline". If this survives the subsequent budget hearings, the intention had been to use the money to upgrade 24 AH-64s forming the battalion based in Kosovo. Since the "urgency has decreased there", says the US Army, the second-generation FLIR programme office is considering earmarking the funds for the overall upgrade competition. "That way, we won't end up with 24 standalone units that will need supporting and which will probably be superseded as the technology in the systems evolves into something better," it adds.
The competition is therefore expected to proceed at a slightly accelerated pace, with the possibility of production starting as early as 2003. Additional funding to help speed up the programme is also expected from possible savings that could come with a shift to prime vendor support. Under this scheme, vendors will take over all contract details "nose-to-tail", says the army, and cover everything from development and production to logistics and support.
Lockheed Martin's bid will be based on the second-generation FLIR developed for the RAH-66 Comanche electro-optical system. The Raytheon TI Systems offer will rely on the FLIR undergoing test as part of the Advanced Helicopter Pilotage Sensor programme. This incorporates a cooled scanning array with a 480 vertical by four horizontal matrix of mercury cadmium telluride photodiodes. It can be operated either with manual level and gain, or automatically.
The army had originally made finding a replacement navigation FLIR a priority in the wake of the Kosovo conflict, where it was forced to delay the Apache's operational deployment to allow it to train and requalify crews to use night vision goggles (NVG).
The NVGs were needed to supplement the FLIR for en route navigation, because the effect of infrared crossover and air and ground temperatures "tends to wash out your picture in the FLIR. If you put in FLIR 2 you don't need NVGs," explains Col Mike Hackerson, US Army deputy director of planning.
Source: Flight International
