Fort Hood Sentinel (Fort Hood, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 3, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 21, 2016 Page: 5 of 24
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www.FortHoodSentinel.com
NEWS
January 21, 2016
A5
Vice chief: creative leaders needed in aviation
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■■
BY C. TODD LOPEZ
Army News Service
BY MIKAELA CADE
CRDAMC Public Affairs
Good morning , Good morning!
Chaplain!
ARLINGTON, Va. — In a rapidly
changing global security environ-
ment, coupled with declining mili-
tary budgets, the Army needs top-
notch aviators trained by creative
and experienced commanders who
can wring the most out of what
little training budget they have, the
Army’s vice chief of staff said.
“The creativity you apply in
training your units will develop the
next generation of leaders and shape
the future of our Army,” Gen. Dan-
iel Allyn said. “Training in garrison
cannot be viewed as ‘routine.’ It
must replicate the complexity of
flying in Iraq or Afghanistan and
it is incumbent upon those of you
who have flown and fought in these
demanding environments for more
than 14 years to train-up the next
generation of pilots.”
Allyn spoke at the start of a day-
long series of an aviation-related
panel of discussions at the head-
quarters of the Association of the
U.S. Army in Arlington, Virginia,
Jan. 14.
Allyn also laid out requirements
for aviation modernization that he
said were critical to ensuring Army
aviation’s continued prowess on
the battlefield. Among those were
increased manned-unmanned team-
ing, an accurate definition of future
vertical-lift requirements, improve-
ments to the power and agility of
Photo by Nathan Pfau, ARNEWS
Three 0H-58D Kiowa Warriors prepare to leave Fort Rucker, Alabama, for the
last time at Hanchey Army Airfield Nov. 18, 2014.
the current fleet, development of
“lethality that pairs precision and
discrimination for engagements
in complex terrain,” and enhance-
ments to survivability through
improvements in ability to both
detect and defeat new enemy capa-
bilities.
“This is not a wish-list,” the gen-
eral said. “These are must-haves to
deliver an aviation force capable of
dominating future battlefields.”
Maj. Gen. Michael Lundy, com-
manding general of Fort Rucker,
Alabama, and the U.S. Army Avia-
tion Center of Excellence, laid out
the latest details regarding progress
with the Army’s Aviation Restruc-
ture Initiative. The aim of that
initiative is to allow the aviation
branch to continue to provide to
staff as they complete orientation
and training in the facility
“We don’t want people to start
wandering over there for appoint-
ments,” Thompson said. “So, we’re
going to keep the community well-
informed on the timeline of the
move.”
“The actual move will occur over
a six-week period which means we
will have some dual operations,”
the commander explained. “We
will ensure the community is aware
of which services are being offered
S3
IX
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\ I
is one of the final checks the com-
mander will complete to ensure staff
is ready to deliver care in the facil-
ity^
“At this point, we’re on track
for opening in April, but we must
be assured that the staff is ready
to deliver safe, quality care in the
facility,” the commander said. “Suc-
cessful Day in the Life events will
give us the confidence to know that
everything and everyone is ready.”
Thompson noted that next few
weeks will be extremely busy for the
the Army and the nation the same
asymmetric advantage it has had for
the last 14 years.
Lundy said the Army has almost
entirely divested all of its aging
OH-58D Kiowa Warrior aircraft.
There are only two squadrons left.
“We will finish divestiture here
during FYI 6, minus the 1-17 (Cav-
alry Regiment (AIR)), which will
roll-up and be the last squadron
that will operate in (South) Korea.
They will do their last deployment,”
he said.
Also on track is divestiture of
training aircraft on Fort Rucker,
including the TH-67 Creek and
the OH-58 Kiowa. This week for
the first time, he said, courses are
already underway training new
pilots with the new UH-72 Light
where. We want the first baby to be
born in the facility; not in the park-
ing lot,” Thompson joked.
In an effort to share informa-
tion about Day in the Life, move
timelines, changes to services, and
what the community can expect at
the new facility, Thompson and the
hospital leadership team will host
a town hall meeting in the health
education classrooms of the cur-
rent facility on Jan. 28 at 6 p.m. All
community members are invited to
attend.
“This is a great facility It will
transform how care is delivered
to the Fort Hood community,”
Thompson said. “The new facil-
ity is really a magnificent building,”
I’ve seen other new hospitals, and I
can tell you this is the best in Army
Medicine bar none.”
Community members interested
in participating in the Day in the
Life event can contact the hospital
operations chief, Billy Williams, at
286-7210/4546 or send an email
to usarmy.hood.medcom-crdamc.
list.operations-group@mail.mil for
more information.
aawteiMiHiEtei
she volunteered herself and her boys
to be actors during the event.
Day in the Life events are
scale rehearsals that ensure the staff
is prepared to deliver safe, quality
care in the new facility Both events
will occur on Saturdays in order to
have minimal impact on patient
care and maximize community par-
ticipation.
During the rehearsals, community
members will participate in a variety
of medical role-play scenarios, and
staff will provide the required care.
There are more than 40 scenarios
that adults and children can partici-
pate in.
“The staff has to get comfortable
delivering care in the new facility, so
we definitely need the support of the
community,” Col. Mark Thompson,
hospital commander said. “We’re
going to need about 250 commu-
nity volunteers to help us with the
upcoming Day in the Life events.”
“This is a great opportunity for
medical center staff to show the
commander and the community
how prepared we are,” Maj. Brian
Cahill, transition director said. “It
Utility Helicopter.
Divestiture of UH-60A Black
Hawks is behind, however, the gen-
eral said. “That’s an issue.” Those
Black Hawks, moving out of the
National Guard, will be replaced
with more modern UH-6OLs, and
those will eventually be converted
to the UH-60V variant, which fea-
tures a glass cockpit.
With programs underway now,
the Army is looking to improve an
aviator’s ability to see in degraded
visual environments, to field an
improved air-to-ground missile with
the Joint Air to Ground Missile, to
provide improved engines in the
UH-60 Black Hawk and AH-64
Apache attack aircraft through its
Improved Turbine Engine Program,
and to enhance aircraft survivability.
Those programs, and others
Lundy called “disruptive technol-
ogy,” are on track and moving for-
ward, despite earlier concerns.
“A lot of these programs were at
risk, or they were just good ideas,”
Lundy said. “I will tell you that
they are all in very good shape right
now. And even though they will
come slower than we want because
of budgetary concerns, all the pro-
grams are safe; they are on track;
they are in our long-range plans,
and they have got great support
across the Army staff.”
A chief concern for Lundy, he
said, is the limited number of hours
Army aviators are getting in the
cockpit.
■
— ■ .■* ._________
With just about 70 days to go
until patient care begins in the new
hospital, the team at Carl R. Darnall
Army Medical Center is looking
for volunteers to participate in full
scale patient care rehearsals known
as Day in the Life (DIL) events.
The first DIL event is set for 7
a.m. Feb. 6. at the new hospital. A
second event is planned for March
5.
Karin Markert who didn’t want to
miss the chance to participate in the
community event threw her hat in
the ring way back in October.
“The new hospital is beautiful,
and I want the community to get
excited about it,” Markert, an Army
spouse and mother of three said.
“It’s such a great thing for our com-
munity; not only that, but I think
participating in the Day in the Life
event will be a blast.”
“I want to play a pregnant lady,”
Markert moaned using her best
woman-in-labor voice. Markert is so
pumped up about the new facility;
CRDAMC looking for 250 volunteers for patient care rehearsals
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“This is an area where I have
great concern right now,” he said.
“Our flying hour program is not
what it needs to be.”
The general said the Army is
taking a “holistic look” at aviation
flying hours to find ways to alleviate
the problem of aviators flying fewer
hours than what is needed to main-
tain proficiency.
Lundy also said that every Army
operation globally involves an avia-
tion component, and that the oper-
ations tempo for aviators is “higher
than what we saw, even during
the surge, if you look at a mission
tempo perspective. We are expect-
ing Army aviation to be out there,
to be able to do that. We need to be
training at a much higher level to
maintain our proficiency, especially
as we think about decisive action
and combined arms operations.”
An in-the-works solution for
dealing with the increased opera-
tions tempo, Lundy said, is to final-
ly fill the cockpits of equipment in
the 11th Combat Avaiation Brigade
with Soldiers. That unit has the gear
it needs already, but it now needs
personnel. That, he said, is a prior-
ity for Army aviation.
The “No. 1 priority is to man
that CAB,” Lundy said. “If we do
that, it will help us mitigate some of
the op tempo issues.”
Right now, he said, “demand sig-
nal is outpacing our capability to
support all of it. We are having to
make hard choices.”
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Pruden, Todd. Fort Hood Sentinel (Fort Hood, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 3, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 21, 2016, newspaper, January 21, 2016; Fort Hood, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1204862/m1/5/: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Casey Memorial Library.