U.S. Army official: Service must continue aviation modernization

U.S. Army aviation is on track to modernize and transform—but the momentum must continue, the service's top acquisition official said in a Helicopter News report.

"Everything seems to be on track, whether we're talking Chinooks, Black Hawks, Apaches, UAVs [unmanned air vehicles], heavy lift utility, light utility—all those things are on track either as requirements or in source selection. Where we're going to buy off the shelf, we're going to buy off the shelf," Claude Bolton, the Army's assistant secretary for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, told reporters May 11 at the Army Aviation Association of America symposium in Orlando, Fla.

But Bolton said the effort is not yet over, according to the Helicopter News report. In February 2004, aviation modernization was set on a three-year time line. In January, Bolton and top service aviators challenged industry to move even faster on the programs.

According to Helicopter News, the modernization involves reallocating more than $14 billion across future budgets to accelerate aircraft survivability equipment, modernize some 1,400 aircraft, buy about 800 new aircraft and accelerate UAV development.