Despite more than $1 trillion spent by Washington on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, debate continues at thePentagon about what tactics—and technologies—from those battles will endure.
U.S. Army officials continue to debate the need, for example, for vehicles that dedicate substantial weight toward protection from roadside bombs.
However, momentum is solidly behind fielding manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) technologies for Army aviation platforms. Combining video feeds and weapons from manned and unmanned platforms provides significantly improved situational awareness to troops on the ground and dramatically improved efficiency in focusing weapons to support ground elements. This combination also could make Army ground units less reliant on aircraft from other services for overwatch and air support.
The MUM-T vision has taken its latest step with deployment of the first Boeing AH-64E Apache “Echo” attack helicopter units in Afghanistan this year; this is the first Army rotorcraft with purpose-built MUM-T technology fused into its avionics. The Echo includes software and systems that allow its pilot to fully remotely control a Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft’s sensor package, a capability hastily added to older models in fielded units to support operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The MQ-1C Gray Eagle’s standard payload includes the Raytheon Common Sensor Payload electro-optical/infrared sensor with a laser designator, Northrop Grumman STARlite synthetic aperture radar capable of tracking moving ground targets, a communications relay and signals-intelligence collector.

Nearly half of the U.S. Army’s Gray Eagles have been delivered for use. Credit: General Atomics










Echo pilots will be able to fully control the unmanned air system (UAS) flight path from the cockpit, extending the reach of the helicopter with the Gray Eagle’s long-range sensors and Hellfire weapons.
In testing, Army pilots were able to fire on targets outside the helicopter’s own targeting system range because the Gray Eagle, flying forward, designated them. This not only keeps Apaches farther from lethal airspace but allows for an extended time to engage and, if necessary, reengage, targets to insure a kill. Results of the tests and anecdotes from the field have been so dramatic that one Army officer says the Apache’s value increased substantially enough with the inclusion of Gray Eagle that the service could save money by buying fewer of the helicopters without compromising mission effectiveness. 
Gray Eagle data also are piped to ground-based operators using the new One-System Remove Video Terminal (OSRVT), a fixed or mobile device that allows remote users to view video feeds and will enable them to control the UAS to gather intelligence.
The service is continuing to procure the Boeing Apache helicopter, dubbed “The Monster” by the Taliban, according to Army officials. And nearly half of the Army’s Gray Eagles have been delivered. Of 101 delivered, 17 are dedicated to the development program, says Steve Adamson, Gray Eagle program manager for General Atomics. Eighty-four of the aircraft, derived from the Predator air vehicle used by the Air Force and Central Intelligence Agency, have been delivered for operational use; the last is expected in fiscal 2018. The Army is fielding Gray Eagles for 15 companies, including 10 active Army divisions and special operations and Army intel units.







Army officials are continuing tests to improve MUM-T. Apache crews and OSRVT users will be able to remotely control both the Gray Eagle’s flight and payloads—including the Army’s small Shadow system (see page 48)—under the supervision of the unmanned systems’ operators beginning in 2015, says Doug Wolfe, interoperability lead in the Common Systems Integration Product Office for the Army. “We have been performing a limited form of MUM-T on the battlefield for some time now. Specifically, the UAS provide video and metadata to Apache D model and OSRVT,” he says. “The Apache E model is in theater today and can do some payload and aircraft control, but the testing that we are doing now is maturing that capability.” 
This work builds on the Army’s earlier Manned/Unmanned System -Integration Capability demonstrations in 2011, which proved that remote payload control was possible (AW&ST Aug. 25, 2011, p. 57).
Even as this is being tested, Wolfe is eyeing more improvements in MUM-T. Among the options for future fielding are sensor control for infantry commanders riding in the backs ofUH-60 Black Hawks or CH-47 Chinooks to provide improved situational awareness as they approach landing zones. Wolfe also suggests that sensors on the Army’s bevy of fixed-wing intelligence collectors can be fed into the terminals. “All this is possible because we put the standards and requirements on how to do this in the Army’s interoperability profiles, and everyone follows those to implement the capabilities,” he says. Eventually, Apache pilots could control weapons on the Gray Eagle from afar, expanding and extending the helicopter’s lethal magazine, he adds.
This is a very tactical mode of using the UAS; the Air Force’s Reaper, by contrast, is controlled via satellite link from operators in Nevada. Capable of higher altitudes and longer endurance, Reapers are included in the Combined Air Operations Center’s highly coordinated daily air tasking order (ATO) to support a variety of intelligence needs. Gray Eagles are only sometimes included in the ATO and are more often under direct control of brigade-level commanders.
Even as the Gray Eagle, first deployed in 2011, is being produced, the Army is eyeing improvements to it. On its own dime, General Atomics has begun flight-testing the Improved Gray Eagle (IGE), which features new composites and a wider fuselage to roughly double endurance to more than 50 hr. with an external fuel pod; payload is slated for a 50% increase. Based on experience with the Predator and Reaper, “we made an assumption that everybody wants increased endurance,” says Adamson.