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.
Sikorsky may continue to build Blackhawks and Seahawks for quite some time, just in smaller numbers. The Army wanted a faster, longer range replacement for the Blackhawk in a specific role, the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, but the Army (or Navy) may not necessarily replace ALL of their Blackhawks with V-280s.
There is a bigger umbrella program by the Army called Future Vertical Lift that hopes to develop a family of aircraft to replace the Blackhawk, the Chinook, the Apache, and the Iroquois. This FLRAA contract is just one part of that larger FVL program.
Vortex Ring State is well understood and no longer the problem it was early in the V-22 program.
The V-22 is replacing the C-2 Greyhound in Naval Carrier Onboard Delivery (COD) service, so I think the V-22 is here to stay.
Nice post. Good info.
I presume you meant Blackhawk, which is a utility platform filling many roles, but not an attack role like the Apache. I am sure there is something on the boards for replacing the Apache too, as the ability to keep up with increased speed and range of the fleet will be a requirement.
How appropriate that the modern military adopt a trans-helicopter.
Wonder what its load capacity is? How much heroin can it move for the CIA?
No, I mean the Apache.
One modular platform that can be heavily and easily modified.
The Defiant is a better choice, but these are Obama/Biden thieves running things. Must have been a BIG payoff to pick the inferiour V-280.
Ok, thanks for clarifying. Understand we all have reasons to be skeptical of the success of multi-role platforms trying to be jack of all trades and being master of none.
For clarity, the fuselage is just a modular box.
Because the mechanics are largely outside the box and the entire control system is fly-by-wire, you can put any kind of box you want in the middle without much change.
So you can put what is effectively an A-10 bathtub in the middle.
Or set up like this as a utility copter.
That’s a very reasonable fear.
But I trust Bell over Boeing any day.
I’m a fighter guy and hate even being in helicopters. This is a great platform.
The engine choice (a Rolls model well known to the military was wise and gave me a lot of confidence.
Sikorsky makes neat birds, and I don’t think we’ve seen the last of that model. Just not in this role.
The tilt-rotor is only about 25 knots faster than the advancing-blade concept Sikorskys. So if that's their rationale, it's money ill-spent.
The V-22 has no practical ability to autorotate. The only simulated autorotational test conducted showed a vertical speed on impact of 62 fps (about 42 mph), which is ~75% of the velocity considered absolutely unsurvivable. The only contingency in the event of a dual engine failure is to put your head between your legs and kiss your ass good-bye.
The US military lost about 3000 helicopters in Vietnam. 80% of those were shot down during approach to landing. Roughly half of those crewembers and passengers survived the shoot-down because the helicopter was able to autorotate. Furthermore, the US Navy -- which apart from the F-35 only uses multi-engined aircraft -- loses on average one aircraft every four years due to fuel starvation. In time, sure as God made little green apples, Osprey crews and passengers will be killed for its inability to control the rate of descent in an all engines inop condition.
Plus the Osprey has unresolved problems with vortex ring state, excessive susceptibility to wake and wing-tip vortices from other nearby a/c, and a high downwash velocity field. The vortex ring state in particular already has cost 23 lives and two airframes.
DOD's Operational Requirements Document for all military aircraft stipulates the ability to perform a “survivable emergency landing with all engines inoperative,” which the V-22 fails to meet through the majority of its flight envelope.
Eisenhower warned Kennedy to be wary of efforts from the military industrial complex to take control national defense policy. I think this is exactly what he was referring to.
I bet Paul Pelosi bought a load of Bell stock last week.
Not enough dead Marines to influence the Army decision? Fly this thing at your own risk.
When the Marines first brought in the Osprey they thought helicopter pilots would be a natural fit. Turns out that the flight dynamics are different and many had to learn the skills necessary to fly a tiltrotor. New pilots now are pipelined so that they don't have to unlearn then adapt.
The same can be said when helicopters first entered the services and fixed wingers were transitioned. The Osprey is actually more stable and easier to fly IF the proper skills are applied.
Yep...an expensive disaster in the making
Wink, wink. I could tell you, but than I'd have to kill ya.
I've never been in the military, I've never worked for the company, (that would be the CIA,) but I did work at Boeing, as a aircraft painter, 767's & 747's, so I do know which chemicals associated with spray painting will kill you over a extended amount of time (say 5 - 10 yr's or more.)
When he says: It’s also considerably more stealthy than the A10 or any equivalent rotary (when props are forward).
You can take that to the bank.
Just a glance at the tail tells you.
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