Urban conflicts shape new recon helicopter.

Col. Mark Hayes and Lt. Col. Neil Thurgood are brimming with confidence while facing a Herculean task. Their mission is to develop and deploy a new, armed reconnaissance helicopter within four years.

They admit that there are many who don't believe they can pull it off.

"Even the people who were skeptical have moved mountains to keep this program on track," said Hayes, who serves as system manager of the Army's reconnaissance/attack training and doctrine command at Fort Rucker, Ala.

"There are a lot of skeptics out there," said Thurgood, product manager of the armed reconnaissance helicopter (ARH) at the Army's Redstone Arsenal, Ala.

"We will not get another chance at this. This program must be successful."

Thurgood vowed that the new aircraft's first flight will take place March 22. The goal is to have the first unit equipped with 30 aircraft and eight trainers by September 2008. He expressed little doubt that they will hit these marks. "Every second counts," he said at an aviation conference sponsored by the Association of the United States Army.

"It's important that we measure what we're doing every minute of every day," Thurgood said. "If you just kind of wave your hand and say we're going to get there eventually, you probably will get there eventually, but we just don't know when eventually is."

The ARH will replace the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, which has served since 1991. The need is acute. The Army requires 368 Kiowas, but fewer than 350 remain. When one goes down, there are none left in the inventory to replace them. In one recent incident, a Kiowa crashed near Mosul, Iraq, killing both pilots. The Kiowa has given the Army one of the greatest returns on investment of any aviation program, Hayes said.

"We've been asking this airplane to do a lot of hard things for a long time well beyond its service life and well beyond the capability we designed," he added.

The need for an armed reconnaissance helicopter in urban battlefields remains strong, although there are always challenges to operating in such environments, Hayes said. The four-year development track the Army has laid out for the ARH will take place within the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts, barring no unforeseen troop withdrawals before 2008.

In a 2005 annual report, David Duma, the Defense Department's operational test and evaluation director, noted that the ARH schedule is "aggressive." He cautioned against temptations to add new mission requirements during the development phase.

Army Capt. Jeff Kalil, a reservist who flew while on active duty in Baghdad from March to December 2003, told National Defense that the urban landscape poses many obstacles to Kiowa operators. He described a typical scenario as being similar to police operations when officers track suspects down alleyways or streets in coordination with forces on the ground. Just like U.S. police, if a target flees into a building, the helicopter stands by as personnel on the ground attempt to flush him out into the open.

Complications arise when pilots must keep track of the buildings, which vary in height, as they change speed and altitude to avoid ground fire. The two-pilot crew must do all this while maintaining radio contact with ground forces, often on different radio systems.

The two theaters have influenced the new aircraft's design, Hayes said, and it should be able to serve in all environments.

"Somebody has to go to the cave and root out the dragon." Scout aircraft need to be responsive to the ground maneuver commander and provide information about the battle space. It also has to offer adequate protection for the crew.

To fulfill these requirements, and deliver the aircraft on time, the two managers are purposely avoiding any unproven or experimental technologies. Commercial off-the-shelf solutions, or systems already deployed on other military aircraft, are key.

"This program is not about inventing new processes and new technologies," Thurgood said. The two central criteria are technologies that work and that pilots truly need, he said.

The ARH, like the Kiowa, will be based on the commercial Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. 407. Its engine will be the relatively new Honeywell International HTS900, a derivative of the LTS-101, which has more than 8.5 million operating hours. The cockpit computer system will have little in the way of new software. Of the 880,000 lines of code needed, 845,000 have already been written.

The ARH'S updated engine will provide more speed and power than the Kiowa. Combatant commanders have indicated that they want the new scout's systems to be equal to or better than the Kiowa's. As a reconnaissance aircraft, the new helicopter is designed to be agile. Its base weight will be 3,882 pounds with a 223-mile range with the ability to remain airborne for 2.3 hours within a 62.1-mile radius, according to Bell.

Kalil said such long-range missions are rare. Shorter patrols along roads are common, and his unit was often asked to fly in an area just to maintain a "presence." Standoff sensors were used to locate black marketers setting up shop. If they spotted someone selling weapons by the side of the road, they would call in the location for ground forces to investigate. Their orders were to not engage enemies, but to report and withdraw.

Hayes said the ARH will be able to fly down streets and alleys to support ground forces moving from building to building to root out insurgents. Armaments will be similar to the Kiowa, which has 2.75-inch rockets, a .50-caliber machine gun, and Hellfire missiles.

A specific sensor package hasn't been chosen either, but it will include a forward-looking infrared sensor, magnification capabilities for daytime operations with stand-off range to see in complex terrain.

"Helicopters are a tough business in the urban fight," Hayes added.

Since pilot safety is the number one concern, the ARH will include armor to deflect small arms fire, as well as a standard aircraft survivability suite to help defeat infrared and radar threats. However, the increased speed and maneuverability, allowing pilots to escape hairy situations, will make the ARH more survivable than the Kiowa, Hayes noted.

The ARH design has been directly influenced by lessons learned in Afghanistan and Iraq, Hayes said, although it will be designed to operate in any terrain.

Kalil said the increased engine power will be effective, but he didn't agree with the "evolutionary versus revolutionary approach" the Army is taking.

"What would be revolutionary would be something that would enhance the safety, enhance the efficiency, reduce the maintenance time and reduce the cost per hour of flying the aircraft," Kalil said.

At the top of his list would be an airbag that would deploy in the event of a crash. "They put in them cars. The thought is 'why not put them in a helicopter?'"

He would like to see better optics, more dependable weapons and a reliable computer system that manages not only avionics and systems, but efficiently manages communications.

"When you really start getting busy, the last thing you need is some clunky radio shorting out on you or dropping the secure channel," Kalil said.

To ensure they are delivering what the war fighters need, pilots, maintenance and logistics personnel are working alongside Thurgood at Redstone Arsenal during the development process. The pilots who are taking part in the development and flight tests are the very ones who will be assigned to the first unit.

Kiowa personnel are also in the office "so we don't have to relearn the lessons of the past," Thurgood said. "As we make decisions, we can make them quickly because all the key players are co-located with us."

It is the user from the start designing this aircraft, "not industry saying 'we think we know what you want,'" Hayes said. "We don't make a decision until it flies with pilots who have flown in combat."

AS the 2008 date approaches, more pilots will join the process. The "first unit equipped" standard will include the 30 aircraft, all of the support equipment, and personnel and everything needed to complete training and go to combat, Hayes said. The Army requested $141 million for fiscal year 2007 to buy eight aircraft.

Logistics concerns have also been factored into the aircraft's development. It is designed to be self-sustaining.

"We can't have a huge logistics tail spread out over the battlefield," Hayes said.

Two ARHs should fit on a C-130 and be mission ready within 15 minutes of arrival, according to Bell.

Hayes joked that the accelerated timetable has caused his hair to turn gray and Thurgood's to fall out. Nevertheless, neither wavered from their assertion that the milestones will be met.

"Speed matters," Thurgood said. "We're managing on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute status."