First U.S. heavy attack reconnaissance squadron with AH-64 helicopter and RQ-7Bv2 drone

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First U.S. heavy attack reconnaissance squadron with AH-64 helicopter and RQ-7Bv2 drone.
The 1/501st Aviation Battalion with the 1st Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade on Fort Bliss, Texas, became first unit converted to a heavy attack reconnaissance squadron, equipped with AH-64 Apache Longbow helicopters and the new tactical common data link-equipped RQ-7Bv2 Shadows.
     
The 1/501st Aviation Battalion with the 1st Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade on Fort Bliss, Texas, became first unit converted to a heavy attack reconnaissance squadron, equipped with AH-64 Apache Longbow helicopters and the new tactical common data link-equipped RQ-7Bv2 Shadows. An RQ-7B Shadow v2 prepares to launch.
     
Manned-unmanned operations using helicopters linked with unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, have been used by the Army for a number of years.
 

However, no single unit has ever actually been assigned to both assets until now, said Lt. Col. Tory Burgess, product manager for Shadow Tactical UAS.

Lt. Col. RJ Garcia, commander of 3-6, said, "It's an improved capability that supports Soldiers on the ground as they execute the various missions that we assign them. Nothing is stove-piped now. We now have the ability to share across multiple levels."

Until now, aviators, working with Soldiers on the ground, have been using manned-unmanned teaming, "but doing it with friction points because they were never in the same unit," Garcia said.

For instance, a Shadow unit in a brigade combat team might be in the same forward operating base somewhere and they'd go over to the aviators and say "we'll connect you to our Shadows. Let's do this," and they'd make it so, he said.

"They've been building this synergy themselves, but for different commanders," Garcia said. However, "sometimes that tasking wouldn't support them working together" and operating through two chains of command.

In May 2014, Garcia's Soldiers conducted "a successful operational test" with the Apache-Shadow v2, held as part of Network Integration Evaluation 14.2. That is significant, he said, because the same Soldiers doing the testing are now doing the manned-unmanned teaming.

Operators, maintainers and leadership are undergoing final training on the new system. That training is projected to be completed by the end of May 2015, he said.

Burgess said that "we are finally getting to the point where we can field two to three [Shadow v2] systems a month to the entire U.S. Army, including the combat aviation brigades."

The next units to be equipped with the Shadow v2 are the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade this summer and the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade by the end of fiscal year 2016, he said.
     
The 1/501st Aviation Battalion with the 1st Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade on Fort Bliss, Texas, became first unit converted to a heavy attack reconnaissance squadron, equipped with AH-64 Apache Longbow helicopters and the new tactical common data link-equipped RQ-7Bv2 Shadows. AH-64 Apache attack helicopter