AgustaWestland AW609

[yasotay]

The only surprise for me is how long it took for them to do this.

 

[Trident]

The elephant in the room for me here is AEW with the pressurized cabin and 7600m ceiling, which is not explicitly stated but I guess it's what you could call maritime surveillance in a more general sense (which does get mentioned). There used to be a proposal for a new AEW version of the AW101 using a pair of APG-81s in panniers - this should be within the payload capability of the AW609 and offers commonality with the F-35B. Though with graceful degradation the antenna/transmitter of a modern AESA should be essentially maintenance free, I'm sure there are cooling, power supply and computer LRUs where parts/tools sharing would be worthwhile.

Too bad they went for the PT6 over the T700, else even the engines would have commonality with the AW101 and NH90! Endurance is probably not going to improve much if at all (maybe shorter transit helps?), so the logistics of 24/7 AEW coverage are still challenging, but that ceiling is a potentially huge benefit for STOVL carriers.

 

[yasotay]

Piloting - MV-22 to Leonardo AW609

Now the MV-22 is an integral part of the US military, what abot those pilots looking to transition from the MV-22 to the Leonard AW609? Tom Dailey examines the considerations to be made for a niche group of pilots.

www.heliopsmag.com

Pretty good article on some of the considerations for 609 pilot development.

 

[TomcatViP]

Great read indeed.
He doesn´t mention it but the massification of tilt-rotor, if paired with the emergence of a supersonic, would probably see the decline of the Business jet as we know today (at least some of them).

Let´s Imagine that we have long range supersonic airliners with open airports all along the continent´s shores. Why would you transfer from a Mach 2 airliners to a private subsonic jet and then to a helicopter when you can greatly simplify your journey, in most cases, at a lower cost, hoping directly into a tilt-rotor? Even if the jet can theoretically fly 2 times faster, for a 1000km distance, factoring holding, takeoff&landing and aircraft transfer, you will get to your destination faster with the tilt rotor direct journey.

Hence, the choice for CPL holder will stay the same: fast jet/aircraft or slow rotorcraft. It´s the Rotorcraft itself that is evolving to be a faster machine and extend its reach with the same infrastructure and the same pilots. IFR is only a qualification at the end.

Leonardo probably did factor all this for us when designing the cockpit for their 609.

 

[yasotay]

The challenge for the tilt rotor, vice the fixed wing/helicopter transport means will simply be the Direct Operating Cost (DOC) of the TR. It is the bottom line. IF the DOC can be < current cost with added flexibility of potentially moving the VIP directly to the job site, I think it will become competitive. However, if EVTOL does take off (pun intended), this might put large scale utilization of TR travel at greater risk.

 

[TomcatViP]

And what if EVTOL were the new Zeppelins? Just like the latter, they are crystalized in a certain scheme that compromise any evolved architecture (Man did get to the moon with H2 at the end).
I am pretty sure TR have a boulevard in front of them before anybody even figure how to catch-up (for real).