1st Battalion - 227th Aviation Regiment
"First Attack"
As a part of the Army's transformation towards a modular force, the 1-227 AVN was inactivated along with the rest of the 4th Aviation Brigade at Fort Hood on May 26, 2005. The unit was later reactivated with the Air Combat Aviation Brigade on the same day.
The 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment is the Division's AH-64D attack asset. "First Attack", was the first fielded Apache Longbow unit. The 1st Cavalry Division has the first unit in the Army to field the AH-64D Longbow Apache attack helicopter. The unit, 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, under the command of LTC Michael Riley, reported to the 21st Cavalry Brigade for this momentous undertaking on April 6, 1998.
The brigade's former commander, Colonel Winn Noyes, and his team of professionals developed a special program helping the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation, develop a new Mission Essential Task List (METL). They also provided a collective instruction in all arenas of attack helicopter battalion operations and maintenance. An AH-64A Apache battalion previously focused on the defeat of one enemy regiment. Now the AH-64D Longbow Apache increases this lethality to the point that a battalion has the capability of defeating an entire enemy division.
In addition to this important fielding, the rest of the aviation brigade began deploying to Bosnia in August 1998, and provided support to the United Nations Stabilization Force until October 1999.
