Insurgents in Iraq look to be targeting helicopters more. Several coalition helicopters have been shot down recently according to a coalition ground forces commander, a Blackhawk helicopter went down just yesterday north of Baghdad.

Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters at Fort Riley are getting checked out and tuned up after a tour in Iraq.

"Between all the units that are out there we're flying 24/7 supporting somebody at all times," says Capt. Adrian Bauer, Combat Aviation Brigade Staff Officer.

But the times might be more dangerous for those flying. Insurgents have shot down at least eight helicopters in Iraq since January 20th.

"It strikes at the heart of everybody when we get the news that something bad has happened to an air crew," says Lt. Col. Mike Tetu, 2-1 Aviation Battalion Commander.

But beyond mourning, he says the Army does something about it.

“If it’s an accident from the enemy, we’re going back and taking a look at how we complete those missions and how we’re conducting them. So it's a constant evolution of information," says Tetu.

So troops are constantly learning how to stay safe, in the air, by studying birds that have gone down.

"Whenever there’s an incident they're putting their investigators on it to make sure whether it was enemy fire, or training accident, or equipment failure, or maintenance failure. All those teams of experts get into that and make those assessments and from those findings they distribute that information throughout the aviation units, because we need to learn from it," says Tetu.

Because soldiers know having helicopters on the ground is not an option.

"They may be apprehensive you can’t get around that but regardless we owe it to those ground forces to support them it’s our job to do that and were not going to shy away from it," says Bauer.

The Combat Aviation Brigade is growing at Fort Riley with nearly 3,000 soldiers there right now, that group will deploy for Iraq sometime this summer.

Fort Riley has lost one aircraft during the Iraq War. Last August one Blackhawk helicopter with the 82nd Medical Unit crashed into a lake killing two soldiers.