JMR (Joint Multi-Role) & FVL (Future Vertical Lift) Programs

[Stargazer]

The Attack version reminds me of the Bell BAT concept from the 80s.

That's exactly what I had in mind when I saw the picture!

 

[Triton]

Karem Aircraft unveils its ATR36 attack variant of its Joint Multi-Role demonstrator concept at the AHS 70th Annual Forum and Technology Display

Source:
https://www.facebook.com/AHS.Intl

 

[yasotay]

Its too pretty. The Army will never get it. Mark my words if this aircraft, with its performance, even comes close to prototype the USAF Inc. will whip out the sacred Key West Accord.

 

[sferrin]

Its too pretty. The Army will never get it. Mark my words if this aircraft, with its performance, even comes close to prototype the USAF Inc. will whip out the sacred Key West Accord.

I think it far more likely someone at the US Army will say, "have they ever built a tilt-rotor before? No? Next. . ." And the USAF doesn't seem to have issue with the V-22.

 

[yasotay]

Its too pretty. The Army will never get it. Mark my words if this aircraft, with its performance, even comes close to prototype the USAF Inc. will whip out the sacred Key West Accord.

I think it far more likely someone at the US Army will say, "have they ever built a tilt-rotor before? No? Next. . ." And the USAF doesn't seem to have issue with the V-22.

I agree the Army will likely think it too different for their comfort. However there is a documented history of the USAF Inc. hammering any aircraft they perceive as closing in on their turf. More accurately AFSOC has no issue with V-22. AMC most certainly does have an issue with tilt rotors. I doubt the fighter community would embrace a tilt rotor for any mission.

 

[Triton]

Its too pretty. The Army will never get it. Mark my words if this aircraft, with its performance, even comes close to prototype the USAF Inc. will whip out the sacred Key West Accord.

Will there be similar issues with the Bell V-280 Valor? I imagine that the Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966 did not foresee tilt-rotor aircraft. Could the United States Air Force object to the V-280 Valor as a fixed-wing tactical aircraft with VTOL? Whereas the Sikorsky/Boeing SB-1 Defiant and the AVX JMR proposals could be considered improved helicopters?

 

[F-14D]

Its too pretty. The Army will never get it. Mark my words if this aircraft, with its performance, even comes close to prototype the USAF Inc. will whip out the sacred Key West Accord.

Will there be similar issues with the Bell V-280 Valor? I imagine that the Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966 did not foresee tilt-rotor aircraft. Could the United States Air Force object to the V-280 Valor as a fixed-wing tactical aircraft with VTOL? Whereas the Sikorsky/Boeing SB-1 Defiant and the AVX JMR proposals could be considered improved helicopters?

It will depend on how fast it goes, how high and whether AF will feel it impinges on "their" role. Don't forget, they almost went ballistic over Cheyenne which was clearly a helicopter. And dare we mention C-27J?

 

[Triton]

It will depend on how fast it goes, how high and whether AF will feel it impinges on "their" role. Don't forget, they almost went ballistic over Cheyenne which was clearly a helicopter. And dare we mention C-27J?

Dare I also mention the retirement of the Short C-23 Sherpa in the Army National Guard that the C-27J was intended to replace?

 

[donnage99]

With that specs, I can see many countries that possess helicopter carriers like Japan and Australia buying the attack version to have some sort of affordable power projection capabilities.

This thing, if delivered as promised in term of performance, would certainly be a game changer and rewrite Key West Agreement (or die in the process).

Funny thing to note is that it certainly shaped to have low rcs, but the actual engines do not have the shaping. Strange.

 

[Triton]

Model of Karem Aircraft UTR36 concept for the utility variant of the Joint Multi-Role technology demonstration effort — at Palais des congrès de Montréal - Montreal Convention Center.

Source:
https://www.facebook.com/AHS.Intl/photos/a.10152244591930528.1073741856.80119815527/10152244597205528/?type=3&theater

 

[donnage99]

It looks alot bigger than the other contenders. Look like a slender version of v-22 more than a blackhawk replacement. And I wonder if the Army would frown at having 2 different designs to fill in for the requirement instead of the "one shoe fits all" approach the other companies pitching

 

[sferrin]

And I wonder if the Army would frown at having 2 different designs to fill in for the requirement instead of the "one shoe fits all" approach the other companies pitching

Cha-Ching. So probably not.

 

[yasotay]

I have been told that the dynamic components (rotors, transmission, power take-offs, and gearing) are the expensive parts of a design. So like the USMC H-1 series you can put different fuselages under them. Common avionics and other kit reduce cost as well. To my knowledge we have not seen the Boeing-Sikorsky X-2 attack design yet. We have seen a Sikorsky X-2 attack design model at shows that actually looks very similar to the Karem... Except that is a compound rotorcraft that is 100 knots slower and has considerably less range.

 

[donnage99]

I wonder how the karem design would fair in term of low speed agility vs the compound copter from sikorsky, since one things they keep touting is that their compound copter gives better agility than tilt rotor technology

 

[jsport]

I wonder how the karem design would fair in term of low speed agility vs the compound copter from sikorsky, since one things they keep touting is that their compound copter gives better agility than tilt rotor technology

Exactly and yet another reason why the USG military industrial path should be toward both tiltrotor and compound helicopters designs-missions. ..as stated before.

 

[yasotay]

That is likely to be THE question. Can a tilt rotor have similar low speed agility? So the compound has yaw at the centerline, and center of gravity, brought on by differential collective pitch. With no tail rotor at the end of the moment arm I suspect the yaw rate starts slow but builds quickly. Tilt rotor has yaw at the end of the moment so I suspect while it develops a constant yaw rate but I am not sure that it is as fast.

I think tilt rotor would make a good successor to A-10 (widely dispersed engines, one engine op, great agility at 200+ knots), I am not yet ready to see it as the panacea for all military rotorcraft requirements.

For the US to consider if it does turn its focus to the Pacific; long range operations. Aircraft efficiency will be far more important than it is now. Fuel cost in twenty years will probably be worth considering as well. Here I suspect the tilt rotor is likely to have the edge.

So I doubt we will see the end of either type. So if I were king-for-a-day: compound attack helicopter (low speed agility) and tilt rotor utility (efficiency and higher speed range).

 

[Jemiba]

...Can a tilt rotor have similar low speed agility? ...

At least the Soviets designed more than one attack helicoopter projects with parallel
rotors, that, with regards to agility would have been equally challenged, as a tilt rotor
in the hover mode.
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,11554.msg163063.html#msg163063
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3125.msg51008.html#msg51008

 

[Moose]

It looks alot bigger than the other contenders. Look like a slender version of v-22 more than a blackhawk replacement. And I wonder if the Army would frown at having 2 different designs to fill in for the requirement instead of the "one shoe fits all" approach the other companies pitching

JMR is demonstrating technologies in medium-ish size aircraft, and the companies are pitching concepts based on their medium-class bid, but FVL will eventually address a range of roles from light scout to an aircraft with cargo capacity rivaling a C-130. I think it's very likely the testing and studies will determine that some roles are better suited to tilt rotor derivatives and others to compound/X2-style solutions.

 

[flateric]

SIKORSKY/BOEING SB>1 DEFIANT

 

[Triton]

SIKORSKY/BOEING SB>1 DEFIANT

Thank you for posting, flateric.

Source:
http://events.aviationweek.com/html/ad13/Nov%2014_1100_Shidler%20Donnelly.pdf

 

[VTOLicious]

...I wonder how AVX will be able to reach the same cruise speed (+230kt) with a rather conservative coaxial rotor system. That would be pretty embarrassing for sikorsky, after +30 years of research and development

 

[yasotay]

...I wonder how AVX will be able to reach the same cruise speed (+230kt) with a rather conservative coaxial rotor system. That would be pretty embarrassing for sikorsky, after +30 years of research and development

I suspect that all of the drag from the exposed dynamic components will be a major challenge to achieving anything over ~200 kts. Sure you can do it, just put bigger engines and fans on the aircraft.

 

[donnage99]

...I wonder how AVX will be able to reach the same cruise speed (+230kt) with a rather conservative coaxial rotor system. That would be pretty embarrassing for sikorsky, after +30 years of research and development

It's not just speed we talking about here. It's what happen to the aircraft at that speed - handling quality, agility, fuel efficiency. Oh and did I mention handling quality?

 

[VTOLicious]

...there is a lot of other factors for sure!

Nowadays a lot is determined by software, unfortunately aerodynamic laws are still the same

 

[F-14D]

Its too pretty. The Army will never get it. Mark my words if this aircraft, with its performance, even comes close to prototype the USAF Inc. will whip out the sacred Key West Accord.

I think it far more likely someone at the US Army will say, "have they ever built a tilt-rotor before? No? Next. . ." And the USAF doesn't seem to have issue with the V-22.

I agree the Army will likely think it too different for their comfort. However there is a documented history of the USAF Inc. hammering any aircraft they perceive as closing in on their turf. More accurately AFSOC has no issue with V-22. AMC most certainly does have an issue with tilt rotors. I doubt the fighter community would embrace a tilt rotor for any mission.

Another factor is that the Marines were the program lead for V-22. If Army had kept the lead and had continued with their plan to buy hundreds, I wonder if USAF would have been so quiescent

 

[F-14D]

It looks alot bigger than the other contenders. Look like a slender version of v-22 more than a blackhawk replacement. And I wonder if the Army would frown at having 2 different designs to fill in for the requirement instead of the "one shoe fits all" approach the other companies pitching

That may be an illusion caused by the angle at which it was shot. As can be seen in this rear quarter drawing, the fuselage is pretty much in the same ballpark as everyone else.

 

[F-14D]

I wonder how the karem design would fair in term of low speed agility vs the compound copter from sikorsky, since one things they keep touting is that their compound copter gives better agility than tilt rotor technology

Well, before Army dumbed down the LHX specifications, Bell said their BAT would meet or exceed the LHX agility requirements, albeit requiring more power than a helo of the same size, so Karem is probably not being unrealistic.

 

[donnage99]

So I doubt we will see the end of either type. So if I were king-for-a-day: compound attack helicopter (low speed agility) and tilt rotor utility (efficiency and higher speed range).

Then you're not going to see that sexy karem attack version built then. It's an attack tiltrotor lol.

 

[VTOLicious]

Abe Karem is a interesting and inspiring man!
He's around for a long time and has developed the predecessors of the Predator A, what became a game changer in unmanned flight ops back then.
The more recent development of the A-160 incorporated the Optimum Speed Rotor (OSD). The technological challange was high, but performance was promising! Boeing took over but wasn´t able to handle the design inherent issues and the programme got canceled at some point.

However, my point is:
I have strong doubts that Karem's Optimum Speed Tilt Rotor (OSTR) technology is one the same stage of development like Sikorsky's X2-technology, or Bell's Tiltrotor-technology.

Btw, is Lockheed still involved?

Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works has teamed with Karem Aircraft to joint develop the Optimum Speed Tilt-Rotor (OSTR) design. Karem's OSTR is one three candidate designs for the US Department of Defense's proposed Joint Heavy Lift programme.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/lockheed-martin-to-help-karem-develop-optimum-speed-221941/

BR Michael

 

[yasotay]

I thought Lockheed was teamed with Bell for the JMR/FVL? The teaming of Karem/Lockheed was for the Joint Heavy Lift program which is terminated.

 

[F-14D]

I thought Lockheed was teamed with Bell for the JMR/FVL? The teaming of Karem/Lockheed was for the Joint Heavy Lift program which is terminated.

Lockheed will team with Bell on the Mission Equipment Package. They offered their services in this role to all the players, but so far Bell is the only one who took them up on it.

 

[Triton]

Selected quotes from "The Rise of Radical New Rotorcraft"
by Jeff Wise
June 3, 2014

The goal of the JMR-TD program is to create an aircraft that is as nimble as today's Black Hawk while hovering, but with a ferry range of 2100 miles and a cruise speed of more than 265 mph. Industry engineers declare that it's possible, but the Pentagon launched the JMR-TD program to be convinced. "It's an investment to inform ourselves about the technology that's available," Dan Bailey, the Army program's director, says. "What we are looking at is a leap ahead in capability."

Last year the Army narrowed the field to four JMR-TD competitors, including two giants—Sikorsky of Stratford, Conn., and Bell Helicopter of Hurst, Texas—and two tiny firms, AVX Aircraft Company of Benbrook, Texas, and Karem Aircraft of Lake Forest, Calif. Each was awarded $6 million to produce a design. This summer two of the four will be selected to turn that design into hardware, with flight tests from 2017 to 2019.

The Army has made it clear that whoever survives the downselect will not necessarily be the winner of a $100 billion production contract for building as many as 4000 aircraft. But even losing companies stand to gain by flying demonstration aircraft, since the JMR-TD designs will inspire versions suitable for civilian markets.

In a few decades these futuristic rotorcraft could be as common in the skies as conventional helicopters are today. "This is a step change," says Steve Weiner, Sikorsky's director of engineering sciences. "It's going to be similar to when fixed-wing airplanes went from piston to jet engines."

If next-generation rotorcraft will be more capable than today's fleet, they are also going to be considerably more expensive. It takes a lot of power to go fast, and bigger engines add both weight and cost. "If you want to go above 150 knots [173 mph], you're going to have to pay a premium of 50 to 100 percent," says Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst with the Teal Group. Pentagon-funded demonstrator programs allow manufacturers to work out the kinks of new designs and bring down prices.

"Looking downstream, it's obvious that there's certain commercial applications of this technology," Bell's Keith Flail says. Some niches will be easier to exploit than others. "Offshore oil rigs could be a market," Aboulafia says. With exploration moving into ever-deeper waters, a vehicle that can make twice as many trips ferrying rig workers in the same amount of time will be worth the steep price tag to the big energy companies.

Another potential market, Aboulafia says, is the VIP market. Corporate executives and other wealthy individuals already take helicopters on short-hop trips, but more advanced rotorcraft could ferry passengers as far as 500 miles, avoiding airport hassles.

In a more critical application, medevac, speed can mean the difference between life and death. "There's a thing called golden hour," AVX's Troy Gaffey says. "If you can get someone to a hospital within that time, they're a lot more likely to live."

If these early markets pan out for tilt-rotors or compound-coaxial helicopters, there's no telling how many other uses they'll have. Right now vertical lift means a conventional helicopter, with niches occupied by the jump jet and the tilt rotor. Some day that relationship could reverse, if this new generation of vertical-lift aircraft becomes the norm, relegating conventional helicopters to the fringe. "You'll see the ratio change in that direction," Flail predicts confidently. "The evolution is coming."

What Makes Helicopters So Slow?

When a helicopter is stationary, its rotor blades move at the same speed relative to the air. But when a helicopter flies forward, the blades on the advancing side move faster, relative to the wind, and the blades on the retreating side move slower.

As soon as the helicopter's forward speed matches the speed at the tip of the rotor, the retreating rotor tip momentarily experiences zero airspeed. At that point the rotor is generating no lift, a phenomenon known as retreating-blade stall. With half the rotor disc no longer holding the aircraft up, the helicopter tends to roll to the side. This aerodynamic principle limits conventional helicopters to about 200 mph.

The Contenders

Sikorsky

Coaxial Rotors: Sikorsky's entry in the Black Hawk replacement program is the SB-1 Defiant. With a top speed of more than 300 mph, the Defiant will be faster than the company's internally funded S-97 Raider. The Defiant uses two rotor discs that move in opposite directions to defeat retreating-blade stall. Counter-rotating rotors have an advancing blade on each side of the aircraft, giving balanced lift at all speeds. Advanced composites make the blades extremely stiff, so they can whir through the air in proximity without hitting each other.

Pusher Prop: This rear-mounted propeller provides extra thrust. "It's an incredible sensation to realize that you're at the cruise-power setting of a normal helicopter but going 250 mph," Sikorsky chief test pilot Kevin Bredenbeck says.

Bell Helicopter

Tiltrotors: Bell is building its entrant, the V-280 Valor, based on its experience with the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor. The smaller, nimbler version will be able to carry 11 soldiers 264 miles, hover for 30 minutes, and return at 320 mph. No need to worry about retreating-blade stall: To go fast, pilots toggle a thumb wheel that tilts the twin rotors 90 degrees, transforming them into propellers. The Valor's two engines will be fixed in a horizontal position, with only the rotors pivoting up and down. The Valor will sport flexible rotor blades for a new level of maneuverability at low speeds, while still providing the range and efficiency that no traditional helicopter can match.

Side Doors: "The bread-and-butter mission for the Army is air assault," V-280 program director Keith Flail says. "When soldiers are coming into a landing zone, they need clear fields of view and clear fields of fire out the sides of the aircraft."

Karem Aircraft

Optimum Speed Tiltrotors: Karem's TR36TD concept uses twin tiltrotors to achieve a top speed in level flight of more than 420 mph. The company developed a technology, the Optimum Speed Tiltrotor, that allows the pilot to adjust the revolutions per minute of the rotor depending on the phase of flight. The rotors don't need extra power to turn during forward flight, so decreasing their rpm increases efficiency.

Ducted Fans: AVX's design relies on a compound-coaxial helicopter like Sikorsky's, but with rotors that are lighter and more flexible, saving weight and therefore reducing power requirements. A pair of ducted fans on the rear of the airframe will give AVX's as-yet-unnamed rotorcraft extra speed. The rotors and the ducted fans push the demonstrator up to a maximum of 265 mph.

AVX

Forward Canards: In cruise mode, much of the lift will come from a pair of canard wings near the nose. "Based on our analysis, the coaxial-compound helicopter will outperform a conventional helicopter, and the cost will be essentially the same," AVX president Troy Gaffey says.

Source:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/news/the-rise-of-radical-new-rotorcraft-16850989

 

[Triton]

"Bumpy Ride Ahead for Military's Future Helicopter Program"
by Sandra I. Erwin

June 04,2014

Source:
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1522

The Pentagon's plan to acquire a new family of helicopters once again is up in the air. The military intends to continue to fund rotary-wing research and testing programs, officials said, but it cannot yet predict if or when it will have funds to buy new aircraft to replace the current fleet.

Like every other modernization program in the Defense Department, new helicopters have to compete for funding within a pool of shrinking dollars. Officials said the military services are having to trade off new weapon systems to fund their payroll.

"The budget environment is very difficult," said Jose M. Gonzalez, deputy director of land warfare, munitions and tactical warfare systems at the Defense Department.

The helicopter modernization effort known as "future vertical lift" got under way in 2009. The goal is to design and build a family of helicopters that would replace the current fleet of Black Hawks, Apaches and Chinooks by 2030. Analysts have estimated the program could be worth up to $100 billion.

The project has "moved to the right over the years," but the Pentagon is committed to keeping it alive, Gonzalez said June 4 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Helicopter manufacturers have regarded the future vertical lift project, or FVL, as one of the few remaining opportunities in the military rotorcraft market. But the reality for contractors is that while FVL appears to have heavy backing from the Pentagon leadership, it does not have much money in the Defense Department's five-year spending plan.

Gonzalez said the military services are fighting to protect the research dollars in their budgets for the "joint multirole rotorcraft" technology demonstration, which is the first phase of FVL.

Aircraft manufacturers, which are pouring corporate research dollars into the program, want assurances that there will be production contracts at the end of the road that would justify their investments. The Army has said it will fund two prototypes and flight tests that are scheduled to begin in fiscal year 2017.

The Army in 2013 awarded technology "investment agreements" to four companies under the JMR program: Bell Helicopter, Sikorsky Aircraft Co., AVX Aircraft Co. and Karem Aircraft Inc.

Given the uncertainty about future budgets, officials have warned, purchases of new equipment could be delayed. "We are doing everything we can to be as transparent as possible," Gonzalez told an industry executive who asked about the potential risks for contractors that are investing in rotorcraft technology.

Gonzalez said the joint multirole rotorcraft, or JMR, technology demonstration might not lead to the procurement of new aircraft within the desired timeline, but could "feed alternatives other than a new-start program ... such as major upgrades or changes in con-ops [concept of operations]." Technologies such as variable speed transmissions or lightweight materials could transition to FVL or other systems.

"The work we are doing in analysis and developing upfront requirements hopefully will put us in a better position when the services have resources" to fund acquisitions of new aircraft, said Gonzalez. He insisted that FVL is a high priority. "We have leadership attention on rotary wing. We have a strategic plan. We have government and industry working together in a vertical lift consortium," he said. "We have a very hungry, competitive industry that is self investing and pushing innovation."

One of the motivators of FVL is the promise that it could save the military billions of dollars in maintenance and support costs by consolidating multiple makes and models into fewer, more standardized aircraft.

The military today has about 6,600 helicopters of 25 different designs. "We are not building a one-size-fits-all helicopter," Gonzalez cautioned. The intent is to design a family of aircraft of different sizes, with common information systems and a standard architecture.

Interoperability among the branches of the military is central to FVL, said Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Gary L. Thomas, deputy director of force management, application and support at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We have capabilities from different services but we can't share information," he said at the CSIS forum. "Systems don't talk to each other because they weren't made by the same manufacturer." The FVL gives the Pentagon an opportunity to eliminate stovepipes, he said.

Joint-service aircraft can be a sore subject at the Pentagon, given the troubled experience of the F-35 joint strike fighter. But Thomas defended the decision to make FVL a joint program. "There will be bumps on the road, it is painful, and there are lessons learned [from F-35] we can capture," he said. The important point about FVL, he said, is that it is trying to do away with the "platform-centric" thinking of traditional Pentagon programs. "We have to think about both platforms and mission systems. This is not how we have done vertical lift in the past."

Long-term logistics support is another major consideration in FVL, said Army Col. Kevin J. Christensen, Joint Staff director of force management, application and support. Each helicopter model in the fleet today has its own line of supply. "We need commonality," he said. Most people worry about the cost of buying new aircraft, "but the real value of FVL may be in how we affect operations and support cost, the cost of ownership," he said. "It could be hundreds of billions of dollars worth of savings."

Industry analysts are watching FVL as a bellwether of the military aviation market. "If the FVL program survives — and that’s a valid question — it will have a huge impact on the Big Three: Boeing, Sikorsky and Textron," analyst Roman Schweizer of Guggenheim Securities wrote June 4 in a note to investors. He noted that Textron's Bell Helicopter has put together a powerful team that includes Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Spirit Aerospace, Eaton, GKN, Moog and others. "As currently envisioned, we think the outcome of the FVL program could have a meaningful impact on the industry," he said. The Big Three will be competing with "pesky upstarts" AVX Aircraft, which was founded by Bell Helicopter expatriates, and Karem Aircraft, which is run by Abe Karem, the developer the Predator, Schweizer noted. "AVX is offering a concept that is very similar to Sikorsky-Boeing’s coaxial rotor design, a derivative of the Sikorsky-funded prototype X-2 helicopter." Karem is proposing a tiltrotor aircraft.

"We would have to favor the big companies for a major award like this," Schweizer said. "If AVX or Karem pull off an upset, we would expect them to partner with a larger manufacturer, giving the losing primes a way back into the program." He noted the Army budgeted about $230 million to fund two demonstrators.

Christensen said the Pentagon is aware of the industrial-base implications of FVL decisions. A study of the helicopter industry is under way, he said. "We have a strong concern about the rotorcraft industrial base.

 

[Triton]

Looks like we missed this one:

AVX expects work to continue on its future vertical lift design
By: Jon Hemmerdinger
Nashville
May 06, 2014

Source:
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/avx-expects-work-to-continue-on-its-future-vertical-lift-398898/

Helicopter manufacturer AVX Aircraft Company continues to stress the advantages of its design for a future vertical lift aircraft.

At a press conference on 5 May, company officials expressed confidence AVX will be among two firms chosen to build demonstrators for the US Army, saying its position as a smaller, more nimble company works to its advantage.

However, the officials add that development will not necessarily end even if AVX is not among those chosen.

“We don’t bring with us either a legacy or a burden of overhead [or] other attributes that some of the big guys do,” says Scott Pomeroy, vice chairman of AVX, which launched in 2005. “Innovation is not the birthright of a large public multinational corporation. We think the strategy of being flexible, nimble [and] agile with our approach is precisely what the army and the military necessitates."

Pomeroy and other AVX executives were speaking at the Army Aviation Association of America Mission Solutions Summit in Nashville, Tennessee.

AVX chairman, president and chief engineer Troy Gaffey says the company has hired staff who helped design rotor systems and gearboxes for other advanced helicopters, such as the Bell Boeing V-22 tiltrotor.

Still, Gaffey says AVX will probably need to partner with another company if it is chosen to supply an aircraft to the army. “We will most likely have a teaming arrangement with a company that can handle the assembly, integration and production support,” he says.

AVX is one of four companies that won contracts to conduct design work for the army’s joint multirole programme. Others include a Sikorsky-Boeing team, a Bell Helicopter-Lockheed Martin team and Karem Aircraft.

AVX’s design calls for an aircraft with two overhead coaxial rotors and two pusher ducted fans on the back of the fuselage. This configuration will allow the aircraft to achieve 80% of the speed of a V-22, but at half the cost, the executives say.

The company says its aircraft will have more than twice the cabin volume of a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, be able to carry 8t of cargo and have space for 14 battle-ready troops.

The type will be able to hover at 6,000ft in temperatures of 35˚C (95˚F), and be able to fly without refuelling from Travis AFB in California to Hawaii – a distance of about 2,100nm (3,890km), AVX says.

The firm has not named its concept, although a company marketing video refers to the design as an “innovative compound coaxial helicopter".

The US military is expected later this year to name two companies to build demonstrators for the follow-on future vertical lift programme, and Gaffey says he is “very optimistic” AVX will be chosen.

However, Gaffey says the army could allow the two companies that are not chosen to continue work on some aspects of their designs, and conduct windtunnel or other tests that do not involve flight.

“I suspect AVX will be involved one way or another,” says Gaffey.

 

[Triton]

"Future Vertical Lift: One Program Or Many?"
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on June 05, 2014 at 12:00 PM

Source:
http://breakingdefense.com/2014/06/future-vertical-lift-one-program-or-many/

WASHINGTON: What is Future Vertical Lift? There is no one answer, but rather a range of possibilities. At one extreme is a single mega-program, building four variants for the four services to replace a host of existing helicopters, a vision in some ways even more ambitious than the long-troubled tri-service Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). At the opposite extreme, however, FVL would just be overarching guidance and common technology for a range of separate, service-specific programs, both new aircraft and upgrades to existing helicopters. The reality will almost certainly end up somewhere in between.

“We don’t know exactly where that sweet spot is,” Brig. Gen. Gary Thomas told me frankly. Thomas, a Marine Corps fighter pilot, is co-chair of the Pentagon’s executive steering group for FVL, and he’d just spoken about the initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The starting point is the desired capabilities [and] the desire to produce commonality,” he said, but they’re staying flexible about the end point.

“Eventually, this process will inform a new-build program, but we’re not there yet,” Thomas told me. Until then, he expects FVL to spin off technologies and ideas for upgrades to existing helicopter programs.

“The start of at least the first program has moved a little bit to the right, a couple of years,” said the other co-chair of the FVL steering group, Jose Gonzalez, deputy director for land warfare and munitions in the Pentagon’s acquisition, technology, and logistics (ATL) organization. “[But] one thing we need to keep in mind,” he told the audience at CSIS. “A lot of the Future Vertical Lift work — the analysis work that we’re doing and the technology work that we’re doing — could feed alternatives other than a new-start program. They could inform a major upgrade [i.e. to an existing aircraft], or there could be a CONOPS change” — that is, a change in concepts of operation not necessarily accompanied by new equipment at all.

“In the past,” Brig. Gen. Thomas told the CSIS audience, the military and industry have tended to think about vertical lift narrowly in terms of individual platforms: “It’s a helicopter,” full stop. In the FVL construct, however, the “air vehicle” and the “common mission architecture” are co-equal components. What’s more, it’s the latter — developing common, compatible, or even interchangeable mission equipment that can go into different kinds of aircraft — that may be “your greatest return on investment,” Thomas said, because it could simplify logistics and reduce operations and maintenance costs for decades to come. (This might well be a lesson learned from the JSF. Its software, computing power and sensors are the aircraft’s greatest assets.)

There are limits to commonality, noted Col. Kevin Christensen, an Army helicopter pilot who, like Thomas, works for the Joint Staff’s J-8, who handle force structure and resource assessment. “Laws of physics still apply, so the bigger [aircraft] is going to have a bigger engine and the smaller one’s going to have a smaller engine,” Christensen said. But the FVL vision is to design both engines so a single maintainer can work on both, without needing a special course on each aircraft.

Other equipment could be completely interchangeable. For example, Christensen said, “the avionics architecture ought to be plug and play, so if it’s an Army airplane’s at a Marine facility and a radio or nav[igation] system needs to be swapped out, we can do that.”

That is impossible today. When Marines landed their helicopters at his Army helicopter unit’s base in Afghanistan, “all I could give them was meals and a cot,” Christensen said. The four armed services among them have almost two dozen different helicopters, each with its own unique needs in terms of spare parts, training programs and the like. That’s fiscally inefficient and operationally cumbersome. “We haul 23 systems or so to a theater, each with its own line of supply,” he said.

Those 23 existing kinds of aircraft can be upgraded with common, interoperable equipment developed under FVL — up to a point. Eventually, an aircraft runs out of room, payload, or electrical power if you keep adding new equipment as “afterthoughts” to the original design, Christensen said. The “huge payoff,” he said, is to design commonality into new aircraft “from the very beginning.”

So FVL eventually does need to lead to a new helicopter — or whatever replaces conventional helicopters in the future.

There’s intense competition between Bell-Boeing tilt-rotor technology, as used on the V-22 Osprey and the proposed V-280 Valor, and Sikorsky’s hybrid rotor-and-propeller aircraft like the X-2, X-3, and the proposed Raider and Defiant concepts. And Airbus may well weigh in as the program’s direction becomes clearer.

“We have no idea what the actual design turns out to be,” Christensen told me after the public discussion. In fact, there will be several designs, each quite possibly run as an independent program — in contrast to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter approach. “Unlike JSF, where we’re talking about a program to do multiple variants of an airplane, FVL may be several programs of record,” he told the CSIS audience.

“There were a lot of lessons learned in terms of that program [F-35] and mistakes made,” Brig. Gen. Thomas added.

Like F-35, however, the FVL initiative must ultimately produce new aircraft to replace current ones as they reach the end of their useful service life. “We have a finite time,” Gonzalez said, working backwards from the expected retirement dates of existing systems.

“It’s not a matter of if,” said Thomas. “It’s a matter of when.”

 

[malipa]

What I don't get about the AVX design is the canards, because they will ruin the downdraft and push the helicopter down, so making the helicopter less efficient... Or am I saying something stupid... It looks amazing, and it is ideal for the shooters and the FAST ropes, but looking at the aerodynamics.. Could it be solved by placing them besides the fans on the back and sliding the rotors aft?

 

[Triton]

"Companies Step Up Investment in Future Army Helicopter"
By Valerie Insinna

Source:
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1535

A Boeing-Sikorsky team continues to pour money into a prototype helicopter that it hopes the Army will select as its future rotorcraft.

A competition for the Army's "future vertical lift," or FVL, isn’t scheduled to kick off in earnest until the next decade, but the Army has defined some preliminary requirements for the aircraft. It should be able to carry 12 troops equipped with Land Warrior systems, cruise at 230 knots and have a combat radius of 424 kilometers. It will also be able to fly at altitudes of 6,000 feet in 95 degree Fahrenheit weather.

Sikorsky and Boeing are developing a prototype that will fulfill those requirements, and also offer the Army other capabilities for the FVL-medium, said Pat Donnelly, Boeing's program director for the team’s Joint Multirole Rotorcraft entry, called the Defiant.

“There may be certain technologies that we will not be able to fly because of the maturity level in three years, but the Boeing-Sikorsky team will continue to develop those technologies on the side,” he told reporters during a June 17 conference call.

Four teams are working on joint multirole technology demonstrators that will be used to inform requirements for the future vertical lift program, which Army officials intend to be the acquisition vehicle for a next-generation family of rotorcraft to replace its current helicopter fleet. Initial operating capability for a medium-lift FVL variant is scheduled for the mid 2030s.

As part of the JMR program, competitors are required to pay at least 50 percent of the costs of developing and producing a prototype, said Doug Shidler, Sikorsky's Defiant program director. Boeing and Sikorsky are contributing “significantly more” funding than that, although he would not specify how much.

“We think it’s important to develop the technologies to inform the Army and the customers on what is in the art of the possible for the future, so as they are developing the requirements for future vertical lift medium, they have the knowledge [of what] we're able to provide them based on testing, building and demonstrating capabilities that exist,” he said.

Three other companies — Bell Helicopter, AVX Aircraft and Karem Aircraft — won technology investment agreements in 2013 for JMR. The Army is expected to select two competitors, which will fly prototypes in 2017. Bell and Karem are proposing tiltrotors, while AVX and the Sikorsky-Boeing team are offering a coaxial-rotor design.

Boeing and Sikorsky have submitted the Defiant’s initial design and risk report to the government and are scheduled for a review with the Army next week, Shidler said. A final design and risk review is planned for mid-2015.

Jose M. Gonzalez, Defense Department deputy director of land warfare, munitions and tactical warfare systems, said earlier this month that although the Pentagon is committed to the future vertical lift program, a difficult budget environment could keep a new-start program from coming to fruition. Instead of procuring a brand new aircraft, technology demonstration efforts could help inform upgrades or changes to rotorcraft concept of operations, he said.

As the manufacturers of the UH-60 Black Hawk and AH-64 Apache, Boeing and Sikorsky would be able to transfer technology created for the Defiant back into their existing platforms, Shidler said.

The most unique feature of Defiant’s design is its rotor configuration — a rigid, coaxial rotor system where two blades share the same axis and rotate in opposite directions, said Donnelly. “What that does is it counters the torque generated by that rotor, so there's no need for an anti-torque system, which in a conventional helicopter, could draw up to 15 percent of the power."

By making the rotors rigid instead of flexible, they can be installed closer together, which reduces drag, he said.

“What's unique about our aircraft is that thrust can be regulated,” Donnelly said. “Not only does it allow us to accelerate at great speeds at level attitude ... we can also use it as a brake, so we can use it to significantly decelerate as we are entering a [landing zone].”

The companies selected an off-the shelf engine for the demonstrator — the Honeywell T55, which is installed on CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopters, he said. Choosing an engine that could modify its speed was necessary so that the Defiant could modulate its rotor speed.

Risk reduction will be a key driver for the JMR program. Boeing and Sikorsky have targeted several technologies for further maturization during wind tunnel and flight testing, Shidler said. For instance, the company wants to improve the aircraft’s lift-over-drag ratio.

The Navy said it is interested in procuring FVL aircraft, but so far the Army led efforts to define requirements for the program. The Navy will likely merge in its own requirements later on, Shidler said.

 

[Sundog]

What I don't get about the AVX design is the canards, because they will ruin the downdraft and push the helicopter down, so making the helicopter less efficient... Or am I saying something stupid... It looks amazing, and it is ideal for the shooters and the FAST ropes, but looking at the aerodynamics.. Could it be solved by placing them besides the fans on the back and sliding the rotors aft?

The same downwash from the rotors will be hitting the nacelles for the thrust fans as well. The canards may just balance out the losses during hover so that there isn't much of a pitching moment as a result in hover.

 

[TomS]

What I don't get about the AVX design is the canards, because they will ruin the downdraft and push the helicopter down, so making the helicopter less efficient... Or am I saying something stupid... It looks amazing, and it is ideal for the shooters and the FAST ropes, but looking at the aerodynamics.. Could it be solved by placing them besides the fans on the back and sliding the rotors aft?

The impact of the canards on rotor downdraft doesn't look that bad -- comparable to the ESSS wings on a Black Hawk and less than the wings of a tiltrotor. I think they need to be forward to balance the lift from the pusher ducts when the rotor is unloaded in forward flight.

 

[yasotay]

What I don't get about the AVX design is the canards, because they will ruin the downdraft and push the helicopter down, so making the helicopter less efficient... Or am I saying something stupid... It looks amazing, and it is ideal for the shooters and the FAST ropes, but looking at the aerodynamics.. Could it be solved by placing them besides the fans on the back and sliding the rotors aft?

The impact of the canards on rotor downdraft doesn't look that bad -- comparable to the ESSS wings on a Black Hawk and less than the wings of a tiltrotor. I think they need to be forward to balance the lift from the pusher ducts when the rotor is unloaded in forward flight.

I agree think this makes sense.