Aviation and Sequestration

In his recent testimony to the Congress’ Armed Services Committees, Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno stated that the future of Army Aviation is in danger due to the impending budget cuts brought about by Sequestration.  

General Odierno asserted that the budget cuts would drastically reduce the effectiveness of Army Aviation, sending pilots and crews into the fight with “a hell of a lot less capability.”  Although Odierno did not go into graphic detail about the cuts that Army Aviation would face, he did predict that the Army Center for Aviation Excellence at Fort Rucker, the Army’s training center for pilots, would be hit particularly hard.  Early estimates indicate that the Center would ultimately stand to lose 500 student pilot slots, approximately 37,000 hours of flight training, and 250 grounded helicopters as a direct result of Sequestration’s cuts. For years, the Center has worked to ensure that the training process is as efficient as possible, but this loss would certainly undo those efforts. This would be a huge blow to aviators, crews, and rotary wing platforms that have been already been characterized as “aging and overworked.”

One of the platforms in most dire need of upgrade, the Bell OH-58 Kiowa, has been on Army leader’s radar for quite some time. While Aviation staff last viewed potential replacements for the Kiowa in June of 2012, the latest budget cuts are likely to present another setback for updating a platform that has been in continuous service since 1969.  

This news is sharply is contrasted reports that the Army has inked two new production contracts with Lockheed Martin earlier this month, to continue refitting the Apache platform. On February 13^th, Lockheed announced that they had received a total of $161 million in contracts to upgrade the Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight/ Pilot Night Vision Sensor (M-TADS/PNVS) systems on the Apache. While the M-TADS/PNVS Director offered that “these contracts demonstrate the customer’s commitment to ensuring our soldiers have superior capabilities as they carry out their missions,” one has two wonder exactly where the commitment to superior capabilities and sequestration will come to blows. The Army’s Chief of Staff has testified before Congress about the potential inability to generate pilots. What good is an Apache without an aviator?