Set priorities, make prudent choices and continue to modernize Army aviation systems in ways that provide the best aviation force for the nation within the resources available.
That was a key message that the Army's top aviation executive relayed to attendees at the annual Army Aviation Association of America Summit March 31 in Nashville.
The aviation portfolio represents approximately 25 percent of the Army equipping budget, and is the single largest portfolio in the Army. "That's a lot of responsibility from everyone in this room -- it takes the whole team and the whole enterprise to keep us successful and continue to earn the trust of the Army staff, OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) and our Congress," said Brig. Gen. Bob Marion, program executive officer for aviation. "It's your performance over time that has earned the trust of the people who appropriate dollars that allow us to execute our mission."
Having the largest piece of the equipping peg is good, he said, but it also means that Army aviation will bear a large portion of any sequestration decrements.
"What I really need help doing is getting on contract. It's getting dollars obligated," he said. Although procurement funds are treated as three-year money, Marion stressed that the aviation enterprise needs to treat it as one-year funding. "If it's not obligated by the time we do our annual reviews, we stand a high chance of losing those dollars."
"We have to get to the finish line. That's how we get measured. That's what our Soldiers need us to do. And that's my challenge to you," he said.
He thanked AAAA for its efforts and support in working with the Army to get the approvals needed for increased attendance to the annual event. "Of all the events in the year, this is the one where we gets the most benefit," Marion said. He stressed the need for venues such as this to engage in open dialogue, crosstalk and level set between Combat Aviation Brigade commanders, industry partners and other government agencies.
There are eight Acquisition Category One programs within PEO Aviation including the AH-64E Apache (remanufacture and new build), CH-47F Chinook, UH-60M Black Hawk, UH-72A Lakota, Improved Turbine Engine Program, MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft system, and RQ-7B Shadow Tactical UAS. These programs are considered Major Defense Acquisition Programs usually categorized by the estimated dollars required throughout its life cycle.
"We have the most amount of ACAT I programs of any PEO within the Army, and we have a whole slew of smaller ACAT II and ACAT III programs. We also have special interest programs, so we get a lot of oversight and a lot of help from the building," Marion said.
He thanked the continued support of Army senior leaders and emphasized what Army aviation brings to the total force. "It's the asymmetric advantage that we bring to our Army, and that advantage is Soldiers and formations and delivering combat capability all around the world."
However, Marion expressed concern with the Army's ability to continue to deploy around the world while modernizing its aviation fleet in a way that brings the acquisition strategy together as the Army executes the Aviation Restructure Initiative. "The requirements for our formations are not going down, but that OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) money is going down.
"As we execute the materiel portion of ARI, it is done within these PMs," said Marion, who highlighted a few of the programs within PEO Aviation.
The Cargo Helicopters Project Office is moving forward with the CH-47 Block II, which seeks to buy-back performance that has eroded over time due to the addition of mission equipment packages since the F model was first fielded in 2007. The H-47 Block II is the first increment of the multi-block strategy that implements targeted engineering changes to increase system performance, reduce subsystem weight, and increase the system gross weight from 50,000 to 54,000 pounds.
"If you look at Future Vertical Lift, the focus is on an attack and utility airframe in the near future. … We're not going to get to a heavy variant until later in the FVL cycle, so we have to do something today to meet the requirements. We're trying to stay ahead of the power curve when it comes to delivering that capability out to 2060," Marion said.
PEO Aviation's largest project office is Utility Helicopters, which manages the UH-60 Black Hawk, the UH-72A Lakota, and the Improved Turbine Engine Program. ITEP is the Army's number one priority program when it comes to modernization. "When I took this job 15 months ago, that program was almost not going to happen. There was a lot of hard thinking and prioritization from our branch chief, and there were a lot of tough decisions and trades that had to be made inside our portfolio to make sure that program stayed resourced to a level that the Army headquarters and staff and OSD would allow us to move forward. I feel really good about where we are with ITEP," Marion said.
His biggest surprise however, was the Fixed Wing Aircraft Project Office. "The amount of scrutiny that goes in to our fixed wing fleet for where it fits in terms of global funding inside the portfolio is really, really surprising." He recognized Col. Steven Clark, Fixed Wing project manager, and his team for getting the programs to move forward in the right direction, highlighting the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System, Airborne Reconnaissance Low-Enhanced and the Fixed Wing Utility Aircraft. "We're changing our strategy to best suit what makes sense from integrating our portion of the mission and the PEO IEWS (Intelligence, Electronic Warfare & Sensors) portion," Marion said.
He also talked about the Joint Multi Role/Future Vertical Lift effort, one of the highest priorities for Army aviation modernization. The goal of FVL is to maximize the use the common technology and parts to minimize training, logistics and acquisition costs. "We're working with the Navy on the mission systems architecture demo, which is the cockpit piece -- to achieve commonality," Marion said. The emphasis for common architectural designs within FVL doesn't just make the aircraft system better, it also makes the whole enterprise a lot easier to manager, he noted.
"I've really been impressed, honored and humbled to be able to work with some of the formations out there -- the CABs and all our stakeholders -- we've made so much great progress, but there is a lot of uncertainty ahead of us," Marion said.
He emphasized the need to divest the older systems in the portfolio because "if we do not divest these platforms, we will not be able to afford or modernize our entire portfolio."
"I think we are more nested with the S&T (science and technology) community than we've ever been in a long time," he said. "The fact that the percentage of the aviation budget has actually increased from the last two years is a testament of the high degree of trust and confidence that you have given our senior leaders that you can execute your plan.
"I challenge you to keep doing that."
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