Well to be fair, the UTARNG incident was a familiarization flight with a front seater not qualified in the AH-64. Granted the back seater was a AH-64 instructor pilot while the front seater was a fixed wing aviator from another branch. First rule in the attack world is not let a starch wing have the controls, especially close to the surface. The MSARNG flight is a suspected strap pack failure. Both aviators were well respected and highly qualified but when the strap pack fails on one blade it goes bye,bye creating an extreme lateral vibration and uncontrollable change in pitch and roll axis. I doubt any have survived when something as serious as this happens. The AH-64 does have its faults. I do feel some great sorrow for the MSARNG and their loss because this was an unavoidable incident but you are correct the ARMY is having a banner year for other reasons. It is called politics and crazy liberals running the show.
Re: 11 - thanks for an informative post. I don’t believe people appreciate the amount of maintenance rotary-wing aircraft require.
Re: MSARNG mishap - do you think this could be due to a strap pack nut failure?
To All - good video on strap pack assembly and the retrofit done circa 2018-19:
https://www.dvidshub.net/video/607804/texas-national-guard-fields-apache-strap-pack-mega-nut-b-roll