The Army needs to leverage and build upon its current fleet of aircraft to lead in the air-ground littoral, a panel of aviation leaders said.

“We've got our current fleet of aircraft that are operating at a breakneck pace,” said Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, commanding general of the Army’s Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Novosel, Alabama. “We've got to leverage that current fleet.”

The air-ground littoral is “the airspace from the ground to a few thousand feet above it,” according to a definition cited in an AUSA paper by retired Lt. Col. Amos Fox from August.

Everything within the air-ground littoral exists within a unique ecosystem of manned and unmanned systems, Gill said during a panel during the Association of the U.S. Army’s Hot Topic on Army aviation. “We operate in this environment with manned and unmanned systems,” he said. “When aircraft are out there, whether they're manned or unmanned, they're doing multiple things. They are sensing things, they are communicating, they are relaying and providing effects on the battlefield.”

As the Army increases its assets within the air-ground littoral, airspace management will be “a real challenge” for soldiers, Gill said.

“We're going to be putting things in the air from the platoon all the way up to the division level, and those systems are not all necessarily going to … know what other things are happening [within the airspace],” Gill said.

As the Army adds new air capabilities, its focus should still be on providing the best aviation support to the ground, said retired Gen. J.D. Thurman, who is a former commander of U.S. Forces Korea and Army Forces Command.

“We do not have the luxury to sit back, get into the next fight and decide how we want to operate. We’ve got to do that now,” Thurman said. “We cannot complicate the battlefield. … We need to think about ... how can we provide Army aviation support to the ground commander. ... We're part of a combined arms maneuver, and we can never forget that.”