The U.S. Army has announced that it’s next helicopter isn’t a helicopter.
The US Army awarded Textron Inc’s Bell unit with the contract to build the next-generation helicopter, ending years of fierce competition between Lockheed Martin Corp.-Boeing Co. to replace the aging fleet of Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks by 2030.
The Army’s “Future Vertical Lift” award went to Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft, similar to the V-22 Osprey. The new aircraft can take off and land vertically like a helicopter but rotate massive props to fly like a fixed-wing aircraft at impressive speeds.
Indeed, the specs are pretty impressive:
General characteristics
Crew: 4 Capacity: 14 troops Length: 50.5 ft (15.4 m) Width: 81.79 ft (24.93 m) Height: 23 ft 0 in (7 m) Empty weight: 18,078 lb (8,200 kg) Max takeoff weight: 30,865 lb (14,000 kg) Powerplant: 2 × Rolls-Royce AE 1107F[54] turboshaft Propellers: 35 ft 0 in (10.7 m) diameter Performance
Cruise speed: 320 mph (520 km/h, 280 kn) Combat range: 580–920 mi (930–1,480 km, 500–800 nmi) Ferry range: 2,400 mi (3,900 km, 2,100 nmi) Service ceiling: 6,000 ft (1,800 m) ; in hover out of ground effect at 95 °F (35 °C) Disk loading: 16[55] lb/sq ft (78 kg/m2)
The cruise speed is almost twice the 175 mph of the Black Hawk it’s replacing, and significantly faster than the competing Defiant X design (265 MPH). It also has higher troop carrying capacity than the Black Hawk (14 vs. 12). “Firstest with the mostest” is still hugely important in combat. And though the V-280 carries considerably less than the V-22, it has a much longer combat range.
Here’s a video showing the V-280 in flight, and covering some of the reasons it was selected over Defiant X:
One of the biggest reasons is simply logging more flight time, hundreds of hours since 2017. Defiant X first flew in 2019.
Any drawbacks? Well, tilt rotors share features of both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, so they can suffer the problems of both. The Osprey had fourteen crash or hull loss incidents (nine of them fatal), plus an additional eight non-loss incidents (with one additional fatality) for some 400 aircraft built.
By contrast, the UH-60 Black Hawk it’s replacing has been involved in its own share of deadly accidents, but with a much larger number being built (4,000, though how many of those were in U.S. as opposed to foreign service during the period covered is unclear). All V-22 Ospreys (save 2-5 used by Japan) are used by the U.S. military.
So expect some teething pains for the V-280…
Tags: aircraft, army, helicopters, Military, V-22 Osprey, V-280 Valor, video
Can’t an aircraft flying at 6000 feet be hit by MANPADS? That doesn’t see very high to me.
Is there a reason why the Army wouldn’t take both airships? I ask seriously: keeping both Bell and Sikorsky/Boeing in the game has certain advantages to future procurement.
First, it’s not beyond possibility that the V-280 develops problems as it develops. Second, keeping both companies in the game of designing advanced airships will be useful as the Army, and other services, consider other needs. Competition is good.
If I were that major general, I’d offer a 70-30 split contract. Both companies have incentive to finish first, both companies get to remain in the game.
Hairless Joe – the answer to your question is a resounding yes! Interesting – I checked the published specs and the Defiant X has a ceiling of just over 9000 feet which is just within the envelope of the more advanced MANPADs (don’t ask me how I know…). By contrast the V22 has a ceiling of 25000 feet. Maybe the Marines aren’t dummies. Also, the Blackhawk, which is is intended to replace, has a ceiling of 19000 feet. The Army has lost its mind buying either of these.
I think many of the V-22 fatal crashes are due to the unusual flight envelope, while other reliability problems exist in the complexity of the transmission system. What I read about the Defiant X reminded me of the JSF fly-off only apparently worse, with the Defiant X barely being flight capable during the first 18 months of competition. I’m fine with the V-280 being added to the fleet, but it doesn’t seem a replacement to the Blackhawk. It is too big, and…
On the service ceiling, that is 6,000 ft OGE Hover. Cruise altitude is 11,500 ft. Neither sound great in a theater like Afghanistan.
The FVL program also calls for a new engine design to be incorporated into the V280. This will increase performance. The coaxial rotor Sikorsky design would have greater problems with rigid rotors and high vibrations.
I trust nothing about Army procurement. If they tell you something is worth buying, they’re almost always wrong.
After a career within the belly of the beast, I’ve learned. The hard way.
My guess is that the reality here is that Bell had the best package of post-retirement career opportunities for the guys making the decisions.
I really think we’d just be a lot better off getting all this crap out into the open: You want to get the contract? Show me your bribes. Best company wins. Cut goes to the national debt, and it’s all out in the open. Same with legislation; you know there’s corruption going on in the background. Put the legislators and bureaucrats on the the clock; the more bribes they take in, the better. All they have to do is declare it, and give up a percentage of it all to the Treasury.
Bribery is gonna happen. Might as well have it out in the open, as a part of the contract negotiations.
Hairless Joe – the “Hover out of Ground Effect” ceiling of 6,000ft is not the operating ceiling of the V-280. While operating with the rotors tilted forward, it’s likely to have an operating ceiling as higher or higher than the V-22 (over 25,000ft). That said, an HOGE ceiling of only 6,000ft is quite low. Lower than the V-22, The UH-60 it replaces, and lower than the Defiant X.
Clearly, the Army was choosing for maximum range and speed, which appear to be the only two areas in which the V-280 was superior. They said it was about cost, but there is nothing in the Defiant X that makes it significantly more expensive.
My take is that both options were excellent, and satisfied the requirements. But, that the V-280 got the nod because of the range advantage (important in a fight in the Pacific) and because winning the contract was more existential for Bell. I believe Textron was back-channel messaging that Bell could be closed without this contact. There is always industrial policy involved in the awarding of major defense contracts. My guess is that Sikorsky will win the next FVL contract to keep both competitive and viable for the next 20+ years.
Joe: That’s hover out of ground effect. Which means coming to a complete stop in the middle of the sky, which is about the worst thing you can do for helo performance. As long as you’re moving beyond ~40kts, the rotors (and in the case of a compound or tilt, the wings) will generate extra lift from the airflow. So, this metric is a yardstick for measuring performance, rather than a limit to practical usage.
Steve: The better way to do a split buy is to give Sikorsky FARA (the fourth attempt at replacing the Kiowa). Tilts don’t scale down as well (and ABC, the technology behind Defiant, doesn’t scale *up* much farther). As a result, Bell didn’t even offer a tilt for that program, just a compound helicopter that looks a bit like a less-stealthy Comanche. Raider X should have an easy win, on paper.
However, there’s a catch. Stacked coaxials have a serious weakness: rotor flex. If a top rotor and a bottom rotor ever touch, the results are… immediate, catastrophic, and non-recoverable. That’s why few companies outside of Kamov have really done much with stacked coaxials, and why theirs are spaced so far apart from either other. But ABC *doesn’t work* unless the rotors are very close to each other (which is why a Ka-52 is ~80kts slower than a Defiant). So, Sikorsky has to make absolutely sure that the rotors are so stiff and strong that they can never, *ever* flex into each other. And, apparently they’ve had a lot of trouble with that.
There’s also an issue with the Defiant’s complex transmission: it’s HUGE. Most of the fuselage is actually taken up by the transmission, possibly even more space than the cabin uses. Another reason why Sikorsky isn’t even planning to use the design for the eventual Chinook replacement. Fortunately, it apparently isn’t as serious an issue for Raider X.
So, Sikorsky has to get the rotor flex issue nailed down before the FARA competition ends, or they’ll get swept. And they don’t have a solution (other than CH-53s) for the Chinook replacement in 15-20 years, whereas Bell has the quad-tilt in their pocket.
With a cruise altitude of 11,500 feet there’s a lot of places that thing couldn’t fly in Afghanistan – or, presuming that’s 11,500 feet above sea level and not ground level, a lot of places that put it within the reach of advanced MANPADS.
Hairless Joe et al, not sure you’re reading that spec right. I’m not an expert but I think it’s saying the hover capability at 95 degrees is 6000 ft. That’s not the same as the cruise ceiling, albeit like the Blackhawks the interior is not pressurized so absent oxygen the effective ceiling is around 12,000 feet. Correct’ish?
I just want to point out that the 6k feet was hover, it’s already flown at 11,500+ feet of altitude. Source:
https://news.bellflight.com/en-US/170939-record-performance-at-bell-v-280-valor-reaches-280-knots-true-airspeed
Not sure where the ceiling data comes from, the V-280’s website lists 25,000 as its ceiling.
https://aerocorner.com/aircraft/bell-v-280-valor/#aircraft-specifications
These service ceiling numbers are stated at standard rate, which is 59F and 0′-0″, MSL (mean sea level. Get a real hot day at a high altitude landing strip and AGL (above ground level) drops to nothing.
How are they going to land that aircraft in tight jungles or urban areas?
Various non-Bell websites list the service ceiling at 15,000 feet, so better than 11,500-foot cruise.
Probably not the best aircraft for mountain SAR.
My question is how quick it can get in and out of a hot LZ. That is the purpose of a Air Cav Division aircraft, and the Blackhawk is pretty good at in, drop, out in a big hurry. What I have seen of the tilt rotor options indicates that if we get in an actual war, that is, the REASON we buy warbirds, they are much less survivable. I hope the new Army is thinking about that in addition to range and speed, which are also important. But not of prime importance.
Flew combat helicopters in Vietnam. The first question that popped into my mind was per Tim McDonald. When entering a hot LZ our skids rarely hit the ground and forward motion was slowed but seldom stationary. Evacs are a different story of course, there the risk is over-torquing the rotors when lifting off. Keep in mind that landings and evacs are not always in flat, open fields. In II corps we flew in the mountainous jungle terrain where the LZ’s were often hacked out of the jungle. It wasn’t unusual to clip the trees when landing and lifting. No nice long hovers on ground effect waiting for the lift to happen.
I have no doubt Bell (and its competitors) are well aware of these issues, but like Mr. McDonald says, would be nice to see some performance metrics under [simulated] hostile conditions. Overload the aircraft and time the vertical takeoffs and landings under high density altitude conditions.
Cheers
MARK: Its ground footprint is actually not much larger than the Blackhawk’s; if you turn it sideways (because its width is greater than its length), it’s reasonably close. The Army plans to use the same minimum spacing requirement for it that they use with the Blackhawk today.
Tim: The engines are basically the same model used in the (much heavier) V-22, and the proprotors are almost as big as the Osprey’s, which give it a lot more oomph than its predecessor–as well as significantly lower disc loading, which should help reduce the amount of trouble that pilots can get themselves into.
Also, if you really want to land in a tight city street, you really should be using the 160th and their OH-6s; they have not just the equipment, but also the training for operating in tight confines.
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