Air Warfare, Land Warfare
Green Berets assigned to fifth Special Forces Group (Airborne) conduct sniper coaching from a MH-6 Little Bird with the one hundred and sixtieth Special Operation Aviation Regiment (SOAR) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky on March 27, 2024. (U.S. Army picture by Staff Sgt. Brandon J. White)
SOF WEEK 2024 — The Army’s shock resolution earlier this 12 months to cancel the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program has breathed new life into Boeing’s A/MH-6 Little Bird for particular operators, with one Special Operations Command (SOCOM) official describing an ongoing enhancement as tantamount to a “resurrection.”
The Block III upgrade in process for the Little Bird designates the chopper because the A/MH-6R. But following the tip of FARA, “that R is not a Romeo,” mentioned Steven Smith, SOCOM’s rotary wing program government officer, on the SOF Week convention right here in Tampa on Tuesday. “I’m calling it Little Bird ‘resurrection.’ It’s the future for Little Bird.”
SOCOM had beforehand deliberate for FARA to take the function of the AH-6, however this system’s cancellation “changed our equation,” Smith mentioned. “And so now we don’t have that solution available.”
Smith defined the “R” upgrade effort incorporates a brand new fuselage that reinforces the Little Bird’s design restrict to five,000 kilos. The overhaul additional contains new tools like a smaller mission laptop and interfaces for next-gen comms. Smith mentioned the overarching effort ought to keep on by the 2031 to 2032 timeframe.
“That’s about a 15-year life we’ve predicted on that fuselage. I think that gives us a little bit of time to allow the Army to figure out what it’s going to do for its scout requirement,” Smith mentioned. “So FARA has been canceled, but the requirement itself to have something that can see, sense, fix adversaries over the horizon, that still exists. And so whether that’s going to be unmanned systems or some sort of manned-unmanned teaming, we’ll have that time to figure that out. And then we’ll do incremental changes along the way.”
The FARA cancellation isn’t the one aviation fallout from the Army’s rotorcraft shakeup. Smith mentioned SOCOM can be feeling the consequences of the Army’s resolution to delay manufacturing of the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP). The command was anticipating to include ITEP for the its specialized MH-60M Black Hawk helicopters made by Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky.
“We had planned to do some work with the ITEP engine. But that was predicated on the Army getting that qualification done first,” he mentioned. “So we know that they’re going to continue their qualification of that engine, but they’ve delayed the procurement so we think there’s a four- to five-year shift based on the aviation re-balance.”
Even although platforms just like the Black Hawk might now have to stay round till the 2050s or longer, Smith nonetheless emphasised the worth of the Army’s bigger Future Vertical Lift (FVL) effort that encompasses different components, just like the in-development Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft.
Specifically, Smith described the worth of the FVL “ecosystem,” which he mentioned SOCOM was “counting on” for brand spanking new enhancements like a modular open system structure that may assist foster objectives like a standard Army helo cockpit. That function is predicted for future plane, and although SOCOM would love it for legacy platforms, Smith mentioned the command is “not really sure yet” how that may work.
The command has many ambitions, Smith mentioned, however a good funds restricts what’s sensible. That’s the place, he mentioned, business is available in.
“I need your help. SOCOM cannot do this alone. If you look at the percentage of the SOCOM budget compared to the overall national defense budget, it’s miniscule,” he advised business attendees. “So I want your funding in the proper applied sciences to assist us area superior functionality.
“But additionally, I need your help with controlling cost and with quality assurance. And so since COVID, we’ve seen over a 40 percent growth in material cost,” he continued. “We’ve got to find a way to be able to make things in this country again, affordably.”
Smith additionally implored business to simply accept decrease margins on their sustainment work — usually the costliest portion of a program and a profitable alternative for distributors — for the great of nationwide safety.
“We’ve got to do something about obsolescence. Just because you can’t make 40 percent on a product doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be supporting that,” he mentioned. “There’s got to be some folks that are out there willing to make a 10 percent margin and keep things working.”
