Sikorsky Venture to Build Unmanned Helicopters

Wharton Airspace ^ | 02/04/2010 | Wharton Airspace

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Light and small unmanned aerial vehicles, like the Blank's Predator, are increasingly common -- though rarely spotted in the sky. Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. wants to bring that same technology to its much heavier Black Hawk helicopters.

The company announced a billion-dollar venture, Sikorsky Innovations, to help transform the Black Hawk from mechanical workhorse to computerized aircraft, according to an article in the Houston Chronicle.

The Black Hawk is a mainstay of the U.S. arsenal in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it is perfectly suited to traverse vast stretches of deserts and mountains. But its heavy use has also led to deadly crashes, with 51 soldiers killed between 2003 and 2007, according to the article. Transforming the Black Hawk into an unmanned craft could help reduce casualties.

"The new thing here is to apply technologies in small airplanes and rotorcraft to the 20,000-pound Black Hawk," Chris Van Buiten, director of Sikorsky Innovations, told the Chronicle. "It ups the stakes." Van Buiten, appearing, before an audience of government, university and business representatives, described a vehicle that could double the productivity of the Black Hawk in Iraq and Afghanistan by "flying with, at times, a single pilot instead of two, decreasing the workload, decreasing the risk, and at times, when the mission is really dull and really dangerous, go all the way to fully unmanned."

An unmanned version would add about $2 million to the current $15 million Black Hawk price tag, but could save personnel expenses in the long run, according to Van Buiten.

The company said it hopes to have a demonstration model of the unmanned Black Hawk ready this year and plans to introduce it by 2015

[gman992]

All this unmanned stuff is going to take the fun out of flying!!!!

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Welcome to the 21st century!

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Pretty soon we will having pellets and capsules for meals

[tlb]

Unmanned helicopters aren’t new. The Navy put them on destroyers and cruisers in the 60s. They gave it up after they crashed hundreds of them.

[jedi150]

Wish they would have restarted the CH 54 program instead.

[johniegrad]

Helicopters shouldn’t be capable of flight to begin with. Now drones?

[tlb]

Found it.

The QH-50 drone, commonly known as “DASH” (Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter). Meant for ASW operation from small escort ships, there were many control and training problems, resulting in high operational loss rates. The manned LAMPS helicopters were developed as a replacement.

411 destroyed in mishaps.

[A.A. Cunningham]

They gave it up after they crashed hundreds of them.

They restarted the venture in 2000. First deployment of the MQ-8 Fire Scout occurred in 2009 aboard USS McInerney

[tlb]

Thanks I hadn’t seen that. With its “conning tower” if you added tracks that would pass for the “flying submarine tank” from the 1961 movie “The Three Stooges in Orbit”.

http://www.projectrho.com/SSC/stooges.jpg