F-16.net

Bell Helicopter CEO John Garrison talks about Spirit AeroSystems' first V-280 fuselage delivery and the advantages of a tilt rotor aircraft over a helicopter on the battlefield. Video by Jerry Siebenmark.

bigjku wrote:Got to say based on looking at them I will be stunned if this beats the other concept out there for the program provided it is capable of meeting requirements. It just looks much less complicated and much more compact.

count_to_10 wrote:

bigjku wrote:Got to say based on looking at them I will be stunned if this beats the other concept out there for the program provided it is capable of meeting requirements. It just looks much less complicated and much more compact.

The competing tandem rotor design is pretty complicated internally and isn't as fast. Additionally, there are certain safety advantages to putting the engines out on the wings, both in terms of a crash landing and in terms of taking enemy fire.

sferrin wrote:

count_to_10 wrote:

bigjku wrote:Got to say based on looking at them I will be stunned if this beats the other concept out there for the program provided it is capable of meeting requirements. It just looks much less complicated and much more compact.

The competing tandem rotor design is pretty complicated internally and isn't as fast. Additionally, there are certain safety advantages to putting the engines out on the wings, both in terms of a crash landing and in terms of taking enemy fire.

Meets the requirements and cheaper will always win. If the req. is 230 knots Bell will get zero points for hitting 280. And a coaxial rotor isn't anywhere near as complex as a tilt-rotor all things considered.

popcorn wrote:How much of the time in the air will be spent hovering vs. in hi--speed flight, actually transporting stuff? If extra points are awarded for speed, Bell would have an edge. Also, I've also wondered about the relative agility and low-speed handling of the Valor but that's what the competitive flyoff should reveal. IMO the TCO will carry factor heavily.

bigjku wrote:

popcorn wrote:How much of the time in the air will be spent hovering vs. in hi--speed flight, actually transporting stuff? If extra points are awarded for speed, Bell would have an edge. Also, I've also wondered about the relative agility and low-speed handling of the Valor but that's what the competitive flyoff should reveal. IMO the TCO will carry factor heavily.

For the straight UH role not a ton. For replacing the Seahawks for the navy in the ASW role quite a bit. For special forces work quite a bit. I believe they are used for EW by the army as well. Sling loads are important too and I would guess that the tilt rotor won't do as well there. A Uh-60 can lift 9,000 slung vs an Osprey that does 15,000. But the V-22 has 2.5 times as much engine power to do that. The CH-47 has a similar 15,000 pound along load but with only 76% as much installed horsepower.

If this were a pure troop mover I would agree that speed is great. But it will have to do a ton of roles. I don't see it being quite as efficient as a cargo mover. And I really don't see it at all as an ASW platform on a destroyer or LCS flight deck. And if we don't replace the UH-60 with something adaptable to those roles the cost of those kind of helicopters will sky rocket.

bigjku wrote:For the straight UH role not a ton. For replacing the Seahawks for the navy in the ASW role quite a bit. For special forces work quite a bit. I believe they are used for EW by the army as well. Sling loads are important too and I would guess that the tilt rotor won't do as well there. A Uh-60 can lift 9,000 slung vs an Osprey that does 15,000. But the V-22 has 2.5 times as much engine power to do that. The CH-47 has a similar 15,000 pound along load but with only 76% as much installed horsepower.

If this were a pure troop mover I would agree that speed is great. But it will have to do a ton of roles. I don't see it being quite as efficient as a cargo mover. And I really don't see it at all as an ASW platform on a destroyer or LCS flight deck. And if we don't replace the UH-60 with something adaptable to those roles the cost of those kind of helicopters will sky rocket.

sferrin wrote:

count_to_10 wrote:

bigjku wrote:Got to say based on looking at them I will be stunned if this beats the other concept out there for the program provided it is capable of meeting requirements. It just looks much less complicated and much more compact.

The competing tandem rotor design is pretty complicated internally and isn't as fast. Additionally, there are certain safety advantages to putting the engines out on the wings, both in terms of a crash landing and in terms of taking enemy fire.

Meets the requirements and cheaper will always win. If the req. is 230 knots Bell will get zero points for hitting 280. And a coaxial rotor isn't anywhere near as complex as a tilt-rotor all things considered.

tritonprime wrote:Does the Active Vibration Control of Sikorsky's X2 Technology also add complexity?

vilters wrote:Tilt rotors are very good on paper. Just like "swing wing" airplanes are very good on paper.
In a decade or so, the "tilt-rotors" will be were the swing-wings are now.

vilters wrote:Tilt rotors are very good on paper. Just like "swing wing" airplanes are very good on paper.
In a decade or so, the "tilt-rotors" will be were the swing-wings are now.

sferrin wrote:

tritonprime wrote:Does the Active Vibration Control of Sikorsky's X2 Technology also add complexity?

If they ditched the swashplate, and are controlling the blade pitch with software, then it would just be part of the software.

The U.S. Army could cut years and billions of dollars from the planned Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Medium advanced-rotorcraft program by going straight into development after completion of the Joint Multi Role (JMR) technology demonstration, says Bell Helicopter President and CEO John Garrison.

JMR is demonstrating candidate high-speed rotorcraft to replace the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopter and potentially the Boeing AH-64 Apache attack platform. Bell is building the V-280 Valor tiltrotor and a Sikorsky/Boeing team is offering the SB-1 Defiant rigid coaxial-rotor compound helicopter.

Current plans call for JMR to end in fiscal 2019, with the two “X-plane” demonstrators flying in 2017, to be followed by a technology development phase in which competing “Y-plane” prototypes would be flown. This would lead into development and result in an initial operational capability (IOC) in 2035.

"We don’t have to wait until 2035,” says Garrison. “Industry is making the investment and can move faster than the current acquisition process. We could go to EMD [engineering and manufacturing development] shortly after we fly in 2017. We do not need another technology development phase.”

Bell is making rapid progress in manufacture of the 280-kt. V-280 demonstrator, with the composite fuselage produced by Spirit AeroSystems now in final assembly at the rotorcraft manufacturer’s Amarillo, Texas, plant. Sikorsky Boeing is to begin final assembly of the 230-kt. SB-1 in 2016.

Industry is spending $4 for every dollar of the $200 million of government funding in the JMR technology demonstration, says Garrison. The Bell team has 11 investing partners including Lockheed Martin. “We are on schedule, and hitting our affordability and sustainability targets,” says Garrison.

“We will fly no later than September 2017,” says Keith Flail, V-280 program director. “We do not need to wait until 2035 to get the capability.” If the demonstrators fly in 2017, the Army could take a Milestone B decision to enter EMD in 2020 and IOC could be achieved by 2025-27, says Garrison.

“It’s an opportunity to save 7-9 years. The savings would be huge versus doing a second technology development phase,” he says.

“It will be important over the next couple of years to establish firm requirements” for FVL Medium, Garrison says. The Army in January introduced the concept of “Capability Sets,” or groups of missions, for FVL. Medium includes Capability Sets 2 and 3, which are essentially the attack and utility mission groups.

“We are focused on Capability Set 3, which is Black Hawk replacement,” Garrison says. To shorten the program, “it will be incredibly important to define the requirements. We need to get the air-vehicle right, because it will last 75-100 years, then we can upgrade it as technology evolves,” he says.

Flail says design to delivery of the V-280’s fuselage took Spirit just 22 months, and involved minimal tooling, laser alignment and determinate assembly. “There are just three hard shims in the entire fuselage,” he says. The aircraft has composite skins over metal frames.

The nacelles are being built in Amarillo from hardware supplied by Israel Aerospace Systems. Where the entire nacelle rotates on the V-22, on the V-280 only the proprotor gearbox rotates and the engine stays horizontal. Flail says the nacelles are a challenge because they are the last to mature, due to design changes, but need to be first to be released for fabrication.

The V-280 flight simulator built by Textron sister company Tru Simulation & Training is being used for fly-by-wire flight-control-system software development, which is now through the initial Build 1 release stage, says Flail. This is being used for customer demonstrations of the V-280’s acceleration, deceleration and high- and low-speed agility.

The first General Electric T64 engine for the demonstrator is through overhaul and acceptance testing at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina. The second will be completed this year and two more spare engines next year.

Lord Corp. is supplying the elastomeric bearings that are key to the increased flapping capability of the V-280’s 35-ft.-dia. proprotors compared with the V-22’s. Flail says this results in increased low-speed agility. In airplane mode, the elastomeric bearings are lightly loaded, extending their life, he adds.

Lockheed is developing the avionics, mission equipment package and the pilotage distributed-aperture system (DAS) that will be flown on the demonstrator. “This was not a necessary requirement, but collectively we decided to fly the DAS to increase risk reduction for FVL,” he says. Flight tests will show the 360-deg. sensor’s capability in degraded visual environments such as brownout.

Lockheed is also developing an open-architecture cockpit for the V-280 that is compliant with the Future Airborne Capabilities Environment reusable software standard the Army is embracing for FVL. With Lockheed’s pending acquisition of JMR/FVL rival Sikorsky, Garrison says there have been contractual changes made to build in firewalls and commit Lockheed to fulfilling its role on the V-280.

In other areas, a manufacturing readiness review has been completed on the metallic-and-composite V-tail being produced by GKN. The Build 1 software is being integrated into the Moog-supplied flight control computers, which will be linked to the company’s flight-control actuators for hardware-in-the-loop testing in the V-280 system integration laboratory at Bell.

Astronics is supplying the electrical power and distribution system. Eaton is providing the hydraulic system, “which has unique conveying needs because we only rotate the proprotor gearbox,” Flail says. Meggit is supplying the fuel system, which includes an optional tank inside the aircraft to enable the V-280 to fly from the U.S. West Coast to Hawaii unrefueled, he says.

Bell’s major components are the carbon-fiber wing, proprotor gearbox and composite yoke for the rotor hub. The wing is the first use of large-cell carbon core composites—a sandwich of carbon-fiber skins and honeycomb—for simplicity and light weight, says Flail, and two test boxes have been built to validate manufacturing processes, strength and stiffness.

The hub yoke is laid up from composite broadgoods in open-face tooling and machined around the edges for a 50% cost reduction over using closed tooling, he says. The V-280 also has the first all-carbon tiltrotor blade for improved reliability, lower cost and greater aerodynamic performance, he adds.

Bell’s Fort Worth plant will deliver the first gearbox components this month. Getting a rotorcraft gearbox through qualification testing and into flight can take a lot of time and effort, including redesigns, but Flail says he is “feeling very comfortable about staying on schedule and getting it tested and on the aircraft.”

popcorn wrote:Good call incorporating DAS on their own initiative. Expect their rivals to do the same.

tritonprime wrote:

popcorn wrote:Good call incorporating DAS on their own initiative. Expect their rivals to do the same.

Not surprising considering that Lockheed Martin is keen on porting over the F-35's sensor fusion to JMR/FVL including the Gen III Helmet Mounted Display System (HMDS). The V-280 mock-up also has a single touch-screen instrument panel. Unfortunately, Sikorsky and Boeing have been tight-lipped about the avionic systems they are considering for the SB-1 Defiant.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — As the Pentagon considers the future of military vertical lift, Bell Helicopter is talking with the US services about designing a next-generation tiltrotor solution that could begin low-rate production in the mid-2020s, one company official said.

Bell is partnered with Lockheed Martin to build a rotorcraft flight demonstrator as part of the US Army’s Joint Multi-Role program, which will gauge the art of the possible for the path ahead. The demonstrator program will inform the Army’s Future Vertical Lift effort to buy a new state-of-the-art family of helicopters in the 2030s.

The demonstration effort may have implications beyond the Army. The Pentagon has indicated that FVL may eventually replace the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force military helicopters as well.

But for now, Bell is working with the Army and Marine Corps to shorten the time line for fielding the aircraft, the V-280, program manager Chris Gehler told Defense News Nov. 16.

“Bell Helicopter is working closely with the Army and the Marine Corps on informing the requirements of FVL, exploring the options for shortening the time required to field this aircraft,” said Gehler said. “We’ll work with our primary customers in the Army and Marine Corps to explore different ways to enter into a low rate production by the mid 2020’s. We are in close communication with the DOD to bring the V-280 onboard as soon as possible with limited risk to better take advantage of the industry and DOD investment.”

The Bell-Lockheed team is offering its V-280 Valor tiltrotor, which builds on the technology developed for Bell-Boeing’s V-22. The competing team, made up of Sikorsky Aircraft and Boeing, is working on a coaxial helicopter known as the SB-1 Defiant for the demonstrator effort.

Although the demonstrator prototypes will fly in 2017, the Army is currently not planning a contract award until the late 2020s, Richard Harris, Bell’s vice president for international military business sales, said in an interview with Defense News. But he stressed that company officials believe the Bell-Lockheed team could achieve initial operational capability by 2025.

“The Army and DOD are exploring options for shortening the V-280 development timeframe, given the significant investment by DOD and industry,” Gehler said. “The Army intends to enter a technology maturation and risk review (TMRR) phase around 2020. We feel a case could be made to instead jump ahead to the Engineering Manufacturing and Development (EMD) phase, given the technology readiness levels we will demonstrate. This has the potential to move the entire timeline up, and deliver this leap-ahead capability to the warfighters years earlier.”

Bell’s goal is ultimately to replace all the Pentagon’s helicopters with the V-280, Harris said, touting the plane’s speed and flexibility. The Valor will have twice the speed and range of the Army’s UH-60 Black Hawk, more than doubling operational reach, according to Bell’s website. The future plane will also outperform the V-22, Harris said, with a combat radius of 1,200 nautical miles compared to the Osprey’s 900 nautical miles.

In one major difference between the two tiltrotors, the Valor’s engines remain in place for transition to forward-flying position, while the rotors and drive shafts tilt, Harris explained.

The V-280 will also build on the V-22’s offensive capability. Unlike the Osprey, the Valor will have a forward-firing capability, likely achieved by integrating Hellfire missiles into the plane’s side panels, he said.

While the new aircraft’s cabin will look much like a Black Hawk’s, the advanced glass cockpit uses similar technology to the F-35, Harris said, touting the plane’s fly-by-wire flight control system.

Bell just received the first cabin, and is getting ready to integrate the wings and engine onto the plane, Harris said, adding that “it went together like Lego blocks.”

“When you take a look at the dynamic world that we live in these days and how fast things happen and how far away things happen, a conventional helicopter just does not meet the requirements of all the services,” Harris said. “We are trying to define the standard for what future vertical lift is based upon [Bell’s] legacy and the fact that we are the ones that developed the secret sauce for the V-22.”

sferrin wrote:"Bell is partnered with Lockheed Martin to build a rotorcraft flight demonstrator as part"

Interesting now that they own Sikorsky.

sferrin wrote:"Bell is partnered with Lockheed Martin to build a rotorcraft flight demonstrator as part"

Interesting now that they own Sikorsky.

Lockheed Martin’s pending acquisition of Sikorsky has caused some contractual changes between Lockheed and Bell Helicopter for V-280 Valor development to ensure there is no cross pollination with its competitor, the Boeing-Sikorsky SB-1 Defiant.

Bell president and chief executive John Garrison says Lockheed continues to be a good partner on the programme and already follows many of the firewalling policies now solidified in the contract.

Bell and Lockheed have been partnered on the V-280 since 2013, with first flight under the US Army’s Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstration (JMR-TD) programme planned for September 2017. Lockheed is developing the third-generation tiltrotor aircraft’s mission system, and its $9 billion acquisition of Sikorsky will place it on the opposing SB-1 team with Boeing.

Textron chief executive Scott Donnelly and Lockheed head Marillyn Hewson are said to have discussed the issue when the acquisition was announced in July, and the two sides have appear to have resolved any competing interests.

"Lockheed called me and said, ‘this is the world we operate in. We can put in firewalls. We compete on some programmes and cooperate on others,’” Garrison said at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference in Washington this week. “We actually had a contractual change, and they’ve committed to a lot of things they were in fact doing as part of the programme. Lockheed has been a great teammate and done everything we’ve asked, plus – and we believe they’ll continue to do that.”

JMR-TD aims to mature two competing rotorcraft design in preparation for the army’s upcoming Future Vertical Lift programme, which is currently aiming for initial operational capability in 2035.

Bell believes the V-280 could be delivered to military users seven to 10 years ahead of that schedule.

Spirit AeroSystems delivered the first composite fuselage to Bell’s Amarillo plant in September, and the GKN Aerospace V-tail aerostructure is due to arrive for mating in 2016.

Garrison says his preferred time line would place IOC in 2026 or 2027, and the engineering and manufacturing development phase should begin soon after the first flight.

“We don’t need to do another five- or 10-year technology development phase as we go forward,” he says. “There’s an absolute need for this capability and we can move faster than the current acquisition process is playing out.”

Boeing and Sikorsky have expressed a similar sentiment on their side.

Garrison says for every $1 being spent by the US government on the JMR-TD endeavour, industry is spending approximately $4. He says that level of investment from the V-280 team’s 11 industry participants is unsustainable and the US Army will eventually need to contribute more.

The demonstrator will already have met key performance parameters in terms of speed and range and other capabilities but it’s also being built now with affordability in mind, Gehler said. Typically, a first design of a helicopter is one of the most expensive investments in the life of a program, but the company is taking lessons learned from the V-22 in driving out cost for the V-280, such as manufacturing a single wing structure.

“We focused on materials, techniques in manufacturing that could eliminate cost,” Gehler said. “not as sexy but it has actual real payoff for the customer.”

And Bell has designed Valor using a “digital thread environment” where it was able to design the aircraft, collaborate with suppliers, engineers, and information technology teams in order to understand where interference might be and where changes need to be made. “So by the time it gets to the build,” Gehler said, “pieces are snapping together, wires are going where they need to, the rework is significantly reduced.”

And the aircraft is coming together just like that, according Gehler. The V-280 is 65 percent complete.

The team will install gear boxes and engines later in November. In February, final assembly will occur and by April, Bell will begin ground run testing in preparation for its first flight series in the summer.

Flight tests will run through calendar year 2018 and into 2019.

count_to_10 wrote:Interesting. I saw them advertising the DAS-like sensors, and was wondering if they had brought in Northrop Grumman. Guess not.

popcorn wrote:The Raider isn't their entry in the JMR program. Their entry will be based on the SB-1 Defiant which can accommodate 4 crew and 12 passengers.

count_to_10 wrote:By the way, one interesting thing is how much bigger the V-280 is than the Raider, it's competitor in the competition. The V-280 has positions for a pilot, co-pilot, two door gunners, and then something like a dozen passengers (sitting sideways, back to back). The Raider has just the pilot and copilot, plus six (?) passengers (sitting forward and back, facing each other). Visually, though, the engine pods make the V-280 look huge in comparison.

charlielima223 wrote:Even though there are concept pictures of the V-280 with door gunners and it even looks like it has provisions for it; I just don't think it is a good idea... for two reasons. I would think that the nacelles and even the rotors could obstruct the line of fire. There is a reason why the V-22 has a tail gunner instead.

Also I would love to see an actual attack version concept based on the SB-1 Defiant. Instead of a tandem crew that sits side by side, a more conventional tandem crew of one behind the other like what we see in Cobra or Apache.

delta9991 wrote:In the V-280, the Nacelles stay horizontally mounted and only the rotors rotate so only during cruise would a door gunner be obstructed. Wont have the same issue as the V-22's did with the entire nacelle rotating. I'd love to see both of these designs win, V-280 for Blackhawk replacement, SB-1 for Apache, and its little brother S-97 Sky Raider for A/OH-6.

charlielima223 wrote:

delta9991 wrote:In the V-280, the Nacelles stay horizontally mounted and only the rotors rotate so only during cruise would a door gunner be obstructed. Wont have the same issue as the V-22's did with the entire nacelle rotating. I'd love to see both of these designs win, V-280 for Blackhawk replacement, SB-1 for Apache, and its little brother S-97 Sky Raider for A/OH-6.

I know that the V-280's nacelles do not rotate like that on the V-22 but wouldn't its Rotors still obstruct the field of fire for the door gunner at different stages of transition?

The way I am seeing it, a door gunner on a V-280 can only cover a field of fire of about 50 degrees (eye balling it here) from 90 degrees off to the side than moving to the rear while the V-280 rotors tilt during transition. Door gunners on a Blackhawk (from my understanding) can have a maximum of 100 degrees from 50 degrees forward right of the aircraft moving to the rear. However when the V-280's rotors are fully transitioned to the hover position the door gunner on the V-280 will have as much field of fire as a door gunner on a BlackHawk.

Sorry if what I am saying is a little confusing. I just pictured a protractor overlaying a Blackhawk when describing fields of fire.

count_to_10 wrote:The door gunners aren't going to be out and looking for targets unless the aircraft is at near hover speeds, so it's doubtful that the rotors will be in a position to obstruct them.

charlielima223 wrote:As I said, the door gunner will have a field of fire very much equivalent to that of BlackHawks when the rotors are fully tilted in the hover position. My concern is during a transition phase of the rotors or during low speed approaches or flight when the rotors aren't exactly in full hover tilt.

charlielima223 wrote:

count_to_10 wrote:The door gunners aren't going to be out and looking for targets unless the aircraft is at near hover speeds, so it's doubtful that the rotors will be in a position to obstruct them.

It is not uncommon that when dedicated attack helicopters or other aircraft are not available to provide cover, another BlackHawk circles to provide cover. Door gunners are mainly their for defensive purposes but the gunner still has to be able to look for possible threats and be able to engage them. The V-280 definitely seems like an improvement over the V-22. Perhaps I am thinking too much into it.

being built now with affordability in mind, Gehler said. Typically, a first design of a helicopter is one of the most expensive investments in the life of a program, but the company is taking lessons learned from the V-22 in driving out cost for the V-280, such as manufacturing a single wing structure.

“We focused on materials, techniques in manufacturing that could eliminate cost,” Gehler said. “not as sexy but it has actual real payoff for the customer.”

And Bell has designed Valor using a “digital thread environment” where it was able to design the aircraft, collaborate with suppliers, engineers, and information technology teams in order to understand where interference might be and where changes need to be made. “So by the time it gets to the build,” Gehler said, “pieces are snapping together, wires are going where they need to, the rework is significantly reduced.”

vilters wrote:Tilt rotors are very good on paper. Just like "swing wing" airplanes are very good on paper.
In a decade or so, the "tilt-rotors" will be were the swing-wings are now.

count_to_10 wrote:Interesting. I saw them advertising the DAS-like sensors, and was wondering if they had brought in Northrop Grumman. Guess not.

neptune wrote:

count_to_10 wrote:Interesting. I saw them advertising the DAS-like sensors, and was wondering if they had brought in Northrop Grumman. Guess not.

....looks like plenty of room for an EOTS (EO/DAS), a helicopter version of an AN/APG-81 (ISAR), mini-Barracuda and an advanced CNI; LM should be able to help them with the system merge software. ISR and troop (SA)/ equipment deployment in one package! Lazer guided 2.75", 5.0" rockets and SDB2s dropped from wing hard points, with delays to clear the props.

count_to_10 wrote:I saw the "attack" configuration the other day at AUSA. There was only one quad rack on each side, but the load out was a bit of a surprise. Only four of the eight rails were taken up by hellfire. The PR guy answering questions didn't know what it was. Did anyone else see it?
Also, there was definitely an F-35 electro-optical window on the chin, and one of the small scale models on a separate podium had the lines of a "stealth" version.

count_to_10 wrote:one rail on each side held a six pack of what looked like Lockheed's proposed CRAM interceptor, and the last two were taken up by something that looked suspiciously like the CUDA

eloise wrote:

count_to_10 wrote:I saw the "attack" configuration the other day at AUSA. There was only one quad rack on each side, but the load out was a bit of a surprise. Only four of the eight rails were taken up by hellfire. The PR guy answering questions didn't know what it was. Did anyone else see it?
Also, there was definitely an F-35 electro-optical window on the chin, and one of the small scale models on a separate podium had the lines of a "stealth" version.

Did you take any photos?

count_to_10 wrote:one rail on each side held a six pack of what looked like Lockheed's proposed CRAM interceptor, and the last two were taken up by something that looked suspiciously like the CUDA

Laser guided Zuni rocket?

cantaz wrote:It might be one of the super small PGMs in development. A variant of one of the infantry launched systems.

discofishing wrote:

cantaz wrote:It might be one of the super small PGMs in development. A variant of one of the infantry launched systems.

That's going to upset the airforce if the Army has anything that flies faster than 200kts and can shoot missiles and/or drop bombs.

XanderCrews wrote:

discofishing wrote:

cantaz wrote:It might be one of the super small PGMs in development. A variant of one of the infantry launched systems.

That's going to upset the airforce if the Army has anything that flies faster than 200kts and can shoot missiles and/or drop bombs.

Why?

discofishing wrote:

cantaz wrote:It might be one of the super small PGMs in development. A variant of one of the infantry launched systems.

That's going to upset the airforce if the Army has anything that flies faster than 200kts and can shoot missiles and/or drop bombs.

count_to_10 wrote:

discofishing wrote:

cantaz wrote:It might be one of the super small PGMs in development. A variant of one of the infantry launched systems.

That's going to upset the airforce if the Army has anything that flies faster than 200kts and can shoot missiles and/or drop bombs.

AC-130s already shoot missiles, though I’m not sure about bombs.

popcorn wrote:What are those?

Bell’s Next-Generation Tiltrotor Takes Flight

Bell Helicopter’s third-generation tiltrotor prototype, the V-280 Valor, achieved first flight at the company’s plant in Amarillo, Texas, on Dec. 18.
A Bell spokeswoman confirmed that the V-280 took flight at 2:03 p.m. Central time, although the exact flight duration has not yet been confirmed.

The first flight follows a series of ground tests over the past weeks, in which the wheels were expected to leave the ground momentarily. The company spokeswoman says the aircraft flew long enough on Dec. 18 for the event to be counted as a first flight, and it landed back down on the tarmac safely...



http://aviationweek.com/vertical-flight ... 423577a2aa

V-280 Valor hits cruise speeds

WASHINGTON — Bell’s V-280 Valor tilt-rotor demonstrator has now flown in cruise mode, reaching 190 knots.

To achieve cruise mode, the rotors in the V-280 pivot from vertical lift to fully forward-facing. While the company reached 190 knots in recent flight tests, it will continue to expand the envelope until it reaches an expected speed of 280 knots, a company spokesman told Defense News on May 15...

https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/0 ... se-speeds/

Bell Plans More Tech Advances As Valor Adds Flight Time

AMARILLO, Texas—Bell Helicopter plans to add 360-deg. pilot’s vision capability to its V-280 Valor demonstrator this year and also will test autonomous operation of the tiltrotor in a systems integration laboratory (SIL), executives said June 18...

Plans call for integrating Lockheed Martin’s Pilotage Distributed Aperture System (PDAS) on the Valor this year, Bell executives said. Comparable to the electro-optical DAS system that Northrop Grumman supplies on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter, the PDAS will provide pilots and crew with a 360-deg. spherical view outside the aircraft, supporting situational awareness, target tracking, threat detection and degraded visual environment operations, said Paul Wilson, V-280 chief engineer.

The PDAS consists of six midwave infrared (IR) cameras distributed around the aircraft, a mission computer processor and a display element, which for the Valor will be a monocle mounted on flight helmets as well as a head-down display. Lockheed Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control unit in Orlando, Florida, is supplying the IR sensors and system software; its Rotary and Missions Systems unit in Owego, New York, is providing the mission computer hardware and integrating it into the Valor’s avionics suite...

http://aviationweek.com/defense/bell-pl ... 19a0d70b57

count_to_10 wrote:An odd thought just popped into my head: would it possible to have the door guns lock into a forward firing position for the pilot to have the option to use when the aircraft is going too fast to have its doors open? If so, would that ever be useful?

Bell Pushes V-280 Gunship, Shipboard Variants: Recon In Works

ARLINGTON: How new is Bell Helicopter’s shiny showroom — excuse me, Advanced Vertical Lift Center — minutes from the Pentagon and the Capitol? Between the time I arrived this morning and the time I headed out, they installed two huge mockups of their high-speed V-280 Valor tilrotor. But these aren’t land-based troop transports like the prototype Bell’s already flying for the Joint Multi-Role (JMR) demonstration program. They’re heavily armed gunships...

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/08/bel ... i=64969375

V-280 Valor Anniversary Tour?

With its first year of flight tests finished, Bell just might take its V-280 Valor aircraft on tour. That’s how confident the company is in its new tiltrotor, the proposed high-speed replacement for thousands of Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and Marine Corps UH-1Z Super Hueys...

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/12/bel ... sary-tour/

Corsair1963 wrote:Looks like half Osprey and half Blackhawk? Nonetheless, should be another war winner for the US!

delta9991 wrote:I see a buy of both aircraft. SB-1 for attack and light variants of FVL, V-280 for medium/utility. Navy will probably also hop on converting an SB-1 variant for eventual MH-60 replacement. Both aircraft have their strengths and there has to be some competition for military helos. SB-1 definitely has some growing pains right now, but do we honestly think Sikorsky (aka Lockheed) can’t pull it off? I know where my money is...

sferrin wrote:It's not a slam dunk yet. There is still the matter of it's competitor (if it ever flies).

sferrin wrote:That's not the SB-1 Defiant. That's the Raider. Completely different aircraft.

aaam wrote:

sferrin wrote:That's not the SB-1 Defiant. That's the Raider. Completely different aircraft.

...and the S-97 has been consistently late (even disregarding the crash which was not a fault of X2 technology itself) on meeting goals. I also suspect that in one year the V-280 has more flight hours than the S-97 has had in 3 1/2 years.

zerion wrote:V-280 hits 280 plus

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/01/bel ... s-program/

Bell V-280 flies with system that can see through aircraft

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Bell’s experimental V-280 Valor tiltrotor, built for a U.S. Army technology demonstration, has flown for the first time with an integrated system that provides the pilots and aircrew a 360-degree view through the skin of the aircraft.

At the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual summit, Lockheed Martin displayed footage collected from its Pilotage Distributed Aperture System’s first flight over central Texas on the V-280.

PDAS “is the first fully integrated tactical distributed aperture system in the history of vertical lift,” Rita Flaherty, Lockheed Martin vice president of strategy and business development within its Missiles and Fire Control business, said at the summit...

The view of the outside of the aircraft is collected and can be processed onto a screen or display. At AAAA, Lockheed used a pair of inexpensive goggles ordered from Amazon, but anything from a helmet-mounted display to a tablet could be used to see what the sensors see.

The system is designed so that a soldier in the back of the aircraft using a tablet could look in a completely different place or direction as the pilot, for instance.

The system would also use imagery that is normally discarded, and rather layer that information over a database to create actionable intelligence regarding flight paths, Flaherty noted as an example.

The company also views PDAS as a mission-planning tool, receiving real-time actionable intelligence. For instance, a squad in the back of a helicopter might want to know about last-minute changes or have an immediate understanding of where they are relative to the objective, or what is in the landing zone. PDAS would help them see everything in real time as they land, according to Flaherty.

PDAS isn’t just designed for the V-280, Flaherty noted: “We are platform agnostic, and it’s also backwards compatible to the current fleet.”...

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-sho ... -aircraft/

V-280 Passes Key Agility Test: Bell

Critics have argued the tiltrotor aircraft could never be as nimble at low speed and low altitude as a helicopter. Bell says it's proven them wrong

WASHINGTON: Bell says it’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor has met the Army’s requirement for low-speed, low-altitude agility, at least equaling the UH-60 Black Hawk it’s contending to replace. That’s the last major objective Bell set for itself in its test program, which is a year ahead of its archrival for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft contract, the Sikorsy-Boeing SB>1 Defiant...

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/05/fvl ... r-agility/

zerion wrote:

V-280 Passes Key Agility Test: Bell

Critics have argued the tiltrotor aircraft could never be as nimble at low speed and low altitude as a helicopter. Bell says it's proven them wrong

WASHINGTON: Bell says it’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor has met the Army’s requirement for low-speed, low-altitude agility, at least equaling the UH-60 Black Hawk it’s contending to replace. That’s the last major objective Bell set for itself in its test program, which is a year ahead of its archrival for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft contract, the Sikorsy-Boeing SB>1 Defiant...

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/05/fvl ... r-agility/

Army standard. “ADS-33 Level 1 performance assesses both the responsiveness of the aircraft and the pilot’s workload in flying the aircraft,” Paul Wilson said in an email. “For the V-280 … the aircraft is designed with the control power required for Level 1 responsiveness. Reduced pilot workload is achieved through flight control augmentation taking advantage of the fly-by-wire system. The V-280’s Level 1 agility demonstrated in flight test is equal to or better than the UH-60.”

In layman’s terms, “Level One Handling Qualities” means the aircraft meets the Army’s official Aeronautical Design Standard (ADS-33) for how well it responds to the pilot in fine-grained, low-altitude maneuvers: decelerating to a stationary hover, turning to a precise heading, maintaining a specific altitude and orientation, and so on. It’s assessed by having test pilots put the aircraft through the prescribed maneuvers and rate how hard they had to work to make the aircraft perform.
+++
So this milestone doesn’t mean that the V-280 Valor is necessarily more (or less) agile than the SB>1 Defiant, since SB>1 — or rather the refined model Sikorsky and Boeing built for the FLRAA fly-off in a few years — will have to achieve Level One as well.
+++
“but it shouldn’t be looked at as something that is better than the Defiant, which will presumably also have Level 1 handling qualities.”

“Comparing the Defiant and Valor would require looking at 60-plus metrics to see which aircraft is better for which parameters, and then for someone to make a value judgment on which ones are most important,” Hirschberg explained. But these are demonstrators and not operational aircraft, so each will have different engines, weights, moments of inertia, etc. for the final product” — which means that detailed comparison will probably be somewhat different for the full-up FLRAA prototypes than it would be for the current JMR demo aircraft.

Bell provides V-280 Valor flight test details

U.S. helicopters maker Bell released more details about its revolutionary tiltrotor, called the V-280 Valor. The aircraft has flown more than 150 hours through multi-sortie test days and numerous public demonstrations to deliver data and inform requirements for the U.S. Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program.

“The V-280 and flight test program teams’ performances have gone above and beyond expectation,” said Keith Flail, vice president of Advanced Vertical Lift Systems at Bell. “Our team of defense-aerospace technology and manufacturing experts demonstrated the ability to deliver a high-performance aircraft on schedule that will revolutionize U.S. military vertical lift capability. We are very proud of this track record and look forward to competing for the U.S. Army FLRAA program.”

In 2019 alone, Team Valor and the V-280 program team have delivered performance milestones beyond expectations. 2019 milestones include:

Speed > 300 kts;
Hover Out of Ground Effect (HOGE) > 6,000 feet altitude at 95º F;
Low speed agility to meet the Army’s Level 1 Handling Qualities requirements;
Executed numerous, consecutive multi-sortie days of flight operations;
Test flights with Army pilots.

Flight testing did not simply focus on demonstrating engineering maneuvers. The team understands the V-280 must be suitable for use in multi-domain operations as well. To that end, the V-280 has integrated the Lockheed Martin Pilotage Distributed Aperture System (PDAS) mission equipment package and has flown operationally focused tests showing fast rope deployment options. Looking forward, testing will include additional mission equipment package integration, sling load tests and a demonstration of autonomous flight.

Unprecedented flight performance is only part of the equation for FLRAA to be a successful program. Bell continues to analyze and test options to improve future fleet affordability and sustainment lifecycle cost. The team has undertaken initiatives to address cost-drivers inherent in operational aircraft by employing the latest digital technologies to optimize affordability throughout the fleet’s lifecycle.

https://defence-blog.com/army/bell-prov ... tails.html

Bell’s V-280 Valor hits 200 hours of flight time 3 years after first flight

WASHINGTON — Bell’s technology demonstrator designed to show the Army the realm of the possible in Future Vertical Lift capability has flown 200 hours since its first flight three years ago, according to Keith Flail, the company’s executive vice president for advanced vertical lift systems.

The V-280 Valor tiltrotor parted ways with the tarmac for the first time on Dec. 18, 2017, at 1:59 p.m. CDT at a Bell facility in Amarillo, Texas. Defense News reported the flight as the aircraft was still in the air, but the aircraft logged roughly 15 to 20 minutes before returning to solid ground.

Since then Bell’s clean-sheet-designed aircraft has flown more than 150 sorties, Flail told Defense News in a recent interview, and the extensive effort has driven down risk for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program for the U.S. Army.

Valor hit the 200 flight hour mark on Dec. 4, Flail said...

The aircraft had its first public flight in June 2018 where it reached cruising speeds of 195 knots and was put through its paces in hover mode.

In May 2019, the aircraft completed low-speed agility maneuver testing — which made up the final key performance parameters left to prove out with the system as part of the technology demonstration phase.

Valor flew autonomously for the first time a year ago. The aircraft performed an autonomous takeoff, conversion into cruise mode, precision navigation to various waypoints, loiter maneuvers, conversion into vertical-takeoff-and-landing mode, and landed autonomously.

Other achievements include demonstrating an integrated system from Lockheed Martin that provides the pilots and aircrew a 360-degree view through the skin of the aircraft in the spring of 2019.

And in early 2020, Bell also integrated the Tactical Common Data Link and transmitted information between Valor and the ground station to include basic flight data and showed it would be able to provide targeting information to help long-range precision fires weapons hit targets more accurately, according to a Dec. 17 company statement.

In the same flight, Bell demonstrated sling-load capability, Flail said. “During a single sortie, the team performed multiple cargo lifts to demonstrate the procedure and coordination of ground crew, aircraft, crew chief, pilots and the behavior of the loads for the V-280,” the statement notes.

Over the course of the technology demonstration period, Flail added, the aircraft was also able to show its reliability and availability.

“This configuration of tiltrotor really shows how robust it is in terms of reliability and availability because one of the tricks with proving that is you have to accumulate enough data to show that you do have a reliable system,” he said. “A lot of your critical items, your gearboxes and your blades … those are typical cost drivers downstream and today, we still have the original six blades and gearboxes on this aircraft.”

https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/1 ... st-flight/