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

[jsport]

Also would a ducted fan be less observable to certain forms of radar than an open rotor system?

thought the Senior Citizen concept was maintaining multi-aspect stealth w/ duct fans, jet thrust, etc. rather than open rotors.

 

[jsport]

Variable pitch ducted fans have lots of bandwidth (as in, can produce changes in thrust quickly), so yeah, if that were a design goal, you could build a ducted fan vehicle with lots of control authority in hover. Tilting the ducts (a la XV-22 is a bit slower, unless you have large hydraulics). Now, it's hard to make apples to apples comparisons with a conventional helicopter- an articulated rotor also has lots of control power.
The answer, as it almost always is, is that the mission drives the requirements and the level of weight/complexity/cost that you are willing to take on.

just don't think there has been enough research into what might be possible w/ material science of duct fans, blade shape (possibly active blade duct fans), colanda effects, gearless jets+AVX jet driven fan concepts which DARPA and the now defunct D-STAR Engineering explored almost two decades go etc.. and open rotors are not going to carry the weight, attain any degree of stealth or decent forward endurance.

 

[Triton]

"V-280, SB>1 Are Vehicles to Lessons Learned"
by Dan Parsons, S.L. Fuller | September 13, 2017

Source:
http://www.rotorandwing.com/2017/09/13/v-280-sb1-arent-prototypes-vehicles-lessons-learned/

As the industry readies its experimental vertical-lift aircraft for U.S. Army evaluation, aviation officials have made clear they do not consider the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrators (JMR-TD) to be prototypes of future helicopters. “JMR-TD are not prototypes. They are an experiment of technologies,” said Maj. Gen. William Gayler, chief of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence (AACE) Gayler, at a recent Army aviation forum hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army. “It’s going to inform what the final requirements will be. It’s really important … it’s the relationship of the attributes that are important to us.

“Industry is certainly trying to provide an option, but what industry has right now is not a prototype,” Gayler told Defense Daily, an R&WI sister publication, at the event. “It is going to be very informative to the final solution. I think we have to have that. We’ve got to have industry leaning forward. If industry listens to concepts and how we will fight and what combination of attributes will be important to us, it will only help them in the future.”

Gayler also said that FVL will not necessarily consist of one rotorcraft design scaled up and/or down to perform different missions, because certain airframe designs may not scale in the same direction.

“It is absolutely possible for us to envision different aircraft,” Gayler said. “We’re looking for the capability and the relationship of those attributes that provides the best capability in its class. I can envision the introduction of capability of several different variants that look distinctly different.”

Whether the Army would be able to martial the funding necessary to pursue two separate rotorcraft development and acquisition programs at once remains to be seen, Gayler said.

Affordability and efficiency has been a theme in the Army’s pursuit of future aircraft. If the service is going to replace its entire fleet in a timely fashion, it will need to be calculated.

“If your fleet is 2,135-strong, it is going to take continuous production, at almost max production rates, 40 years to turn that fleet over,” said Brig. Gen. Thomas Todd, who moderated a panel on science and technology for future aviation operations. “So we have to ask ourselves, ‘Do we really want to continue to put ourselves in that box?’ In order to succeed, we would need to be strategic as we move forward in developing capability.”

That, he continued, could entail buying fewer aircraft. If so, the aircraft would need to be all the more efficient.

The two designs officially participating in the technology demonstrator are Bell Helicopter’s V-280 and the SB>1 Defiant, from a Sikorsky-Boeing team. Bell’s advanced tiltrotor is built on experience manufacturing the V-22 Osprey, and the Defiant’s coaxial-rotor technology has been developed by Sikorsky through its X-2 and S-97 experimental aircraft. All three manufacturers had seats on Todd’s panel. Bell’s VP of Advanced Tiltrotor Systems, Keith Flail, noted that the company has learned lessons about affordability from participating in the FVL program. Bell completed construction of its V-280 last week.

“Those kinds of things — really looking at affordability and what affordability means to the department and to the Army — is something we have really been able to wrap into this,” he said of the V-280’s development process. “I don’t think a lot of folks at the beginning of JMR really thought that we would get that kind of learning out of this. We can get a lot of learning about technology, but there’s learning that is applying across the entire lifecycle and across the entire acquisition process.”

Sikorsky’s VP of innovations, Chris Van Buiten, said that its FVL offering is set to make its first flight next year. One focus for Van Buiten and Sikorsky Innovations is autonomy. He said the technology could have applications for the Army, however far down the road that might be.

“We want to put autonomy in the airplane to augment the group. Some call it ‘optimally piloted,’” Van Buiten said. “The crew is going to be there for most of the mission, but put a degree of autonomy to enable flight in degraded visual environments, high workload environments, enable manned/unmanned teaming by unloading the crew and letting the autonomy system take on a lot of the mission.”

Another focus for the company is intelligence. Van Buiten said Sikorsky is actively downloading gigs of data from its commercial fleet every night, and it’s then processed by “an increasingly capable supercomputer cluster.” This has led to increased availability and a decrease in maintenance.

“It’s very intense; it’s a whole new field,” he said of the technology. “And increasingly you’ll see it start to converge with the autonomy. All are enablers for Future Vertical Lift.”

The company has its Sikorsky Autonomy Research Aircraft (SARA), an autonomous S-76, on a certification path. Van Buiten also mentioned it is building autonomous capabilities onto a Black Hawk demonstrator, which he said the industry and public would “see a lot more of next year.”

Sikorsky’s S-97 Raider, a smaller version of the SB>1 Defiant it has pitched for the JMR-TD program, has been flying for more than a year. One of the two existing prototypes suffered a hard landing in August, but the company said the mishap will not hinder the progress of the program, which is meant to validate the coaxial-rotor design. The S-97 suffered “substantial damage,” according to a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report on the Aug. 2 accident in Jupiter, Fla. The preliminary report was published Aug. 11 and shows that both pilots on board suffered minor injuries when the aircraft went down on a clear day while hovering. Sikorsky plans to get its second S-97 airborne in the near future, and resume flight testing.

Brig. Gen. Frank Tate, director of Army Aviation for the Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G-3/5/7, is closely watching both teams’ flight testing and is eager to continue working with industry to achieve FVL. However, he said he is focused on the capability certain technologies offer rather than the design of any specific aircraft.

“We continue to look forward and work with industry to do relatively low-cost tech demonstrators, then demonstrate the validity of leap-ahead technologies that take the physics of vertical lift to a whole other level that we need to get to, to get after the capability gaps we have discussed,” Tate said.

“Then you close in on your actual requirements and put that out to industry, now knowing what is … achievable and get to more rapidly an actual product on the street,” he added. “We are focused on how we do our requirements process so we can do that much faster and do it in a way that is smart, that will get us what we want, that is not so constraining that you possibly throw away things that are achievable more quickly and are still a giant leap ahead.”

 

[fredymac]

US Army program director for JMR/FVL gives update status on Bell and Sikorsky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5yYHK_1NAk

 

[jsport]

US Army program director for JMR/FVL gives update status on Bell and Sikorsky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5yYHK_1NAk

he says 'Urban operations' Open props really :

will quote Yasotay here.

"I have always been a proponent of ducted fan, especially when considering urban operations."

 

[Hood]

Does anyone know if there is a comparison of the rotor area of the UH-60 and the rotor area of the V-280 and of the likely minimum size of a safe landing zone?

 

[TomS]

Does anyone know if there is a comparison of the rotor area of the UH-60 and the rotor area of the V-280 and of the likely minimum size of a safe landing zone?

The attached PDF (from the Bell website) claims it's comparable. Their drawing shows more width, but suggests they need less separation, so the actual number of aircraft that can fit in an LZ is the same.

 

[yasotay]

The Valor is ~4.0 feet wider than the H-60. So not a great difference. That said remember the V-280 IS NOT a prototype for the FVL program. The requirements for that program are still in the works, regardless, of what Bell, Boeing, Sikorsky, or Lockheed says. V-280 and SB>1 are both technology demonstrators.

That said, barring big changes to the requirements, I would expect both teams to use the demonstrators as the base for their proposals.

 

[VTOLicious]

I posted the following in the dedicated Valor-thread some time ago:

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,19036.msg185709.html#msg185709

Some thoughts regarding hover efficiency and dimensions of the V-280:

The UH-60L has a rotor diameter of 16,36m, a disc area of 210m² and disc loading of 47,5kg/m² (@9980kg grossweight).

Despite the Osprey is a completely diffrent weight class, it has the same disc area (211m²). The rotors of the MV-22B are 11,6m in diameter.

For good hover efficiency we can assume the V-280 must have a similar rotor diameter to achive the Blackhawks (low) discloading. That would imply a wingspan of ~14m and width of ~26m with turning rotors! (same as the Osprey)

...yes, the V-280 doesn´t need to transfer power to a tailrotor or other anti torque device, but the downwash on the wings is a design penalty of tiltrotor aircraft and reduces powered lift.

Just as a side note, the Osprey has a disc loading of 102kg/m²

Btw, the latest pics of the tech demonstrator's proprotors suggest that they are borrowed from the Osprey

Regards, Michael

 

[Hood]

Many thanks, those links are very helpful.

I can't see final design solutions being much different, though clearly both will need some refinement of their design features (e.g. the open parts of the V-280's tilt prop housing).

 

[yasotay]

It will depend on if the requirements from the government stay the same. Not that the Army changes its mind very much...

 

[Triton]

"Bell V-280 Vs. Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1: Who Will Win Future Vertical Lift?"
by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on October 02, 2017 at 2:02 PM

Source:
https://breakingdefense.com/2017/10/bell-v-280-vs-sikorsky-boeing-sb1-who-will-win-future-vertical-lift/

The Comparison

So which system’s better? That depends on who you believe and what the mission is.

A compound helicopter is “a little less efficient than a tiltrotor flying long distances,” Sikorsky’s VP for innovation, Chris Van Buiten, admitted to me. “But the mission is not simply to fly long distances. (With a tiltrotor,) while it is efficient in its cruising mission, it struggles when it gets to the objective.”

To replace the Army’s current Black Hawk transports, an aircraft needs to be able to land quickly in tight spaces under fire, drop troops, and then take off again – ideally flying backwards so it doesn’t have to wait to turn around. To replace the Apache gunships, an aircraft needs to fly low and slow over the battlefield, ducking behind cover when enemy anti-aircraft units appear, then popping up again to fire guns and missiles. You don’t want to wait for your rotors to tilt from vertical to horizontal flight mode like a V-22 or V-280, Van Buiten argued.

Bell, naturally, disagrees. They’ve learned a lot since they built the V-22, said V-280 program manager Chris Gehler, and they’ve “radically upgraded the low-speed handling qualities,” he told reporters in Amarillo. That required changing how the rotors flap, improving materials, and, above all, increasing the size of the rotors relative to the aircraft. The V-280 has the same size rotors as the V-22 but weighs half as much, Gehler said, giving it “50 percent more control power than a V-22” at low speeds, superior to the present-day Black Hawk and Apache.

At high speeds, Gehler claimed, tiltrotors are “far and away” more maneuverable than compound helicopters: “Right now, compound coax is having challenges turning at high speed.”

That’s true of less sophisticated compound helicopter designs, said Van Buiten, but not of theirs, in large part because of the two counter-rotating rotors. In effect, he said, “the rotor behaves like a wing in high-speed flight and we have tremendous agility.”

What does an independent expert think? “In general, tiltrotors don’t offer the kind of agility and maneuverability that a compound design does,” said Richard Aboulafia, aviation analyst at the Teal Group.

That might require different designs for different missions and different services, Aboulafia told me, with the military ending up with a mix of tiltrotors, compound helicopters, and traditional helicopters. While the Army’s currently leading the most near-term parts of Future Vertical Lift, “the overwhelming bulk of Army rotorcraft requirements involve transport, where FVL’s virtues don’t matter much. With faster speeds, you get less lift capacity unless you want to pay more. However, it’s quite possible that they go with the Boeing-Sikorsky Raider design (the SB>1’s smaller brother) for scout and attack missions, where survivability and lethality are worth paying for.”

“The V-280, by contrast looks purely like a Marine design,” Aboulafia said. Despite talk of far-ranging maneuvers and Multi-Domain Battles, he doubts the Army will be willing to pay a high premium for speed and range, which the Marines have already proven willing to do on the V-22. His prediction: The Marines double down on tiltrotors, the Army will keep upgrading conventional helicopters for the bulk of its fleet, and a smaller number of compound helicopters will be built as gunships and scouts.

 

[fredymac]

V-280 slow speed rotor testing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dafw9bFOr1I

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2017/10/24/armys-future-vertical-lift-you-cannot-use-a-cookie-cutter-acquisition-process/

 

[Triton]

"Future Vertical Lift poised to get Army out of the acquisition dark ages"
By: Jen Judson   1 day ago

Source:
https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/01/30/future-vertical-lift-plan-poised-to-lead-army-out-of-acquisition-dark-ages/

WASHINGTON — The Army has an ambitious plan to develop, build and acquire a new family of vertical lift aircraft expected to come online in the 2030s. But naysayers often point to the service’s muddied track record in acquiring new weapons systems, particularly new helicopters.

But this time it will be different, according to Brig. Gen. Frank Tate, the director of Army aviation in the service’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for operations, planning and training.

“What we want to achieve is significantly different from the way we’ve done business in the past and has the potential to make a huge difference in the future,” Tate told Defense News in a recent interview at the Pentagon.

The pressure is on to succeed.

Future Vertical Lift (FVL) was named the third top priority in a list of six modernization priorities laid out by the Army when it announced it would stand up a brand new command focused on modernization last fall. And Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has said the service’s goal in achieving future readiness is for future capability to be 10 times improved.

While that sounds daunting, Tate explained that doesn’t mean an aircraft has to be 10 times faster, can travel 10 times farther, can carry 10 times more in payload and is 10 times more lethal. It’s a “cumulative assessment” of capability based on improvement in those key performance parameters, he said.

So with that in mind, the Army plans to build an FVL aircraft using a method to incrementally achieve more and more capability over time that is not unlike the business strategies employed by Apple and Samsung, Tate said.

[Army Aviation Has a Weight Problem]
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Moving beyond the industrial era

“One of the problems with the way we worked in the past is we were working on an industrial era model and you would buy [aircraft] and you would have those [aircraft] for 40 or 50 years and everything is exactly the same and there’s very little change,” Tate said. “Well now we are in a Moore’s Law world and so are our enemies and our adversaries. And increasingly Moore’s Law leap-aheads in technology are available at low cost to even low-end adversaries.”

Tate warned that if the Army continues to operate using an industrial-age model where an original equipment manufacturer is locked in to provide both the airframe and everything inside — from the cockpit to the sensors to the weapons systems — it will “inherently fall behind a more agile enemy that is not locking themselves into that model.”

The Army has conceptualized a way to procure its future helicopters along with state of the art technology that will drive FVL capability at a rapid pace.

If it is successful it could mean better procurement results throughout the service.

For example, the Army is separating the work it’s doing to procure an airframe for the helicopter with the work to develop and build missions systems that would go inside.

And two demonstrator aircraft — one from Bell Helicopter and one from a Sikorsky-Boeing team — will spend this year into next flying in order to test out promising technology. Because the Army will spend more time working out the kinks in a prototyping phase rather than during an actual program of record, it will be easier to define requirements and to expedite the process of building and fielding a future aircraft, according to Tate.

[V-280 Valor flies for the first time]

Acquiring the right mission systems is a completely different ballgame.

“It will take X number of years to build the [aircraft], but if we were to write a requirements document today that specifies what all the digital Moore’s Law type things are going to be, you are guaranteeing you are going to be buying an antique by the time it comes out,” Tate said. “After a year and a half, I can’t stand my cell phone … because there are already so many better things on the market.”

That same concept applies to sensors and other systems that would go inside a future helicopter, he said.

Aircraft sensors that would provide such capabilities like the ability to see in a degraded visual environment, fly autonomously, or protect the aircraft from enemy fires are expected to evolve at a much more rapid pace than the airframe’s technological capabilities.

“So why would I write a requirements document today that included all those things already? So how do you tackle that though because you need to be able to, when the [airframe] is ready, to then integrate things rapidly that is the most modern, the best thing that can be bought then,” Tate said.

A defense backbone for Army, ‘just like Apple has ios’

The answer? The Army needs to own its own digital backbone that sets up the architecture so any mission system developed to the backbone’s software and hardware standards can plug in akin to how apps are developed for Apple or Samsung, Tate said.

“In a perfect world, that architecture then spreads to all of our platforms over time, potentially not just aviation platforms,” Tate said. “If we are successful in what we want to do in Army aviation that could find its way into tanks or other combat vehicles because now we have a defense backbone, just like Apple has ios.”

And by having a flexible backbone, there are other implications in procurement that could contribute to affordability while also fostering competition.

For example, while there are 2,000 UH-60 Black Hawks in the Army inventory now, not every aircraft will have to have the same sensor, Tate said, because it will be easy to plug-and-play capability.

The Army would order smaller lots of a specific sensor from one company and, perhaps, a few years later a different company will have built something more capable and the Army could then buy that, Tate said.

Currently, the Army is “married” to particular systems within an airframe, Tate said. “We even name funding lines based on the product that won,” a competition, he said. “So I want to change that. I want to name funding lines things like ‘light precision munition,’ no name of what precision munition.”

By increasing competition, technology will advance at a more rapid rate and costs will be driven down in order to stay competitive, according to Tate.

Tate said the first step in establishing a backbone architecture is the UH-60 Victor.

Northrop Grumman won a U.S. Army contract to upgrade Black Hawk L-model helicopter cockpits from analogue to integrated, open-architecture digital ones. The converted version is called the Victor-model.

[Flight of Northrop's Victor-model Black Hawk opens door for more cockpit business]

“Now, we will have industry partners that are helping us build it and design it and everything like that, but we are not married,’ Tate said. “If another company comes down the road as Program Executive Office Aviation continues to work on [development, offering] cheaper, better, faster Moore’s Law ideas, it’s a contract of just a few years and then you can recompete and go to another company.”

The Victor will also allow the Army to test how effectively and quickly it can integrate systems onto the aircraft based on vendors designing to a specific standard, he added.

Ideally, the future aircraft’s mission systems will be so flexible, they will be able to be programmed for a mission with the right capabilities in simple reboots overnight, for example, Tate said.

And the level of flexibility of a digital backbone would prevent the catastrophic failures of the past that could kill an entire program.

“You don’t have to kill the whole platform because you are not happy with one of the mission equipment aspects of it, or delay the whole platform because of that,” Tate said. “You can cut just that little piece and award it to somebody else that is doing something better all of a sudden.”

 

[Triton]

"Industry Picking Up Steam Designing New Helicopters"
1/26/2018
by Yasmin Tadjdeh

An Army effort to demonstrate cutting-edge helicopter designs is gathering momentum as industry moves forward with the development of new aircraft.

The service is leading a project known as the joint multi-role technology demonstrator, which will serve as a precursor to the Army’s eventual future vertical lift program. FVL is intended to replace thousands of aging legacy helicopters with a new, advanced family of systems — including light through ultra-heavy variants — across the services in the late 2020s and 2030s.

The companies participating in the technology demonstrator program — Bell Helicopter and a Sikorsky-Boeing team — are plowing forward.

Bell’s V-280 Valor, which takes technology from the company’s V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, recently flew for the first time at the company’s Amarillo, Texas, facility in December.

The inaugural flight — during which the aircraft hovered for several minutes — was considered a success, said Chris Gehler, Bell’s program manager for the V-280.
“It’s a huge milestone,” he told National Defense. “Bell is providing the Army leadership and DoD leadership confidence that there is definitely a viable technology that can meet the future vertical lift requirements.”

A data issue with the aircraft’s telemetry system caused Bell to end the test earlier than intended, he noted.

“We saw some data come in that caused one of our engineers to say, ‘Knock it off,’ and we set the aircraft down to check out the data and it turns out that it was not an issue,” he said.

By the time the aircraft was prepared to fly again, the winds in Amarillo had picked up — making flight unwise, he noted.

Bell was able to glean information about aircraft loads through the hover test, Gehler said.
“We’re just really validating a lot of the metrics that we have established to make sure that our models are correct,” he added.

Nonetheless, Bell plans to methodically progress up to high-speed testing and then transitioning to forward flight. That will likely happen by the end of 2018.

The company is “not trying to set arbitrary dates or anything like that, but certainly we have got a schedule,” Gehler said. “We would like to see all of the key performance parameters tested out this year.”

Bell expects the Army will want to “shake out” the aircraft in the summer and that it could be used for additional testing while being equipped with varying mission systems, he said.

Gehler sees future vertical lift as a key program for the Army and one that the service hopes to fast track.

An analysis of alternatives for future vertical lift is already underway, according to a spokesperson from the Army futures command task force. That is expected to conclude in the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.

Additionally, the service is looking at ways to speed up procurement.

“The Army is considering opportunities to accelerate the program and the opportunities will be assessed as the joint multi-role technology demonstration flight tests are conducted and … [a] draft capabilities development document further matures,” she said in an email.

At the same time, however, budget uncertainty is having an effect on the program. Continuing resolutions in fiscal years 2017 and 2018 have increased schedule risk, she noted.

A Sikorsky-Boeing team is also participating in the joint multi-role demonstrator effort.
The companies are offering the SB-1 Defiant, which is based on Sikorsky’s X2 technology that replaces the single main rotor on a traditional helicopter with a coaxial rotor, and a pusher-propeller that replaces a traditional tail rotor, said Chris Van Buiten, vice president of Sikorsky Innovations.

“Because of the coaxial rotor design, you don’t have to counter the torque of the main rotor with the tail rotor,” he said. “The advantage of this configuration is significantly higher speeds than the legacy platforms.”

The team plans for the aircraft to fly at 250 knots, he added.

Rich Koucheravy, business development director for future vertical lift at Sikorsky, said the Defiant’s fuselage has been at the company’s West Palm Beach, Florida, facility for nearly a year.

“The aircraft is mostly constructed,” he added. “We have mostly completed the build on the aircraft, minus some of the power-train components.”

Over the past year the team has finished work on the engines, auxiliary power unit, electrical system and hydraulics system, and has connected the electrical power to the cockpit and avionics. It has also done substantial work with the aircraft’s fly-by-wire software, he noted.

However, despite original plans for first flight to occur in 2017, the Sikorsky-Boeing team now plans to fly the aircraft sometime in 2018, Koucheravy said.

“We have really scrutinized every bit of this program to see what we can do to reduce schedule and to pull first flight to the left,” he said. “We still believe we are on track to fly in 2018 but we are not going to rush to fly before we’re ready.”

Randy Rotte, business development director for FVL at Boeing, said the companies have run into challenges as they have constructed the blades.

“We’re building them using tools that we already had because you don’t necessarily invest a tremendous amount in developing new tools for something that you’re only building a prototype of as you would for a production program,” he said. Therefore, the tools are not being optimized in the same way they normally would be. “We’ve figured out ways to overcome those challenges but that all takes time,” he added.

Koucheravy noted the companies are employing advanced technologies for the aircraft and with that often come delays.

“The compound coaxial offset system requires us to have a fully rigid rotor system,” he said. “There are not any aircraft currently flying in the DoD inventory that have fully rigid rotor blades, and they present some manufacturing challenges.”

Despite the delays, it is important for the team to get the technology complete before flight trials start, he said.

“Certainly the government has said openly … [that] they would have liked us to have flown sooner, but what’s important is that when we get in the air and when we begin testing this aircraft that the test flight program goes off safely,” Koucheravy said.

Both Rotte and Koucheravy said they did not believe the schedule delays would have a negative effect on the team during a future vertical lift competition, or put Bell in a more advantageous position.

“We compliment our Bell brethren who have got their aircraft flying. I think that’s a notable accomplishment. I wouldn’t say it concerns us,” Rotte said. “Our aircraft is on a different schedule. It’s a different set of technologies and will provide a different set of capabilities.”

While Sikorsky-Boeing plan to eventually offer the Defiant as a medium-size variant for the future vertical lift program, Sikorsky is eyeing its Raider for the light version of the system, Van Buiten said.

The S-97 Raider — which also employs the company’s X2 technology — has been in development for years and had its first flight in 2015.

“Sikorsky decided about five or six years ago to pursue both [variants] and prepare for both,” Van Buiten said. “Our FVL light work on Raider pushes lessons learned into the Defiant build.”

Raider is in its 19th flight hour and the company has filled out the system’s flight envelope to 150 knots. Through iterative testing, Sikorsky is working its way up to a flight test where the aircraft reaches 220 knots, he said.

The company has produced two Raider systems. This past summer, the first prototype suffered what has been described by the company as a hard landing, which has since kept it from the skies. Van Buiten said it would be sometime before that system would be ready for flight testing again.

“Requalifying experimental hardware to re-enter the flight test after it went through an event like that can be kind of tricky, so we’re … moving on to aircraft two,” he said.

The second prototype is nearing completion and is slated to begin flight trials in the spring, he said.

Ray Jaworowski, a senior aerospace analyst at Forecast International, a Connecticut-based market-consulting firm, said because the joint multi-role program is not structured as a competition in a classic sense, it may not matter much that the Valor flew before the Defiant.

The point of the demonstrator is to test new technologies, giving the competitors more flexibility until requirements are firmed up in a formal future vertical lift program of record, he added.

In an October memo released by Gen. Mark Milley, the chief of staff of the Army, and Ryan McCarthy, then-acting secretary and current undersecretary of the Army, the two service leaders listed future vertical lift as a top modernization priority.

It is clear that the Army is excited about the efforts, but there is less enthusiasm within the other services, Jaworowski said.

“The whole idea behind FVL is that it will be a joint program similar to [the F-35] joint strike fighter … in that this will be a solution for all the services,” he said. The Army will not only replace its Apaches and Black Hawks, but the Marines will replace their AH-1 Cobra and UH-1 Iroquois helicopters. The Navy will replace its Seahawks.

“The Army is the one service that is the most enthusiastic about it and that’s to be expected,” he said. “They’re the largest operator of helicopters among the three services.”

However, experts and analysts have argued that the reason the F-35 has run into schedule delays and ballooning costs is because it is a joint program.

“The more you try to please everyone with the design of an aircraft, the less pleased any one of the individual customers” will be, Jaworowski said. The Army has “seen the lessons learned from joint strike fighter and they have those in mind as they continue … down the road with FVL.”

While the Army has named the effort one of its top modernization priorities, industry will have to watch for any signs of problems, he added.

“One sign that FVL might be heading for some trouble, … and by trouble I mean not necessarily termination but perhaps a significant delay, is if you start to see serious talk about block upgrades,” he said. That could prompt the service to buy an AH-64F Apache to succeed that AH-64E rather than invest in a brand new system.

“The Army will tell you right out that they have no plans for an AH-64F, and so that’s a good sign for FVL remaining on the current schedule,” Jaworowski added.

 

[bobbymike]

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/03/sikorsky-flies-triple-threat-for-fvl-light-medium-robot/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=61136800&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-86N-HpZat-BTbAD7NX2duyUs8JkT8cVfmLEH0n8-YJbQ_1WiBokowgJQcM56_SEwC0n4Dn00zlaCs6Y6_qyfo7UVN7cQ&_hsmi=61136800

CRYSTAL CITY: This is the year Sikorsky catches up on the Future Vertical Lift program, company executives told reporters Monday. Yes, last year arch-rival Bell Helicopter was first to fly its entry in the Joint Multi-Role flight demonstration, the official lead-in to FVL. But this year Sikorsky will fly not one but three different aircraft showcasing FVL technologies:

Sikorsky’s own JMR offering, a joint venture with Boeing called the SB>1 Defiant, which could evolve into the FVL medium variant replacing the UH-60 Black Hawk;
the S-97 Raider, getting back into the air this spring after an accident last year, which could become FVL-light, a scout similar to the retired OH-58 Kiowa; and
an “optionally piloted” UH-60 Black Hawk that fly unmanned or with a crew as needed, testing autonomy on a mature aircraft before it’s transferred to FVL.

 

[Triton]

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/03/sikorsky-flies-triple-threat-for-fvl-light-medium-robot/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=61136800&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-86N-HpZat-BTbAD7NX2duyUs8JkT8cVfmLEH0n8-YJbQ_1WiBokowgJQcM56_SEwC0n4Dn00zlaCs6Y6_qyfo7UVN7cQ&_hsmi=61136800

CRYSTAL CITY: This is the year Sikorsky catches up on the Future Vertical Lift program, company executives told reporters Monday. Yes, last year arch-rival Bell Helicopter was first to fly its entry in the Joint Multi-Role flight demonstration, the official lead-in to FVL. But this year Sikorsky will fly not one but three different aircraft showcasing FVL technologies:

Sikorsky’s own JMR offering, a joint venture with Boeing called the SB>1 Defiant, which could evolve into the FVL medium variant replacing the UH-60 Black Hawk;
the S-97 Raider, getting back into the air this spring after an accident last year, which could become FVL-light, a scout similar to the retired OH-58 Kiowa; and
an “optionally piloted” UH-60 Black Hawk that fly unmanned or with a crew as needed, testing autonomy on a mature aircraft before it’s transferred to FVL.

“This year we fly three airplanes that are super relevant to Future Vertical Lift,” said Chris Van Buiten, Sikorsky’s VP for innovation, “so we congratulate the other guys on flying their one airplane.”

Admittedly, Sikorsky’s making wine from sour grapes here. No doubt they’d have preferred to get their JMR demonstrator in the air earlier. They certainly didn’t want to land their original S-97 so hard it broke, as happened last year. Rather than take the time to recertify that aircraft as safe to fly, Sikorsky decided it was faster to convert their other S-97 to do flight tests, executives told me. Even so the accident delayed the program.

Nevertheless, Sikorsky’s three-pronged approach is genuinely interesting, not a mere makeshift. Over the years, the Army-led Future Vertical Lift initiative to replace the current generation of helicopters has evolved into a family of aircraft of different sizes with different roles, so Sikorsky having both the SB>1 and the S-97 is an advantage. Both use a compound-rotor technology that Sikorsky believes is more agile, stealthier, and generally more elegant than Bell’s tilt-rotor designs.

FVL has also focused on the potential to augment or replace human pilots with automation, which fits well Sikorsky’s work on what’s called either “optionally manned” or “optimally manned” aircraft. The idea that automation takes over the routine business of flight — and incidentally keeps the aircraft from hitting the ground much more reliably than a distractible human — while the human focuses on the tactical mission.

Sikorsky has experimented with “click and fly” software, installed on an ordinary tablet, that allows even an untrained operator to direct the helicopter as if it were an Uber. It’s been flight-tested for DARPA on a Sikorsky S-76. “Any of you could fly that 76 with 10 minutes of orientation,” Van Buiten told reporters at Lockheed Martin’s annual media day. (Lockheed now owns Sikorsky). “Click on a tablet and take off, select destinations, and — instead of moving throttles and collective and cyclic and pedals — the high performance computer sorts out all those interactions and executes the maneuvers in the safest possible way.”

 

[bobbymike]

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/03/artillery-drones-missiles-will-help-fvl-penetrate-air-defenses-fvl-cft/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=61551330&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--WwWGOBKlG4n4Nkc8MX5yPRGwWUOUM4d9s-AjCM55IzyDL96Fa8wie8-_-Hoo5g7Ph8LZbU5tDm0ptx24Sga-NMfn_4Q&_hsmi=61551330

PENTAGON: “We’re not yielding the air domain to anybody, so we’re going to build those capabilities that we need to dominate,” the head of the Army’s aviation Cross Functional Team told reporters yesterday. While Brig. Gen. Wally Rugen heads what’s officially called the Future Vertical Lift CFT, his portfolio extends well beyond the FVL aircraft program itself. Rugen wants:

New “modular” missiles with plug-and-play warhead options and longer range;
New drone designs “purpose built” to penetrate advanced anti-aircraft defenses;
New manned aircraft — the FVL itself — 60 percent faster than current helicopters, with Artificial Intelligence to assist the human crew.

 

[fightingirish]

Bell will use a AW609 fuselage as a test demonstrator for an upcoming civil version of its V-280 Valor.
Source (5:50, 29:50):
https://youtu.be/3NV9qlcGhwM

 

[yasotay]

I think Mike slipped and said Bell when he meant Leonardo. Bell IS looking at civil application for V-280 tech, but I do not think they are in the European Clean Skies program as a prime. Leonardo is. The pictures at 29:50 are of the Leonardo concept, although Bell may be participating. The picture at 5:50 is a new fuselage (note tricycle landing gear) with V-280 dynamics and surfaces.

 

[yasotay]

In case you thought the Army could learn from its mistakes...

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/03/army-really-wants-armed-recon-aircraft-again-vcsa-cft-chief/

de ja vu' all over again.

 

[jsport]

In case you thought the Army could learn from its mistakes...

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/03/army-really-wants-armed-recon-aircraft-again-vcsa-cft-chief/

de ja vu' all over again.

absolutely, UCRAVs are great (none on the horizon) but as argued RSTA/scouts and snipers need a penetration VTOL (none on the horizon) while both craft are essential urban environments demand duct fans ie no flow energy loss chalked open blade lifters.

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.military.com/defensetech/2018/03/27/army-unveils-family-future-vertical-lift-helicopters.html

As it stands, FVL will consist of several aircraft, starting with an advanced unmanned aerial system platform capable of delivering targeting data for long-range precision fires, said Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen, deputy commanding general of the 7th Infantry Division and director of the Future Vertical Lift Cross Functional Team.

It will also be capable of electronic attack on enemy radars systems.

"We want to be able to spoof those radars, jam those radars, hunt those radars and kill those radars," he said.

There will also be a future attack reconnaissance aircraft, "sized to hide in radar clutter ... to operate in the urban canyons of mega cities," Rugen said. This aircraft will be "optionally manned" with "a lot of autonomy baked into" the platform.

 

[yasotay]

https://www.military.com/defensetech/2018/03/27/army-unveils-family-future-vertical-lift-helicopters.html

As it stands, FVL will consist of several aircraft, starting with an advanced unmanned aerial system platform capable of delivering targeting data for long-range precision fires, said Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen, deputy commanding general of the 7th Infantry Division and director of the Future Vertical Lift Cross Functional Team.

It will also be capable of electronic attack on enemy radars systems.

"We want to be able to spoof those radars, jam those radars, hunt those radars and kill those radars," he said.

There will also be a future attack reconnaissance aircraft, "sized to hide in radar clutter ... to operate in the urban canyons of mega cities," Rugen said. This aircraft will be "optionally manned" with "a lot of autonomy baked into" the platform.

My point exactly. The Army has an APPROVED Joint Requirement for the Capability Set 3 aircraft (thus the two JMR demonstrators). Now that we have gotten it approved and gotten SOCOM and USMC to agree..."nope", the Army want a Reconnaissance Attack (okay they flipped it) aircraft that has not gotten approved. Old folks from the early 80's might find this familiar.

 

[F-14D]

https://www.military.com/defensetech/2018/03/27/army-unveils-family-future-vertical-lift-helicopters.html

As it stands, FVL will consist of several aircraft, starting with an advanced unmanned aerial system platform capable of delivering targeting data for long-range precision fires, said Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen, deputy commanding general of the 7th Infantry Division and director of the Future Vertical Lift Cross Functional Team.

It will also be capable of electronic attack on enemy radars systems.

"We want to be able to spoof those radars, jam those radars, hunt those radars and kill those radars," he said.

There will also be a future attack reconnaissance aircraft, "sized to hide in radar clutter ... to operate in the urban canyons of mega cities," Rugen said. This aircraft will be "optionally manned" with "a lot of autonomy baked into" the platform.

My point exactly. The Army has an APPROVED Joint Requirement for the Capability Set 3 aircraft (thus the two JMR demonstrators). Now that we have gotten it approved and gotten SOCOM and USMC to agree..."nope", the Army want a Reconnaissance Attack (okay they flipped it) aircraft that has not gotten approved. Old folks from the early 80's might find this familiar.

Given the glacial development the Army has laid out for FVL-M (don't forget, Army has said that they may not use either of the JMR demonstrators for FVL but could conceivably look at something else), I have my doubts they were ever going to produce an operational aircraft.

 

[Triton]

"U.S. Army: FVL Must Deliver More Capability At Right Cost"
Apr 26, 2018 James Drew | Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

Source:
http://aviationweek.com/vertical-flight/us-army-fvl-must-deliver-more-capability-right-cost

NASHVILLE, Tennessee—The vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army says that cost will be a decisive factor for determining when the service will step into a next-generation, high-speed, long-range rotorcraft under Future Vertical Lift (FVL).

Gen. James McConville told reporters at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual symposium April 26 that “we’re all-in, if we can get that capability at the appropriate cost.”

The Army and Marine Corps have been lining up the multi-service procurement of a middleweight FVL platform to eventually replace their respective Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk and Bell H-1 Huey fleets. However, the timing of a request for proposals for development as well as entry into service remains in flux.

With significant acquisition decision milestones coming up this year, McConville warns that the Army cannot afford to invest in “massive programs that overpromise, under deliver and die of their own weight.” Although an impressive aircraft, the Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche, terminated in 2004, was “too expensive to buy and operate,” he notes.

“Cost matters. We don’t want to buy something we can’t afford,” McConville said during a media roundtable. “We want much more capability for the dollar than we’ve gotten before. Don’t bring us exquisite, expensive things, because we can’t afford it. If it’s less expensive with more capability, that’s what we want.”

The timeline for FVL-Medium, as outlined in the service’s fiscal 2019 budget request, would issue a request for proposals for the initial technology maturation and risk-reduction phase in fiscal 2021. That would lead to a down-selection for the engineering and manufacturing development phase, with production and deployment starting around fiscal 2030.

The vertical lift industry has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in concept demonstrators, such as the Bell V-280 Valor and Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant. The prime contractors and their suppliers have been calling for the Army to move faster, saying they cannot sustain this level of investment without firm requirements and an intent to buy.

Thus far, the Army hasn’t budged, despite raising Future Vertical Lift to its No. 3 modernization priority in the fiscal 2019 budget plan. Army leaders say they remain fully committed to an FVL procurement, including an optionally piloted middleweight replacement for the Black Hawk and light attack/armed reconnaissance platform.

But McConville would not be drawn on which platform is the higher priority, a Black Hawk replacement or armed scout, which would fill a void left by the retirement of the Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. However, he indicates that incremental modernization of the current fleets of Black Hawks, Boeing AH-64 Apaches and CH-47 Chinooks cannot continue forever, saying, “once we start running out of letters for future upgrades, it’s time for a new aircraft.”

“Once we can field [FVL] at the right cost, that’s when we’ll bring the capability onboard,” McConville says. “We see exciting times ahead for Army Aviation. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not a train.”

 

[Triton]

"U.S. Army Reveals Next-Gen Aircraft Plans"
Apr 27, 2018 James Drew | Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

Source:
http://aviationweek.com/defense/us-army-reveals-next-gen-aircraft-plans

The U.S. Army will pursue a mix of long-range, high-speed, agile unmanned and optionally piloted manned aircraft in its attempt to regain aviation dominance.

Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen, director of the Army’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Cross-Functional Team, says Army Aviation has been “outnumbered and outranged” by the weapon systems of potential adversaries, specifically Russia’s.

Speaking at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual symposium on April 27, Rugen said the vast array of threats the U.S. military faces, from Moscow’s long-range air defense weapons to its aviation platforms, is “troubling.”

“We have to claw our way back to vertical lift dominance,” he says. “We also have to return the to the speed of historic programs.”

To meet this challenge, Rugen has revealed work on an “ecosystem” of Future Vertical Lift platforms, all enabled by an “Android-like modular open system approach.”

He confirms the Army will pursue a next-generation family of unmanned aircraft under the newly established program called Future UAS. This collection of UAVs will perform “dangerous, dirty and dull” work. This could include transporting cargo or flying ahead of manned aircraft into hostile territory to aid in the destruction of enemy air defenses.

Rugen explains that a “subset” of the Future UAS program will deliver an “Advanced UAV” to team with the Army’s future manned scout platform.

“It will become our premier targeting and electronic attack asset by surveilling, detecting and attacking across multiple spectrums,” he says. “It will build a shared understanding of a very capable enemy and lower our latency to deliver effects on the battlefield, optimized for anti-access/area denial environments.”

The other two platforms the Army wants to field will be "optionally manned." These two aircraft types have previously been referred to as Capability Set 1/FVL-Light and Capability Set 3/FVL-Medium. FVL-Light referred to a lightweight attack/armed reconnaissance platform, while FVL-Medium is a multiservice procurement with the Marine Corps to replace the Sikorsky H-60 and Bell H-1 utility/assault helicopters.

Rugen revealed new terms for these two aircraft: the Future Reconnaissance/Attack Aircraft (Future ARA) and Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA).

Future ARA will be a nimble, lightweight attack platform, well suited to urban warfare. The Army has considered a size limit for this category: 40 ft. by 40 ft., about the area of a city intersection.

“The Future ARA will dominate through maneuver and execution of reconnaissance, attack and electronic warfare,” he says. “It will provide close-combat lethality in complex environments, operating in the canyons of megacities.”

When supported by the Advanced UAS platform and long-range precision fires from land, air and sea, the Future ARA will be responsible for finding and fixing targets and “breaching” an enemy’s integrated air defense systems (IADS)--no easy task.

“The focus is on increased combat radius, increased endurance at that radius, speed and agility while enhancing survivability,” Rugen says. “These two airframes [manned and unmanned] represent the central piece of the IADS-breaching team. They will conduct the dangerous work of detecting, finding and fixing threats and providing targeting for long-range precision fires and aviation fires.

“Together, they will have the interoperability to enter and exit the fight. They will open a corridor for the joint force to seize, maintain and exploit the initiative.”

FLRAA, which aligns with FVL-Medium, will become the Army’s “next-generation lift, assault and medevac asset,” with an emphasis on speed, range and payload.

“It will operate from relative sanctuary with speed and agility,” Rugen explains. “Both manned platforms will have the capability to be optionally manned.”

These revelations appear to put to rest concerns that the Army is truly committed to Future Vertical Lift. It also suggests there are near-term programs of record being established to carry forward work being done by industry to validate next-generation rotorcraft concepts, such as the Bell V-280 Valor, Sikorsky/Boeing SB-1 Defiant and Sikorsky S-97 Raider.

Rugen said each of the categories, manned and unmanned, are priorities for the service, but he didn’t say which type would enter development first.

"Prototyping is critical to this process," he says, noting that Army Aviation will need to shift funding to support those efforts. “It’s an ecosystem we need to build."

 

[bobbymike]

Boeing's Rotte, Sikorsky's Koucheravy on SB-1 Defiant JMR Technology Demonstrator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQvSk1nVnCQ

 

[Flyaway]

British Army flags potential interest in US FVL helicopter programme

A senior army officer says the UK military is still evaluating how to replace its combined medium-category transport helicopters, but has warned European industry that unless it develops a future rotorcraft that offers a step-change in speed and range capability, then it may instead select US-built products.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/british-army-flags-potential-interest-in-us-fvl-heli-448867/

 

[kkk]

The fuselage of SB-1 has been exposed!!!!
https://twitter.com/TheWoracle/status/1001818296973488129

 

[Triton]

"U.S. Marines Detail FVL Rotorcraft Requirements"
May 16, 2018 Graham Warwick | Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

Source:
http://aviationweek.com/awindefense/us-marines-detail-fvl-rotorcraft-requirements

PHOENIX—An advanced rotorcraft that can fit within the same deck space as the Bell H-1 but is fast enough to sprint ahead of the Bell Boeing V-22 tiltrotor are among key attributes the U.S. Marine Corps is seeking from the planned Future Vertical Lift (FVL) ...

 

[yasotay]

"U.S. Marines Detail FVL Rotorcraft Requirements"
May 16, 2018 Graham Warwick | Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

Source:
http://aviationweek.com/awindefense/us-marines-detail-fvl-rotorcraft-requirements

PHOENIX—An advanced rotorcraft that can fit within the same deck space as the Bell H-1 but is fast enough to sprint ahead of the Bell Boeing V-22 tiltrotor are among key attributes the U.S. Marine Corps is seeking from the planned Future Vertical Lift (FVL) ...

Any other interesting stuff seems I am unable to access today.

 

[Triton]

"Sikorsky Raider Flies Again As U.S. Army Details Armed Scout Plan"
Jun 29, 2018 Graham Warwick | Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

Source:
http://aviationweek.com/defense/sikorsky-raider-flies-again-us-army-details-armed-scout-plan

The U.S. Army has briefed industry on its plan to conduct a competitive fly-off in 2023 between prototype armed scout rotorcraft as Sikorsky pushes ahead with flight testing of its S-97 Raider.

The S-97 high-speed light helicopter completed a 90-min. flight from West Palm Beach, Florida, on June 28, the second since returning to flight on June 19 and the 17th overall for the Raider program.

June 28 was also the industry day for the Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft Competitive Prototype (FARA CP) program, under which the Army plans to fly rival rotorcraft meeting the Future Vertical Light (FVL) Light, or Capability Set 1, requirements for an armed scout.

A draft solicitation released on June 22 says FARA CP will fund a rapid prototyping and test effort that will “support a decision to enter into a formal program of record for EMD [engineering and manufacturing development] through production as a rapid acquisition.”

The document describes the FARA as “the ‘knife fighter’ of future Army Aviation capabilities, a small form-factor platform with maximized performance.” Sikorsky is offering the S-97 Raider, while AVX Aircraft, Bell, Boeing and Karem Aircraft are studying concepts.

The 11,000-lb. Raider has the same Sikorsky X2 coaxial rigid-rotor compound helicopter configuration as the 30,000-lb.-class Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant demonstrator under development to meet the Army’s larger FVL Medium, or Capability Set 3, requirement to replace the UH-60 Black Hawk.

“The Raider continues to meet all flight objectives, demonstrating how Sikorsky’s X2 technology will revolutionize vertical lift. We are showing how X2 aligns with the Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft requirements, filling a critical gap in the Army,” says Tim Malia, Sikorsky’s director for FVL Light.

The second S-97 flew from Sikorsky’s development flight center at West Palm Beach, retracting its gear and engaging its pusher propeller. The company is aiming to demonstrate a speed target of 220 kt. later this summer. The first Raider had reached 150 kt. before it was damaged in a hard landing.

Malia does not reveal the speed reached on the latest flight. “It is important to know that in addition to speed expansion, we are also flying flight regimes that highlight the other game-changing attributes of our rigid rotor and propulsor … which will change the way we fight,” he says.

“The whole package is coming together and it is exciting to see the relevancy of this performance with the requirements called out in the FARA solicitation released last week,” he continues, adding Sikorsky is “energized by the speed in which the Army is proceeding.”

Under the FARA CP, the Army anticipates awarding four to six initial contracts in June 2019, giving teams nine months to develop preliminary designs. Two teams will then be downselected in the third quarter of fiscal 2020 to build and test prototypes.

First flights are planned for the first quarter of fiscal 2023, with a fly-off in an operationally relevant environment to be completed in September 2023. FARA would then transition to a program of record for development and production in fiscal 2024.

“We participated in the Army’s industry day on its draft solicitation for a new attack reconnaissance aircraft and we appreciate the information that was shared. We believe the X2 aircraft family offers the military a scalable solution that will meet the evolving demands of a multi-domain battlespace,” he says.

 

[yasotay]

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/07/congress-divided-on-75m-for-army-scout-aircraft-fly-the-deadly-skies/

I doubt the Vegas odds are real good on this. I am amazed that investors are still willing to bet large money on the U.S. Army. My money, if I had any, would be on the USMC. They tend to follow through with their aviation programs.

Really want to be wrong on this.

 

[TomcatViP]

Don't forget Northrop that build a tail seater UCAV for the Navy. They might want to scale-up the concept for scout job with a 2+2 cabin. In fact, with some slight innovations added to refine the tail seater concept, that makes a lot of senses.

 

[TomS]

I don't see how you could adapt the TERN design to this mission. Tailsitters in general are tricky for manned crews, since they need to operate with the pilots in two different orientations. For just landing and takeoff, you can maybe get away with tipping the crew on their backs for a little while. But for a job that might involve hovering for extended periods, it's a terrible idea.

 

[yasotay]

An unmanned TERN might be a viable solution for the integrated UAS part of the program. I have to agree that a manned version would not get far with the Army.

 

[jsport]

I don't see how you could adapt the TERN design to this mission. Tailsitters in general are tricky for manned crews, since they need to operate with the pilots in two different orientations. For just landing and takeoff, you can maybe get away with tipping the crew on their backs for a little while. But for a job that might involve hovering for extended periods, it's a terrible idea.

what he said.. TERN is dumb idea having been discussed on Secret Projects extensively.

 

[Triton]

"Army Expected To Release RFP for New Scout Helicopter"
by Mark Huber
- September 18, 2018, 11:58 AM

Source:
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2018-09-18/army-expected-release-rfp-new-scout-helicopter

Within days, the U.S. Army is expected to release a formal request for proposal (RFP) for prototypes for a future attack reconnaissance aircraft competitive prototype (FARA CP) that it hopes to fly by 2023 and have in production by the 2030s. FARAs are intended to replace the Army’s fleet of decommissioned Bell OH-58 Kiowa Warrior armed scout helicopters, a mission now being flown by Boeing AH-64 Apache gunships and MQ-1C UAVs.

The Army is looking forconceptual designs and then plans to settle on two design teams by 2020 with a fly-off in 2023 and a program award in 2024. The FARA is intended to complement the medium lift aircraft that will result from the upcoming Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstration (JMR-TD) competition between the Bell V-280 Valor next generation tiltrotor and the Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant compound helicopter.

Army officials already have hinted that they want the same 200-knot-plus speed offered by the Bell and Sikorsky-Boeing JMR-TD designs. What they don’t want is the mass, preferring an aircraft small enough to easily operate in a dense urban environment; one that can carry a crew of two, one, or none, the latter with fully remote piloted/autonomous capabilities. It would also need to integrate with UAS and be able to launch its own UAS. Off-the-shelf designs that are believed to come close to meeting the FARA requirement include Sikorsky’s S-97 Raider and Airbus X3 compound helicopters or the Leonardo AW609 civil tiltrotor. Bell officials have also noted that V-280 design is “scalable,” pointing to the unmanned V-247 tiltrotor concept it has proposed for the armed forces.

In a draft solicitation for the program released this summer, the Army made its case for FARA, noting, “Army Aviation must operate in highly contested/complex airspace and degraded environments against peer/near peer adversaries capable of an advanced integrated air defense system. The Army currently lacks the ability to conduct armed reconnaissance, light attack, and security with improved stand-off and lethal and non-lethal capabilities with a platform sized to hide in clutter and for the urban canyons of mega cities. To close this gap, the Army envisions an optionally manned, next generation rotorcraft with attributes of reduced cognitive workload, increased operational tempo (OPTEMPO) through ultra-reliable designs and extended maintenance free periods, and advanced teaming and autonomous capabilities.”

FARA would be the Army’s fourth attempt to devise a replacement for the OH-58 over the last four decades, having abandoned the pricey RAH-66 Comanche program in 2004 after spending $7 billion and building just two prototypes; the less ambitious ARH-70 Arapaho, a military variant of the Bell 407, in 2008 after per unit costs ballooned to $14.5 million; and the Armed Aerial Scout program in 2013, after estimated program costs grew to $16 billion.