Next-gen US military helicopters prepare for 2017 flights

[Zarvan]

The Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant is to be powered by Honeywell's T55 engine. Source: Sikorsky-Boeing
The US Army's Joint Multirole-Technology Demonstrator (JMR-TD)/Future Vertical Lift (FVL) effort is moving towards first flights in 2017, but meanwhile is focused on crucial system architecture demonstrations.

Dan Bailey, the army's programme director for JMR/FVL, said the effort is demonstrating the platform and, perhaps more importantly, its mission system architecture.

US Army and US Navy planners hope to eventually replace a variety of aircraft via FVL. Among other initial parameters, the government is seeking a platform to carry 4 crew and 12 or more troops, self-deploy out to 2,100 n miles, and fly at up to 230 kt or more.

"We're into the second of our mission system architecture demonstrations," Bailey said during 23 September comments at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.

Subsystem technology is particularly important, Bailey said, because he expects an FVL to be flying for many years in many environments, and therefore requiring easy upgrades. For example, he noted aircraft such as the Boeing AH-64 Apache has been flying for decades and will continue for many more, but newly integrated subsystems have kept the platform viable. Apaches were designed in the 1970s and first delivered to the US Army in 1984.

The JMR-TD programme's focus over the next year is on an architecture implementation process demonstration (AIPD), and six contractors are working on that to validate interoperability between the various pieces, Ryan Bunge, Rockwell Collins' manager for Special Operations, Air Force, and Advanced Rotary-Wing Programs, said during the event.

The platforms themselves are to begin flying prototypes late in 2017, and these will undergo 150-200 hours of flight time - and downtime to review data - that take it through 2019, Bailey said. Those flights are likely to uncover engineering issues that will have to be worked out during a development phase.

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The Bell V-280 is to use a General Electric T64 engine. (Bell Helicopter)




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