V-280 & other current (non V-22) Tilt Rotor Aircraft

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
It is interesting that the V-280 is in the same size range as the B-609/BA-609/AW-609. Bell chose to develop an all new design rather than dust off and modify the 609. I would guess that build and operating cost were deemed uncompetitive against the S-97. The JMR contest essentially pits the ability of Bell to remove cost from a tilt rotor versus Sikorsky’s ability to boost helicopter performance. On a straight technical performance basis, the tilt rotor is the hands down winner. No air vehicle dependent on thrust will ever match the range of a wing borne aircraft and no helicopter will ever match the speed of a tilt rotor without unacceptable vibration levels. With the failure of the Canard Rotor Wing and the X Wing demonstrators, the Advancing Blade Compound rotor is the last high speed helicopter left standing (yes I am dismissing the Eurocopter X-3). It’s too bad the Quad Tilt Rotor never received funding approval. A C-130 sized VTOL would have been awesome. If I were Lockheed and wanted to keep the Marietta production line viable for another 50 years, I would seriously consider self-funding a bare bones full scale demonstrator.

mfSPK9x.jpg

Okay I have my work cut out for me.

First, No.

AW609 is a light weight compared to the aims of the V280.
AW609 is target for a 2 man crew with a 6-9 passenger capacity
V280 is for a 4 man crew and a 14 troop capacity almost double in all regards

Also the S97 Raider is not aimed for the same mission as the V280. Raider is a light scout closer in spec to the AW609 in that is looks for a 2 man crew with a 6 passenger capacity, Sikorsky's offering is the SB-1 Defiant a Joint with Boeing aiming for a 4 man crew with 12 passengers.


yes and no.

First feel free to dismiss Airbus Helicopter's X3 Although it acheved a high speed Airbus helicopter has shown no interest in production.

Second you are correct on speed basis Tilt rotors win. but your also in error. This is not just about speed.

First When compared to existing platforms the V22 and H60 Either concept if they deliver the advertised cruising speeds will out pace both the Osprey and Blackhawk.
I can hear the "Huh?"

Cruising speed is the speed I watch max speed is a sprint demanding stripping it down and best case for a short period.

Cruising speed it the best performance for range. and in that case the H60's 150kt crusing speed is easily smoked by even the Defiant's 250kt Cruising speed projection. and if that doesn't impress you it also out cruises the V22's 241kt cruise speed. V280's Cruise speed is impressive no doubt but is it a absolute need? not really. there is also the needs of performance in high and hot as well as those of transport and deployment from transport's like the C17 and it's eventual replacement as well as naval shipping and in those cases the design of the V280 does not lend it's self to folding for shipping.

https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/s97-raider-and-jmr-fvl-program-news-videos.t7196/

Well Don't count the Quad out yet. Although I feel confident in JMR Light, Medium and Attack being Sikorsky wins The Coaxial compound configuration maxes out at that point. meaning that JMR-Heavy and Ultra demands are still open.

Heavy aims for a Chinook replacement and in that category a tiltrotor would fit perfectly.
The Ultra would fit a updated Quad perfectly, Although that is also dependent on the USAF,the JMR ULTRA is more of the Army trying to pressure USAF for a A400 class lifter preferably a tilt rotor. However the USAF I suspect are looking for a more conventional Short take off lifter.
 
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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Bell, Lockheed show off futuristic flightdeck for V-280
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NASHVILLE
Source: Flightglobal.com
3 hours ago
Bell Helicopter and
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unveiled a single-screen glass cockpit concept in the V-280 tiltrotor mock-up displayed at an army aviation conference on 30 March.

The futuristic design concept stretches across the full width of the instrument panel under the glare shield, filling a space usually occupied by several multi-function displays.

In development under the US Army’s joint multirole-technology demonstrator (JMR-TD) programme, the actual V-280 flight deck will contain four conventional multi-function displays.

The JMR-TD will help the army shape requirements for a family of Future Vertical Lift (FVL) aircraft that will not become operational for nearly two decades, so the single-screen concept was unveiled at the Army Aviation Association of America conference to inspire discussion about the requirements for the future cockpit.

The seamless touchscreen display combines and overlays digital instruments over sensor inputs. Bell partnered with Lockheed to provide the mission systems for the V-280. The latter is proposing several technologies originally developed for the
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, including the distributed aperture system and the electro-optical targeting system.

Also mimicking the F-35, Lockheed’s sensor fusion algorithms would allow the V-280 to pass onboard health and targeting information between other aircraft.

Bell acknowledges the visual display technology remains years, if not decades, from coming to fruition. To survive a strike by bullets or shrapnel, the single-screen layout must be constructed as a mesh of integrated panels. That way a single damaged panel would not wipe out the entire screen.
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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
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By
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on June 19, 2015 at 4:00 AM

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Bell V-280 Valor (artist’s conception)

Somebody’s finally doing something tangible about the future of Army aviation. Bell Helicopter subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems of Wichita, Kan., has started assembling the composite fuselage for the first prototype
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, Bell’s new military tiltrotor.

The Valor is sleeker, smaller, and, by design, more Army-friendly than the Bell-Boeing
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, which was built to fit on an
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. Both aircraft are tilt rotors. Their wingtip rotors swivel upward to take off and land like a helicopter and tilt forward to fly fast and fuel-efficiently like an airplane.

For the moment, the Valor is just a technology demonstrator – a proposal, not a program – and only one of two the Pentagon is subsidizing in a quest to get beyond helicopters’ speed limitations and airplanes’ runway requirements. A few years down the road, the V-280 and its competitor could compete to replace the Army’s UH-60 Black Hawks and AH-64 Apaches with
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of about 30,000 pounds that can fly faster than 230 knots – about 100 miles per hour faster than most military helicopters cruise — and hover like a hummingbird. Other armed services might want some, too.

The other tech demonstrator in the works is a compound helicopter offered by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. and Boeing Co., dubbed — a bit cutely — the
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, where “SB>1” means “Sikorsky and Boeing are greater than one.” Their entry is based on Sikorsky’s Collier Trophy-winning X2 technology demonstrator and derivative
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. The Defiant, still in design, is to combine active vibration control, a rigid coaxial rotor and a variable RPM pusher propeller to overcome the speed limitations of helicopters.

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SB>1 Defiant (artist’s conception)

Both the Valor and the Defiant are partially funded — at close to $100 million each, we hear — by the Army-led
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Technology Demonstrator (JMRTD) project, which is in turn part of the far more comprehensive
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(FVL) initiative. The FVL’s goal is to “move our vertical lift fleet into the next generation,” Program Director Dan Bailey told an American Helicopter Society International (AHS) briefing last month.

With lobbying help from AHS, Bailey got another $14 million from Congress last year to fund other companies to do smaller, related projects. A bit over half went to continue work on competing designs the Army decided not to build just yet when Bell and Sikorsky/Boeing got their JMR demonstrator contracts in October 2014. AVX Aircraft, a Texas design company, received $3.4 million to keep working on a coaxial helicopter with ducted fans for forward thrust. Karem Aircraft, a California company — whose founder, Abraham Karem, is the father of
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— got $4.1 million to hone a design using Karem’s patented Optimum Speed Tiltrotor technology.

Both the Bell and Sikorsky/Boeing demonstrators are to fly in 2017. Even if they succeed, there’s no guarantee of production. But with
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, there’s got to be a replacement eventually.

“The tech demo is the key to understanding what the next generation of military rotorcraft could be for the rest of the century,” said AHS Executive Director Michael Hirschberg.

The JMRTD is just a first step toward the FVL’s goal of new military aircraft in four categories – light, medium, heavy, and ultra heavy — that can take off and land most anywhere and fly fast and far without costing a fortunate or being hangar queens. “It’s much more about learning than it is about specific products,” Bailey said.

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V-280 fuselage assembly

Even so, with the V-280 fuselage actually being built, a bit of rotorcraft history is being made. The last time the Pentagon funded a pure vertical take-off-and-landing tech demonstrator was 1973, when after a similar lead up, the Army and NASA’s Ames Research Center awarded Bell a contract to build a small tiltrotor designated the XV-15.

Once they get the V-280 and SB>1 flying, Bell and Sikorsky/Boeing might hope history repeats itself, at least up to a point. After watching the XV-15 fly at the 1981 Paris Air Show, Navy Secretary John Lehman directed the Marine Corps to drop plans to replace its CH-46 Sea Knights with another helicopter and instead develop a tiltrotor. Thus was born the V-22. That once-derided tiltrotor is now in service with the
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,
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, and soon
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. Soon only the
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— which passed on the V-22 despite sponsoring the XV-15 — will still fly conventional helicopters exclusively. A primary goal for these new aircraft is to change that.
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Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Terran_Empire said:
As I thought about it there is one other possible reason why Some want Clarity on Raider as Helicopter or Other. If it or Defiant are adopted by the Us military Would it be classified as H73 meaning Helicopter or V23 like Osprey?

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"Bell Helicopter subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems of Wichita, Kan., has started assembling the composite fuselage for the first prototype
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, Bell’s new military tiltrotor.

The Valor is sleeker, smaller, and, by design, more Army-friendly than the Bell-Boeing
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
, which was built to fit on an
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. Both aircraft are tilt rotors. Their wingtip rotors swivel upward to take off and land like a helicopter and tilt forward to fly fast and fuel-efficiently like an airplane."
This is GREAT!

Can't wait to see this baby.

Bell-V-280-Valor-Future-Vertical-Lift.jpg
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Bell sees V-280 Valor as common attack-utility platform
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WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flightglobal.com
19 hours ago
Bell Helicopter and
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’s third-generator tiltrotor aircraft demonstrator, the V-280 Valor, might still be under construction for the US Army, but already the future vertical lift (FVL) contestant is morphing into a mid-weight, utility-attack platform.

Those attending a land warfare exposition by the Association of the United States Army in October are likely to see a V-280 mock-up on display as a utility platform one day and an attack variant the next. And, perhaps on the third day it will transform again into a medical evacuation platform.

Despite army desires to build two separate, specialised vertical-lift platforms to start replacing the
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and
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in the 2030s, Bell thinks both missions could be performed by one identical or near-identical rotorcraft based on the Valor design.

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Bell Helicopter

Chris Gehler, Bell’s director of global business development for advanced tiltrotor systems, told Flightglobal in a recent interview that the V-280 has the potential to be both a troop carrier and gunship when outfitted with different payloads, and the company is already in discussions with the US Marine Corps about the design.

“We already know the Marine Corps would like to have one aircraft replace utility and attack,” Gehler explains. “We’ve been working with them on developing an attack variant of the V-280 that could be – whether it’s wholly attack or one that can be interchangeable back between utility and attack – if not the same airframe, very identical.”

The concept of having one platform seems like a good idea on paper, and could potentially save billions of dollars by buying common parts, engines, drives and rotor systems. But the army appears unconvinced and says it wants distinct platforms for each mission.

“The medium category is going to be two aircraft with two capability sets,” Maj Gen Michael Lundy, who heads the Aviation Centre of Excellence, told BreakingDefense earlier this year. “We’re not going to build a sub-optimised aircraft."

Still, Bell thinks an AV-280 concept might gain traction, and it plans show off its utility and attack configurations on different days at AUSA. The company already builds attack and utility derivatives of the UH-1 Huey for the USMC (the AH-1Z Viper and UH-1Y Venom, pictured below), and recently demonstrated forward-firing rockets and missiles on the Bell
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V-22 tiltrotor.

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Bell Helicopter



Gehler says tiltrotors “can be very capable attack platforms” in cruise and in hover, and the V-280’s new rotor design allows it to have side doors for troops to quickly mount and dismount. Bell and Lockheed are already looking to put common launch tubes on the V-280 that can launch rockets, missiles and even small unmanned air vehicles forward or aft with no rotor interference.

“When it’s in forward flight and cruise mode with the rotors forward, it’s still able to do forward-firing weapons,” he says. “We’ve got weapons bays that can open up and fire [Lockheed AGM-114] Hellfires from the main fuselage.”

The Bell-Lockheed Valor and Boeing-Sikorsky SB-1 Defiant – a next-generation propeller-pushed, coaxial rotor design (below) – were downselected last year for the army’s joint multi-role technology demonstrator programme, which runs through 2019. This will help to inform its FVL requirements, and the two examples are due to fly by the third quarter of 2017.

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Boeing

FVL, although not currently a programme of record, is a joint programme lead by the army that is meant to usher in the next-generation of rotorcraft for the services by the mid-2030s. The Pentagon plans to make a formal FVL materiel development decision in October 2016.

Even though FVL has been a topic of considerable discussion and debate for some time now, there is currently no funding, no contracts, nor requests for proposals. The general assumption is that a future aircraft must fly further, faster and in higher and hotter conditions than today’s helicopters.

There are potentially five aircraft categories: light, medium-light, medium, heavy and ultra. The greatest demand is in the medium category, which the two JMR teams are focused on. Bell doesn’t anticipate much change between the “surrogate requirements” for its full-scale demonstrator and the final FLV list.
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SO Bell is aiming to appeal more to the budget with this move. in essence it's a one platform to be tailored concept.
 
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Scratch

Captain
Ánd, in the Bell concept, the AH version would feature internal weapons carriage, if I interpret the picture correctly. I don't know how much that woud help LO with those big tilt-rotors, but it certainly should do something for speed / range.
Then again, the AH might be more heavily protected.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Spirit delivers first V-280 tiltrotor aircraft fuselage to Bell (+ video)

Jaime Green The Wichita Eagle
BY JERRY SIEBENMARK

The Wichita Eagle

Spirit AeroSystems on Tuesday delivered a new product to a new customer.

Bell Helicopter took delivery of its first V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft fuselage at a Tuesday morning ceremony at Spirit AeroSystems.

The V-280 is Fort Worth-based Bell’s answer to the Army’s next generation of airborne medium-class troop carriers.

Bell and Lockheed Martin are competing against a Boeing and Sikorsky team in the Department of Defense’s Future Vertical Lift program, which aims to replace about 2,000 medium-class utility and attack helicopters in the Army’s fleet.

Bell CEO John Garrison said in his remarks to a couple hundred Spirit employees attending the ceremony that Spirit delivers reliable aircraft parts on time and at cost, and that’s key to Bell and Lockheed winning a future Army contract.

“You all know how to make an aircraft and make it affordable,” Garrison said. “We need that. … We hit the price point (and) it’s game, set, match. The competition doesn’t have a chance. So that’s what we’re focused on, and you’ve helped us.”

Spirit officials said it took the company 22 months to design and manufacture the V-280’s composite fuselage, which Garrison said was about a month ahead of schedule.

Garrison said the fuselage will be transported to Bell’s Amarillo, Texas, plant, where the V-280 demonstrator will be assembled. First flight, he said, is expected in September 2017.

Reach Jerry Siebenmark at 316-268-6576 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter:
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Read more here:
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