Posted on 12/07/2022 9:53:16 AM PST by Yo-Yo
After a thoroughly strenuous and lengthy period of flight tests spread over several years, the Army has chosen Bell’s V-280 Valor advanced tiltrotor to replace the venerable UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.
Dubbed the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, or FLRAA, Valor is set to enter service in the mid-2030s and eventually will supplant the Sikorsky-built helicopter that has served as the Army’s workhorse utility rotorcraft for more than four decades.
The initial contract award is $232 million and includes no actual aircraft – the initial contract covers Valor's final digital design that Bell has generated as a result of the aircraft's five-year-long flight testing period and development campaign, inclusive of Army requirements. The total award, with options for physical aircraft, runs to $1.2 billion and then to $7 billion to begin building out the fleet, according to Maj. Gen. Robert Barrie, the Army’s program executive officer for aviation.
Bell beat out Sikorsky and Boeing’s Defiant X compound coaxial helicopter based on Sikorsky’s X2 technology.
While somewhat stingy on the specifics of why the Army chose Bell’s tiltrotor over Sikorsky’s pusher-compound-rotor design derived from the company's 'X2' technology, Barrie said the decision boiled down to a “best value proposition."
Sikorsky and Boeing's SB>1 Defiant undergoing flight envelope expansion testing.
The Defiant concept was competing directly against the Valor concept.
(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Dana Clarke)
“Can we be more specific on the factors of how exactly we arrived at this point? No,” Barrie said. “However, best value is meant in the truest sense that it was a comprehensive analysis of a variety of factors. No one really drove that decision. So, if you look broadly at a very high level, the factors are variables and performance, cost, and schedule, all were considered, and the combination of those are defined explicitly and evaluated ... that is what I would describe as the best value ... [and] what the Army would describe as its best value selection.”
The award is a huge win for Bell. The company recently completed planned deliveries of the latest versions of the venerable H-1 family of rotorcraft to the Marine Corps, built the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior that the Army retired years ago, and, with Boeing, developed variants of the V-22 Osprey for the Marines, Air Force, and Navy. However, it currently has no other major production contracts on the horizon with the U.S. military. The company has invested millions into manufacturing and digital design capabilities in various facilities in and around Fort Worth and Amarillo, Texas.
V-280 demonstrator in flight. (Bell)
“This is an exciting time for the U.S. Army, Bell, and Team Valor as we modernize the Army’s aviation capabilities for decades to come,” said Mitch Snyder, president and CEO of Bell. “Bell has a long history supporting Army Aviation and we are ready to equip soldiers with the speed and range they need to compete and win using the most mature, reliable, and affordable high-performance long-range assault weapon system in the world.”
Both teams delivered their specific pitch for FLRAA in September of last year. The Sikorsky-Boeing Defiant X is a refined version of the SB>1 Defiant developed for the Army’s Joint Multirole Technology Demonstration (JMR-TD) program, in which the Valor was its prime competitor.
Valor posted hundreds of flight hours in its flight test campaign and notched more than the 280 knots speed it was named for and designed to achieve. Conventional helicopters cannot get anywhere near that speed. In fact, the V-280, which is a demonstrator and not a finalized design for the Army, broke the 300-knot barrier in testing.
Valor’s first flight occurred on Dec. 18, 2017, and has since logged more than 200 hours in the air and met a number of ambitious speed and agility goals set by the Army under the Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstration (JMR-TD) program.
Bell flew Valor for three and a half years before grounding the operational prototype in 2021. Sikorsky and Boeing continued to fly Defiant, which was still performing data-gathering sorties as recently as October but lagged behind the V-280 in flight hours because of developmental growing pains associated with its rigid composite main rotor blades and transmission system. The SB>1 first flew in 2019.
V-280 improved upon the Bell-Boeing V-22 with its tilting nacelles — rather than the V-22’s tilting engines. In many ways, this win gives Bell a chance to improve upon its tiltrotor technology, with the V-280 specifically designed to leverage lessons learned by developing and fielding the Osprey and the hundreds of thousands of hours flown by the type in some of the world's harshest conditions. Maintainability and affordability are very much design drivers for Valor.
The story does not necessarily end with the Army's decision. Lockheed Martin, which owns Sikorsky could very well protest the decision, which will put the entire program on hold at least for 100 days while the Government Accountability Office weighs its counterargument.
The Defiant team released a statement following the Army's announcement.
"We remain confident DEFIANT X is the transformational aircraft the U.S. Army requires to accomplish its complex missions today and well into the future. We will evaluate our next steps after reviewing feedback from the Army," the companies said.
Barrie and Douglas Bush, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, said the Army has anticipated a potential protest of the award and built time into its schedule to accommodate any associated delay.
The elimination of the wing and blade stowage capability also greatly simplifies the V-280's construction, making it lighter, and provides more payload.
However, because of this, the V-280 in its current form will not be an acceptable replacement for the Navy's Seahawk helicopters for shipboard operations.
Perhaps the loser of this competition, the Defiant, would make a better shipboard aircraft than the Valor.
Perhaps the loser of this competition, the Defiant, would make a better shipboard aircraft than the Valor.
I think the high stack of the contrarotating rotors would present their own problems when it comes to onboard destroyer class ship storage.
The main driver for tilt rotor is increased speed. A conventional helicopter tops out about 140 knots give or take. A tilt rotor can do about twice that, or about 250 knots. This is great for moving troops about the field rapidly.
Just about everything else is a negative. Cost, maintenance, complexity, deck multiple for ship use, auto-rotate envelope, etc, all negative compared to a helicopter.
That space between an airplane and a helicopter is hard to fill.
Might not fit into a Destroyer's hanger bay?
That’s a maintenance nightmare right there.
The Boeing design looks a lot more practical and easier to maintain. Of course, when you need to squander and launder billions of dollars every year the more expensive solution is always the one you pick.
It may be that once the V-280 proves itself in Army service, wing and blade stowage capability may be developed for a Navy version as a successor or supplement to the Osprey.
A successor to the Seahawk. The V-22 is a much, much larger aircraft than the V-280, so the V-280 will not replace the V-22.
Best value means it cost more, but the better performance, perhaps stealth & top end speed, are worth the higher price.
I'm guessing that Boeing and LM will protest. If the Defiant meets all spec requirements and cost less, then it should win.
My prediction is DOD will force the Navy to accept Defiant as the replacement for their Seahawks. Boeing & LM would then withdraw their protest.
The Boeing design drives all 3 rotors from the same transmission system. It is very complex, and thus would be a big maintenance task as well.
The Boeing design was literally 2+ years behind on testing compared to the Bell design.
The Boeing design never showed the supposed maneuverability advantage they claimed it had compared to the Bell design.
The Boeing design reportedly still had vibration issues at max speed, a max speed that is 55 knots (63 miles) per hour slower than the Bell design.
The Boeing design had less interior space, and far shorter range than the Bell design.
I'm sure there is a lot of graft in all defense contracts, but I'm really sick of the accusations going on here. I have no ties to either program.
Have had one foot in Defiant for the last six months (with other foot still in a VH program).
Interesting aircraft, was looking forward to further development work on it, but probably too close for an accurate self-survey - nice take on unsuitability to ship duty.
The beauty of the old Black Hawk airframe is how versatile it was, easily transitioning to ship-board duty, gunship, even firefighting. We may never see an airframe quite like it.
Sikorsky will still be OK with the loss, but Bell would have been devastated without that contract win - so good for the Bell folks (and their families).
Have been in aviation for 42 years, there's plenty to go around.
Cost to maintain should be less, actually. By tilting just drive mechanism and props, you have a fraction of the moving parts.
These are known, standard, engines with a drivetrain that is far simpler than any true rotary.
Speed is much higher. Range is fantastically higher. Survivability and redundancy much higher. This can land like any fixed wing. It also has a driveshaft that links the engines so it can fly fine and limp in on one engine.
The props are much sturdier and function fine with considerable damage.
It can also be armored up and make a heck of a weapons platform, very comparable to an A-10.
I've seen no data regarding max payload and range w max payload.
Not while the rotors are tilted forward, maybe at some point between there and up.
The props are much sturdier and function fine with considerable damage.
I doubt that. Props and components come apart pretty quickly when unbalanced, which would likely be the case in any damage at all. A lot of the modern blades are composite to reduce weight, which shatter into a billion carbon fibers when the get struck by something at high speed. But this is a minor nit. A hit is a hit regardless of platform and damage may or may not be survivable depending on whats hit.
It can also be armored up and make a heck of a weapons platform, very comparable to an A-10.
Would be pretty dumb to risk a multi-crew platform to do what a single seat A-10 can do better with more load, more survivability, more crew armor. I am sure it will be armed up, but not to replace the A-10 CAS role.
Real helicopter pilots, current and former, are not really impressed. This thing really couldn’t be called a helicopter, which I suppose it probably isn’t being called.
Osprey 2.0................................
The Boeing design reportedly still had vibration issues at max speed, a max speed that is 55 knots (63 miles) per hour slower than the Bell design.
The Boeing design had less interior space, and far shorter range than the Bell design.
To be fair, the Sikorsky-Boeing Defiant SB-1 is the flying test bed prototype, but their FLRAA bid to the Army was based on the slightly modified Defiant X.
I guess my nephew (an industrial engineer with Sikorsky) will be retiring immediately in 2023 and not later. Bell is not only getting what has been a top sikorsky government contract, Bell is big in commercial helicopter sales, and with Sikorsky the commercial helicopter field is less than it’s government contracts.
I’ve detested these tilt-rotor turds since the early days of the Osprey development - we lost a LOT of good people firing the initial flight testing to force that piece of garbage into service.
Well, excepting the fact that, yes, the props do have to be canted to not hit the ground, you are incorrect.
Full disclosure, I have involvement in the targeting system for this craft.
Yes, it will replace the Apache. It will also probably fill much of the A10 roll. Yes, it fits the A10 cannon.
The props have vulnerabilities, but are much stouter than a conventional helicopter main lifting surface.
It’s also considerably more stealthy than the A10 or any equivalent rotary (when props are forward).
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