Drones and Apaches Are the Army’s New Aerial Scouts
Drones and Apaches Are the Army’s New Aerial Scouts – And Not Everyone Is Thrilled by David Axe, War is Boring
… The Kiowa Warriors, built by Bell, have flown nearly a million hours in combat since 2001—that’s around two hours per day, every day, for each of the roughly 100 OH-58s deployed to war zones. Scores of the 34-foot-long copters have been shot down or crashed in battle. Today the Army has just over 300 OH-58Ds, down from a pre-war inventory of 368.
But soon there could be no more Kiowa Warriors in U.S. service. In a surprise move, the Army is proposing to eliminate all the OH-58Ds in the next couple years and replace them with Unmanned Aerial Systems along with upgraded Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, which are much larger and heavier than the Kiowas and typically do not fly as low.
Part of a sweeping reorganization meant to shrink and upgrade the Army and save billions of dollars, the plan to “divest” the Kiowa Warriors has met with fierce resistance from inside the Army…
