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Longbow Dies In the Mountains
   
August 21, 2006: The U.S. Army is stripping its helicopter gunships of some high-tech electronics, in order to save weight, and the hassle of maintenance. The AH-64D Apache Longbow has a radar based fire control system that enables it to spot armored vehicles, or stationary targets, in any weather, and up to ten kilometers away, and destroy them with Hellfire missiles (max range, eight kilometers). Introduced in the late 1990s, this was a late Cold War development, the perfect weapon to destroying enemy tanks at long range. The AH-64D got some use during the 2003 Iraq invasion, but since then, the Longbow radar has been more of a liability. The radar system has not been much use for firing Hellfires at targets in residential areas, where you usually want to get a visual, not radar, picture of the target. Moreover, the radar system weighs 500 pounds (about three percent of the weight of a fully loaded AH-64D). In Afghanistan, where the AH-64s fly at high altitudes, where the thin air means less lift, losing three percent of your weight is appreciated. In Iraq, the high heat, and abundant dust, makes the Longbow electronics more prone to breakdown.

So the army is taking the Longbow gear (two black boxes and the radar dome) off many of their AH-64Ds. This enables aircraft in Afghanistan to stay out a little longer, and be a bit more maneuverable at higher altitudes. In Iraq (and Afghanistan), it's one less maintenance headache for the support crews.

The next version of the Longbow will weigh only 400 pounds, and have more reliable, and easier to maintain, electronics. Against an enemy using lots of armored vehicles, the AH-64D, with its radar and a full load of 16 Hellfire missiles, is one of the more lethal anti-tank systems around. The current plan is to eventually upgrade all AH-64s to AH-64Ds.


  

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TommyD 1 of 11       8/21/2006 7:44:03 AM

Altitude also matters in Iraq, especially during the super hot summer months.  Actually, as every pilot knows, its' "Density Altitude" (DA) that matters.  When the air is heated by the sun, the air expands pushing the air molecules further apart, thus reducing airpressure.  You may be at sea level, but the DA could be 5,000 ft or higher.  What this means is that on a hot day at sea level in Baghdad, a plane or helicopter performs as if it's at the mile high, Denver International Airport.  At 5,000 ft., aircraft thinks it's at 10,000 ft. 

Bottom line is that for aircraft and fashion supermodels it's always good to loose weight.
 
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JFD       8/21/2006 8:00:45 AM
True, "Hot and High" are the conditions chopper pilots are most unhappy about. It's especially bad because all your learned moves now have to be done a bit differently.
 
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flamingknives       8/23/2006 5:25:37 PM
Mr. flamingpicky thinks that, on a hot day, the air molecules get further apart (due to increased kinetic energy of the molecules) so the macroscopic effect is that the air expands, rather than the other way around. Oh, and the British Army Air Corps has removed the Longbow radar too, there being a distinct lack of enemy armoured divisions in Afghanistan, but an overabundance of hot-and-high conditions. British Apaches are apparently flying escort for RAF Chinooks at the moment.
 
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