I referenced some Bell patent drawings a couple weeks ago, one of which is posted below:
As you can see, the drivetrain arrangement of V-280 would appear to lend itself to an autorotation at least as well as a CH-47, maybe even better as there is no combining transmission in the drive line. Notice the drive shafts along the wing trailing edge (item 135) , they feed power to a gearbox (item 129) to a quill shaft driving the tilting gearbox (item 147).
Here’s a better view of the tilting gearbox:
on first glance this appears to be a pretty streamlined way of sharing power, similar to what we already see on conventional helicopters. Looks like the gearbox (item 129) has mounting provisions for generators and pumps etc.
Being skeptical of the V-280, I was actually pretty surprised at how simple this all looked. You can even see some of these actual components from to V-280 demonstrator in one of the Bell videos on YouTube.
I may be wrong but from my view, again as a skeptic, is that autorotation won’t be as big an issue as I thought. I feel like if V-280 really does enter service that the biggest adaptation will be regarding speed.
How long it will take aircrew (rated and non-rated) to not be “behind the aircraft”?
FltMech