I put these here as they are part of the JMR discussion.
Bell unveils V-280 Valor mock-up
By: Jon Hemmerdinger Washington DC 7 hours ago
Source:
Bell Helicopter revealed the first full-scale mock-up of its V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft today to attendees of the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting in Washington DC.
The model allows Army procurement officers to see firsthand Bell’s answer to the Army’s request for an aircraft under the Joint Multi-Role (JMR)/Future Vertical Lift (FVL) programme.
The V-280 will have a composite fuselage made by Spirit AeroSystems, a large-cell carbon-core wing, fly-by-wire controls and a V-shaped tail.
Keith Flail, Bell’s programme director for FVL military programs, tells Flightglobal that the V-280 is the product of Bell’s 55 years of experience in designing and building tiltrotor aircraft.
It also incorporates lessons the company learned from its V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, which Bell produced in partnership with Boeing.
The V-22 is used by the US Marine Corps and US Air Force, and has completed nearly 200,000 flight hours, says Flail.
He notes that unlike the V-22, the V-280s engines do not rotate. Rather, only the rotor system tilts.
Bell, which is building the V-280 with Lockheed Martin, was among four teams awarded technology investment agreement deals by the Army in early October.
Bell and competitors AVX Aircraft, Karem Aircraft and a Boeing-Sikorsky team will develop technology demonstrators from 2017.
The future of army aviation?
By Craig Hoyle on 19 October, 2013 in Defense With an 'S'
Bell has released this image of a full-scale mock-up of its V-280 Valor tiltrotor, which will be on display at the AUSA show in Washington DC next week. We can expect the company to say a bit more about its offering there, although it has already confirmed that GE Aviation is to supply the proposed transport’s engines.
Bell and its partner Lockheed Martin reckon something like the Valor could be in with a shout of succeeding the US Army’s versatile Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. They’ll be flying a demonstrator in 2017 as part of the service’s Joint Multi-Role process, along with rivals AVX, Boeing/Sikorsky and Karem; an activity which is sure to not disappoint on the cool scale.
My DC-based colleague Jon Hemmerdinger will be at AUSA, and you’ll be able to keep up with the top news over on our defence channel.
New Tech Brings Sales Challenges To Bell
By Amy Butler
abutler@aviationweek.com
Source: AWIN First
October 22, 2013
Bell Helicopter is taking its campaign to sell the V280 Valor tiltrotor concept straight to potential U.S. Army operators with a “productivity-per-hour” appeal rather than the standard “cost-per-flying-hour” argument.
“Our starting point is to go to the end user,” said Bell CEO John Garrison during a roundtable breakfast with reporters Oct. 22. The Valor offers “a very different value proposition. It is a very different mindset.”
This approach also is likely to be pursued by Karem Aircraft, also offering a tiltrotor in the Army Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstration (JMR-TD) program. Through the JMR-TD, the Army eventually will downselect to two contenders that will proceed into the Future Vertical Lift – Medium competition to replace up to 4,000 Sikorsky UH-60s and Boeing AH-64s in the fleet today.
At issue is a tension between the traditional Army method for acquiring aviation systems, which measures value by cost to produce the units and cost per flying hour for operations.
The tiltrotor proposition, however, is to convince the Army to widen its view of the cost of the system to reflect the advantages of its speed and range. The Army currently uses eight main bases in Afghanistan for aviation assets; the range and speed offered by the Valor could allow the service to shrink that footprint to two forward operating bases for support of the entire country, Garrison says. This would reduce the number of soldiers needed for such support functions as security, lowering the practical operating cost of the aircraft.
The V280 also would be self-deployable with its 2,100-nm range using enhanced fuel carriage onboard, reducing the amount of airlift needed to support a deployment, Garrison adds.
This campaign could face similar challenges as those faced by the Global Hawk in winning a Navy competition for a future P-3 replacement, and in EADS’ lost bid to capture the U.S. Air Force aerial refueler competition. In both cases, the value for the aircraft was placed by the contractor on effectiveness, not on unit or a traditional accounting of operating cost. In the case of Valor, Garrison acknowledges that the value is not only calculable in the cost of the system itself, but in estimating the cost avoidance of other systems, such as the reduced need for support, on the overall Army budget.
Bell, Karem Aircraft, Sikorsky/Boeing and AVX have each won JMR-TD contracts. The Army plans to downselect to two for flight demonstrations in 2017.
Not to forget the experience gained with the S-69 (XH-59).
