New Bell 360 Invictus attack chopper

Looks cool - thought Comanche at first

http://news.bellflight.com/en-US/182601-versatile-lethal-sustainable-bell-announces-360-invictus-for-u-s-army-fara-competition?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=FARA&utm_source=twitter

Fort Worth, Texas (October 2, 2019) – Bell Textron Inc., a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, has announced a new rotorcraft, Bell 360 Invictus, as the company’s entrant for the U.S. Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) Competitive Prototype program. Bell’s innovative approach to designing the Bell 360 Invictus combines proven low-risk technologies with advanced processes to deliver soldiers an affordable, agile and lethal solution to win on the modern battlefield. The Bell 360 Invictus meets or exceeds all requirements as laid out under the FARA contract.

Looks very nice indeed!

Here is the link to the Bell site where you also have a 360 degree view of the Invictus:
https://www.bellflight.com/products/bell-360

I love it! It looks like the up-to-date offspring of a Cobra and a Comanche.

I agree, very cool indeed! Looks like a cheaper Comanche.

Sounds pretty impressive. Excellent performance without unnecessary risk/complexity.

Sounds pretty impressive. Excellent performance without unnecessary risk/complexity.

Looks like Bell is pursuing a deliberate strategy here. Of all the designs we've seen so far, the 360 may not have the best performance, but is by far the lowest risk. This will probably translate out to the lowest acquisition cost. That should be good enough to get them to where they'll be one of the two finalists for the flyoff, providing the Army with a "safe" option that does meet the baseline requirements.

Then if the other, higher tech, candidate suffers big problems or comes in at a substantially higher cost (or if the procurement budget turns out to be less than Army expected), their gamble pays off and they win.

Looks good…very good to me.

What I like is the Invictus looks advanced, yet overall simple and traditional to meet the operational and sustainment costs throughout the life of the program. The Bell management team seems to recognize that as important factors in designing, operating and maintaining the aircraft in service.

I hope the customer (Army) and the contractor (Bell in this case) understands and adheres to what this helicopter is designed for, the requirements to achieve it and stick with it. In other words, they shouldn’t expect this chopper to be what it is not, don’t build more than what you need it to accomplish and KISS where you can, but advanced where it needs to be. The two Bell managers seem to understand that. Sure hope the Army does too. If they’re in sync, then I think it can be successful.

Comparatively, I see Sikorsky’s Raider X entry to be a very good design too, but much more complex. It may have higher overall performance, but if the Invictus meets the requirements set forth by the customer to accomplish its mission and is simpler and more cost efficient to procure and maintain, then is the higher overall performance of the Raider X (with the stated room for growth) worth the higher costs at the expense of the complexity?

The Trump Administration has been very good to the military in terms of support for the troops and funding for programs. The services cannot expect this level of support to last forever. If somebody else is elected that doesn’t support the military as much, money will be tight and a factor to consider. Costs is one of the reasons why the RAH-66 Camanche was canceled. Don’t want or need this to repeat itself with this FARA program because they later find out that money is needed to upgrade this or fix that because this part or section is complex, and the associated delays, delays, delays…etc.

At this point, it seems the Invictus and Raider X are the leading design offerings. We don’t know what Boeing has coming yet. Maybe the big “B” will surprise us with their offering.

Good luck to Invictus:

Comparatively, I see Sikorsky’s Raider X entry to be a very good design too, but much more complex. It may have higher overall performance, but if the Invictus meets the requirements set forth by the customer to accomplish its mission and is simpler and more cost efficient to procure and maintain, then is the higher overall performance of the Raider X (with the stated room for growth) worth the higher costs at the expense of the complexity?



At this point, it seems the Invictus and Raider X are the leading design offerings. We don’t know what Boeing has coming yet. Maybe the big “B” will surprise us with their offering.

Good luck to Invictus:

Although Army is funding Sikorsky with a considerably larger amount than they're giving to anyone else at this point, Raider X shouldn't be considered a shoo-in. At this point in time X2 technology does not have a good track record with the vehicles that have flown so far. Maybe the will roll the dice and take AVX or Karem to the next stage. Of course, we don't know yet what Boeing is planning.

Although Army is funding Sikorsky with a considerably larger amount than they're giving to anyone else at this point, Raider X shouldn't be considered a shoo-in. X2 technology does not have a good track record with the vehicles that have flown so far. Maybe the will roll the dice and take AVX or Karem to the next stage. Of course, we don't know yet what Boeing is planning.

I'd rate them

1. Sikorsky (because they're already flying hardware).
2. Bell
3. Boeing
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Karem
AVX

The still-to-be-built Econo-Comanche? Comanche for the win still and forever, IMO. I did enjoy seeing the trade show pilot reps try to explain design features for an aircraft that doesn't even exist yet with a mockup that had a joke of a cockpit that looked like a bad Hollywood props dept job. One of them I remember can really think on his toes. Nonetheless, I wish them well.

Econo-Comanche.

LOL good phrase

https://www.flightglobal.com/helicopter ... 76.article

Bell should try integrating the EDAT Tail Rotor system into the Invictus to allow superior noise performance, sound signature, safer, & redundancy along with simpler maintenance and having a modern Tail Rotor system that is on the cutting edge of Rotor-Craft technology while not being too complicated or "Out there".

Bell can combine the new EDAT Tail Rotor with other new Quieter Main Rotor Blades.

Eurocopter has "Blue Edge" rotors & "Blue Pulse" tech to help lower the accoustic signature of the helicopter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Edge

If they can stack all of them together, they can help with the noise signature of the platform which could give it some edge against it's Sikorsky competitor.