 Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Paulus, 317 Cav Squadron Commander. It was a nice flight and a good opportunity to go across country with a pretty sizable group of the squadron. So just an opportunity to fly with a number of the different pilots, change different jobs throughout the flight, see a number of small FBOs and areas, airports in the country that we don't typically get an opportunity to land at and have them get an opportunity to see us. We don't usually see six Apaches coming in, so we got a fair bit of love from a lot of the local populace when we came in, which was a great opportunity to just kind of show off the squadron and talk about the Apache. So the last shipment of Echoes now means that as part of the net-net new equipment training, new equipment fielding, we are complete with the fielding portion, so we now have our full allotment of age 64s that the squadron is supposed to have. And it'll allow us to do a couple of things. Number one, we can field an entire squadron, deploy as an entire squadron if called upon. It also gives us a little more flexibility in training. While we are still doing the new equipment training, we now have enough aircraft to really start doing some additional training internal to squadron, particularly as we get prepared for gunnery. And the Echo models themselves really bring a significant increase of capability to the division and the Army as a whole. Just between the older Delta models and the new Echoes that we now have, their range, their ceiling, the amount of firepower that they can carry is pretty significantly increased over the Delta model, not to mention the system upgrades that it brings with respects to its ability to integrate with unmanned aerial systems, both the Shadow and the Grey Eagle, as well as vastly improved sensors for its use as a reconnaissance platform. It's a really nice aircraft, quite frankly. I only have a little bit of time flying the Delta models, but I can already see just the difference between the Delta's and the Echoes. What a much nicer airframe it is, both in terms of power, its ability to fly, it really just wants to fly. And so what it's going to do for our training is really give us the opportunity to train on the cutting edge of Army technology with the most advanced weapons platforms that the Army is fielding throughout the entirety of the Army, both air and ground, and really still looking forward to gunnery with these aircraft. This will be the first opportunity that all 24 of these have had to actually conduct a gunnery shoot for the gun, the weapon system itself is a gun. They've never shot before, so just the opportunity to make sure that this aircraft works as advertised and does what it was designed to do, I'm really looking forward to. And I really have no doubt that it will, but it'll just build a level of confidence amongst the crews and the squadron that we are prepared to go out and do our mission. In addition to that, with the increased capability that the aircraft brings, particularly with its ability to do man-to-man teaming with both the Shadows and the Grey Eagles, just our ability to integrate them into the gunnery and utilize them as a reconnaissance platform that they were designed for, I think will be a really, really good training event and a good opportunity, not just for the squadron but for the brigade as a whole. I just say that it's been an honor for this squadron to be part of the Army's modernization effort. I know how important it is, particularly for Army aviation, to stay at the vanguard on the cutting edge of technology, and this airframe really is. And truthfully, the process to go from the Delta models to where we are today has been surprisingly smooth and surprisingly easy, particularly with the amount of support that we have gotten across the aviation enterprise, not just from PM, the product manager, but AMCOM for maintenance support, Fort Rucker, DES. So it's really been a whole of aviation enterprise effort to get us to where we are today and feel these last six aircraft. And as we finish up the training coming into October, we will be the most well-trained and most capable squadron in the Army, and it'll be good when we're done. Captain Kyle Applegate and the commander of Alpha Troop 317 Cav. Our flight was a pretty incredible experience. So we started in the desert of Arizona and we worked our way east through Texas. We transitioned over to Swampland and the Louisiana and Mississippi area, and then we got back to the nice, treed areas of the southeast United States. And along the way, we stopped at a bunch of different FBOs, large airports, small county municipal airports. So we got to see a wide variety of people. We got to meet a whole bunch of people that were excited to see the new aircraft, to ask some questions about it, and to really see modernization in the real world. And one of the cool things about the FBOs, as we were going along, the commanders, and there were four of us, all left our troop patches and stickers on the doors. And we got to see the aviation lineage. We stopped at airfields where B-52s had flown at before, F-18s, etc. So it was a nice way to see Army aviation represented in the larger Defense Aviation Airprise. So we had a lot of fun. It was a lot of good experience. We had a senior crew across the 12 of us. So it was a good opportunity for the troop commanders to fly together in something that we would normally not do. It was a great experience. For the division, the squadron is finally ready to start to integrate with our ground force peers and start to set the conditions for advanced training within three cabs and with one ABCT and two ABCT to start to build our interoperability and to generate combat power for the ground force commander. So the new aircraft give us the greater technology needed to interface with unmanned teams. So we're fielding new gray Eagles. We've got shadows and all of these assets combined will give the ground force commander a greater picture of the situation awareness of the battle space. So the new Echoes have a host of new capabilities that are a little bit better than the Delta. So this is the first time that I've flown an Echo was with this transition and fielding. So I've experienced firsthand the aircraft's faster. It's got more power so we can carry more munitions. It's IFR so we can fly instrument-rated or we can fly it in the clouds essentially. So that gives our aviators the ability to train in more realistic conditions between that we have the ability if we need to to commit to instrument flight. So as we prepare for any real world contingency, the new aircraft gives us a greater level of comfortability at home station training and the new technology associated with the aircraft removes some of the thought process from the crews. So that enables us to start to think beyond the aircraft a little bit further and start to visualize the ground force commander's plan and seamlessly integrate with them and figure out the best way that we can support. Whereas before with the Delta we didn't have quite the same technology. So the aircrew was coordinating inside the aircraft a little bit more and was less able to think outside. So the aircraft is great for air mission commanders, it's great for platoon leaders and it's great for troop commanders to be able to fight the aircraft, fight their platoons and fight their troops. So with any new piece of equipment it's always exciting for the first time you put it to use. So we've got a couple hundred hours in training mission flights in and around the local area but this will be the first time that we've had the ability to use the aircraft for its intended purpose to employ lethal munitions against the enemies of the United States of America. So a gunnery is an opportunity for us as aircrews, as platoons and as troops and as a squadron to validate our ability to use the new aircraft. We're excited, there's a host of new features but the main thing that we're excited about is greater interoperability with man-to-man teaming. So with our shadows and the gray eagles within 3CAB we're excited to put those to use in a realistic gunnery experience that will help us, the aircrews, understand the capabilities of the aircraft because we've learned about them academically so we're excited to go out there in the field and actually see what they can do. So this is the first time that I've been part of a large equipment fielding like this. It has been interesting to see the amount of effort that it takes across the aviation enterprise from the 15 Romeo's, our great maintainers here, some of the other MLS's in Delta Troop, our support troop and then flying out to Mesa we were able to meet and take a tour of the Boeing plant and it was a humbling experience to see how the Apaches are built and the amount of intensive love and care that it takes to make one of these airframes. So I think it puts it into perspective what we do. It's exciting to go fly, it's fantastic aircraft but it was nice to go out on the trip to be able to see all the players along the way that helped make it happen. So we had a great experience with the DCMA folks out at Mesa. Mesa plant was great and they were fully welcoming and invited us in and helped us see the Apache. It is a team effort to make this aircraft and it's a team effort to employ it and this is a great peek behind the curtain to see what makes an Apache.