Originally Posted by
SASless
What is its OGE Hover capacity at Max Gross Weight?
Same kind of drawback as the V-22 when it comes to hot and high helicopter style work?
Sling load capability....Armament?
Does it fully replace the Blackhawks current capability?
All weather capability....in the hands of the regular Army Aviation units....do tell us more please?
What kind of logistics tail will be required to maintain these aircraft in tactical field conditions?
Multi-mission capability built in?
All that will be a very tough nut to crack.
V280 is required to meet Army's HOGE requirement. They said achieved the goal of hovering at 6,000 feet in 95 degree heat, There was no hot and high requirement when V-22 was designed. Interestingly enough, Bell said their power requirement was not driven by desired top speed, but by the required power to hover hot and high. That much power, the calculations showed would deliver 280 knots, hence the designation. sS it turned out, the V280 was noticeable faster than that. FWIW, Defiant promised even higher hot and-high hover, but I don't know if they ever demonstrated it. .
V-280 has already demonstrated sling load at hover and forward speeds It will have two side gunners and there is talk of adding other armament depending on customer needs.
Assuming everything goes as expected, it'll beat the Black Hawk in almost everything. 30+ years newer technology tends to do that.
Depends on what the Army asks for, but Bell has stated that all-weather is there if the customer wants. That would mostly be in avionics.
The Army specified once fielded, less maintenance than Black Hawk.
The aircraft certainly would be multi-mission capable. Again, it all depends n what the customer wants (and is willing to pay for). For example, the Navy would want the aircraft to fold to fit into DDG hangars. Bell says their version fold up into a cube slightly smaller than that of a UH-1Y.
A tough nut indeed.