Army tests Apache networking

Army tests Apache networking
By Kris Osborn - Defense News
Posted : Saturday Oct 13, 2007 16:56:04 EDT

Circling hundreds of feet in the air during an August test flight at the U.S. Army’s Fort Dix, N.J., a surrogate AH-64D Apache Block III attack helicopter beamed live video images back and forth with dismounted soldiers on the ground for the first time, said Army and Boeing officials.

“Every soldier had a small computer screen,” said Larry Plaster, Boeing manager of Apache modernization programs.

The exercise was an effort to demonstrate improved C4ISR capabilities for the Block III Apache, a faster, more lethal, networked variant of the attack helicopter slated to field by 2011.

The test was designed to prove the helicopter’s ability to move voice, video and information faster and more efficiently across a battlefield communications network using software- programmable radios.

Earlier versions were demonstrated last February at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. in FCS’s experiment 1.1., where a surrogate Block III Apache was able to view live images from a nearby UAV. The Fort Dix test extended this kind of connectivity between the Apache cockpit and individual soldiers for the first time, Plaster said. The software-programmable radio in the Apache cockpit was ITT’s Soldier Level Integrated Communications Environment device used by the Army’s Future Force Warrior. The Apache will ultimately fly with the Joint Tactical Radio Systems, Air Maritime Fixed radios, which are to be ready by 2012.

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Boeing received a three-year, $173 million Army contract Oct. 9 to help supply hundreds of AH-64D Apache helicopters by having spare parts in place ahead of time.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/10/defense_apache_071013/