Boeing Receives US Army Contract for Low Rate Initial Production of AH-64D Apache Block III

MESA, Ariz. — The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny [NYSE: BA] today announced it has received a $247 mil­lion con­tract to begin Low Rate Ini­tial Pro­duc­tion (LRIP) for the U.S. Army’s AH-64D Apache Block III heli­copter, the most advanced mul­ti-role com­bat heli­copter in the world. The con­tract, signed by the U.S. gov­ern­ment on Oct. 22, cov­ers pro­duc­tion of eight Apache Block III heli­copters in the Lot 1 con­fig­u­ra­tion.

An Acqui­si­tion Deci­sion Mem­o­ran­dum signed by the Depart­ment of Defense on Oct. 7 autho­rized the pro­gram to enter the LRIP phase to pro­duce 51 air­craft. The first LRIP deliv­ery is sched­uled for Octo­ber 2011. 

The Apache Block III heli­copter enhances the capa­bil­i­ties of the com­bat-proven AH-64D Apache by deliv­er­ing supe­ri­or flight per­for­mance and dra­mat­i­cal­ly increased net­worked com­mu­ni­ca­tions capabilities. 

“The road map for the Apache Block III pro­gram has been clear­ly defined and the U.S. Army and Boe­ing are suc­cess­ful­ly work­ing togeth­er to pro­vide these advanced attack heli­copters to sol­diers in the field,” said Lt. Col. Dan Bai­ley, Apache Block III prod­uct man­ag­er for the Army. 

“Work­ing togeth­er through­out the Apache Block III program’s sys­tem devel­op­ment and demon­stra­tion phase since 2006, the Army, Boe­ing and our indus­try team­mates have achieved our objec­tives on cost and on sched­ule,” said Scott Rudy, Apache Block III pro­gram man­ag­er for Boe­ing. “I’m con­fi­dent that the team will con­tin­ue to effec­tive­ly apply its col­lec­tive exper­tise as the pro­gram moves into the pro­duc­tion phase.” 

The cur­rent Army acqui­si­tion objec­tive is for 690 AH-64D Apache Block III air­craft. The heli­copters will be assem­bled, flight test­ed and deliv­ered from the Boe­ing Glob­al Strike facil­i­ty in Mesa. 

Key enhance­ments for avi­a­tors will include an improved dri­ve sys­tem fea­tur­ing the 701D engine, com­pos­ite main rotor blades and a new split-torque face gear trans­mis­sion, as well as increased net­worked com­mu­ni­ca­tions capabilities. 

The Apache Block III fea­tures open sys­tems archi­tec­ture and 26 advanced tech­nol­o­gy improve­ments, includ­ing lev­el 4 unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cle con­trol for increased sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness. This heli­copter con­fig­u­ra­tion has already demon­strat­ed the flex­i­bil­i­ty to rapid­ly inte­grate tech­nol­o­gy changes through­out its ser­vice life. 

“The Apache Block III heli­copter pro­gram is the cor­ner­stone of our U.S. Army customer’s plan of con­tin­ued sus­tain­ment through mod­ern­iza­tion,” said Tom­my Filler, act­ing vice pres­i­dent, Boe­ing Apache and AH‑6 Programs. 

A unit of The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny, Boe­ing Defense, Space & Secu­ri­ty is one of the world’s largest defense, space and secu­ri­ty busi­ness­es spe­cial­iz­ing in inno­v­a­tive and capa­bil­i­ties-dri­ven cus­tomer solu­tions, and the world’s largest and most ver­sa­tile man­u­fac­tur­er of mil­i­tary air­craft. Head­quar­tered in St. Louis, Boe­ing Defense, Space & Secu­ri­ty is a $34 bil­lion busi­ness with 68,000 employ­ees world­wide. Fol­low us on Twit­ter: @BoeingDefense.

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Con­tact:
Car­ole Thomp­son
Boe­ing Glob­al Strike Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
Office: 480–891-2119
Mobile: 602–741-4802
carole.j.thompson@boeing.com

Source:
Boe­ing Company 

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