Sikorsky Raider X - FARA contender
Whomever makes UAVs and drones is doubtless salivating about now, given the justifications offered by DofA on why they did it.
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There is more than that. It looks like prioritizing off-the-shelf/quick results solutions in order to get as much results as possible in a relatively short time.
US Army spent billions on a new helicopter that now will never fly (defensenews.com)
US Army spent billions on a new helicopter that now will never fly (defensenews.com)
It will also stop fielding its new replacement for UH-60 Lima-model Black Hawk utility helicopter — the Victor-model — to the Army National Guard and instead field UH-60 Mike-models, the latest variant used in the active force, Bush said.Finally, the service will delay procurement of its next-generation helicopter engine, which was set to be used in all UH-60s, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters as well as to power FARA.
Instead, Bush said the Army will spend the newly available money on Black Hawks, the latest variant of the CH-47F Block II Chinook cargo helicopter, the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft and research and development efforts to accelerate its unmanned aerial reconnaissance capability.
Instead, Bush said the Army will spend the newly available money on Black Hawks, the latest variant of the CH-47F Block II Chinook cargo helicopter, the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft and research and development efforts to accelerate its unmanned aerial reconnaissance capability.
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Actually the record is worse than that. Also faltering were OH-58F, Advanced Aerial Scout (AAS) and using Apaches, .
How is this thread discussing called out as "PPRuNe being strangely silent" SplineDrive?
See also this thread on Mil Av.
See also this thread on Mil Av.
How is this thread discussing called out as "PPRuNe being strangely silent" SplineDrive?
See also this thread on Mil Av.
See also this thread on Mil Av.
Sikorsky Raider X - FARA contender thread:
started: Oct 2019, 148 posts total
Military Aviation FARA thread:
started: Apr 2019, 34 posts total
Hill HX50 thread:
started: Dec 2019, 1492 posts total
So Hill discussions started a little later, but 10x more posts than the Rotorheads FARA thread. Explain that and you will likely explain lack of recent FARA posts too.
Experience from war in Ukraine will likely shape many more western defence acquisition decisions, not only for rotorcraft. Uncrewed systems more than likely to expand significantly. Investment in systems to defend against uncrewed systems likely to also increase significantly. Didn't Russians lose yet another significant warship in last few days due to an apparent USV strike??
I am interested to hear your views about this major cancellation.
Thread Starter
SplineDrive, consider this:
Sikorsky Raider X - FARA contender thread:
started: Oct 2019, 148 posts total
Military Aviation FARA thread:
started: Apr 2019, 34 posts total
Hill HX50 thread:
started: Dec 2019, 1492 posts total
So Hill discussions started a little later, but 10x more posts than the Rotorheads FARA thread. Explain that and you will likely explain lack of recent FARA posts too.
Experience from war in Ukraine will likely shape many more western defence acquisition decisions, not only for rotorcraft. Uncrewed systems more than likely to expand significantly. Investment in systems to defend against uncrewed systems likely to also increase significantly. Didn't Russians lose yet another significant warship in last few days due to an apparent USV strike??
I am interested to hear your views about this major cancellation.
Sikorsky Raider X - FARA contender thread:
started: Oct 2019, 148 posts total
Military Aviation FARA thread:
started: Apr 2019, 34 posts total
Hill HX50 thread:
started: Dec 2019, 1492 posts total
So Hill discussions started a little later, but 10x more posts than the Rotorheads FARA thread. Explain that and you will likely explain lack of recent FARA posts too.
Experience from war in Ukraine will likely shape many more western defence acquisition decisions, not only for rotorcraft. Uncrewed systems more than likely to expand significantly. Investment in systems to defend against uncrewed systems likely to also increase significantly. Didn't Russians lose yet another significant warship in last few days due to an apparent USV strike??
I am interested to hear your views about this major cancellation.
I know in the last year that, the Japanese MoD and JGSDF have been mulling over replacing their AH-64J and OH-! with unmanned rotorcraft as a result of seeing whats happening in UKraine.
Also the Bindeswehr in the biggest rotorcraft purchase of 80 plus H145M rather than go ahead with Tigre Mk3 upgrade with their French and Spanish cohorts and replacing theiir Tiger fleet altogether (which am led to believe had reliability issues). Think they will have MUM-T capability
Just wondering, whats the single biggest threat to manned armed helo -
- if its MANPADS, are not our rw crews in the west trained to counter that
- air to air threat, - same as the above but with the exceptions of the Sidewinder fitted to USMC AH-1Z and the provision to add AIM-32 stingers to AH-64D/E (i know its not standard but can be available as Hellfire itself can act as limited air to air cap)..
- ground fire - as in from infantry, artillery or tank....at very low level, whose being practising low level tactics for over five decades....
cheers
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The way I read what’s happening with all this is somewhat of a repeat of what happened when Comanche was axed.
That program sucked all the oxygen out of the room as far as funding went and the rest of the Army fleet suffered greatly from that lack of investment. The same has been happening in the past couple of years, I’ve seen aircraft sit in flyable storage for lack of parts for weeks to up to 6 months, parts that should be readily available.
The reinvestment in the Army fleet, in the form of spares and most importantly an eventual new engine for AH-64 and UH-60 that will allow for more range, as well as an uprated T55 engine for Block II Chinook.
It also brings in basically a single UH-60 variant (“Mike” model) for the Army active component and reserves(and even the Air Force HH-60W has more in common with Mike than other variants) Once again, a great thing for the supply chain.
longer term I think the Army will also want MOSA incorporated into the UH-60, they will possibly be able to leverage whatever was learned with UH-60V.
Meanwhile, they will also be able to focus on the V-280 development and work toward an unmanned capability.
I don’t think Army Aviation protested, I think they made the best decision in the face of a changing battlefield environment, and for once they did it without wasting quite as much time and money as they normally do.🤣
FltMech
That program sucked all the oxygen out of the room as far as funding went and the rest of the Army fleet suffered greatly from that lack of investment. The same has been happening in the past couple of years, I’ve seen aircraft sit in flyable storage for lack of parts for weeks to up to 6 months, parts that should be readily available.
The reinvestment in the Army fleet, in the form of spares and most importantly an eventual new engine for AH-64 and UH-60 that will allow for more range, as well as an uprated T55 engine for Block II Chinook.
It also brings in basically a single UH-60 variant (“Mike” model) for the Army active component and reserves(and even the Air Force HH-60W has more in common with Mike than other variants) Once again, a great thing for the supply chain.
longer term I think the Army will also want MOSA incorporated into the UH-60, they will possibly be able to leverage whatever was learned with UH-60V.
Meanwhile, they will also be able to focus on the V-280 development and work toward an unmanned capability.
I don’t think Army Aviation protested, I think they made the best decision in the face of a changing battlefield environment, and for once they did it without wasting quite as much time and money as they normally do.🤣
FltMech
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The reinvestment in the Army fleet, in the form of spares and most importantly an eventual new engine for AH-64 and UH-60 that will allow for more range, as well as an uprated T55 engine for Block II Chinook.
It also brings in basically a single UH-60 variant (“Mike” model) for the Army active component and reserves(and even the Air Force HH-60W has more in common with Mike than other variants) Once again, a great thing for the supply chain.
Meanwhile, they will also be able to focus on the V-280 development and work toward an unmanned capability.
I don’t think Army Aviation protested, I think they made the best decision in the face of a changing battlefield environment, and for once they did it without wasting quite as much time and money as they normally do.🤣
Personally, FARA was always strangely incompatible with FLRAA, particularly the range and thus speed requirement. If one of the goals of FLRAA was giving the Army a credible Pacific combat capability and greatly reduced reliance on forward operating bases due to the greater range FLRAA provides, then how does FARA work with that? Lower range so the reduced base quantity strategy is harmed, as is the Pacific theater. I think survivability against MANPADS would come (for any of our aircraft) via DIRCM and other active counter measures as well as speed/tactics. I do not believe Russian countermeasures are nearly as advanced as ours and FARA would carry longer ranges and more sophisticated weapons (except for the 20 mm gun) than Russian birds in Ukraine.
Wouldn't surprise me to see FLRAA turn into the Army ALE/drone truck. Something has to carry them to the battlefield and that something might as well have the range and speed to match FLRAA. We will see FLRAA turn into a range of mission capabilities and armed penetration and missile/drone truck can certainly be one of them.
The production FARA was also growing in size and would be a more direct Apache competitor, which gets to the industrial base issues.
Boeing hasn't developed a new helicopter from scratch in generations at this point. There have been substantial AH-64 upgrades and perhaps less so on the Chinook, but the last new design to be designed/built/flown entirely by Boeing was YUH-61 in the late 70's. They partnered on V-22, RAH-66, and SB>1 and on most/all of those, the core technologies were owned by their partners. If FARA was going to eat away at the Apache mission, I could see some industrial base discussions to help keep Boeing viable.... hence the promise of CH-47F BkII purchases.
Sikorsky is dealing with self-imposed damage. The X-2 arrangement doesn't actually solve all the problems identified forty years ago during the XH-59A program. SB>1 lost (the systems engineering miss in the proposal provided an easy out) and it is my deep suspicion that Raider-X was not going to be a good aircraft either and could have been out performed by Invictus during the competitive prototype phase. As the production aircraft configuration grows into a twin Apache sized platform, the X-2 problems of vibrations, yaw authority, weight, cost, etc just grow. If Bell, in the end, was going to win FARA, more industrial base concerns arise. Successful execution of both FLRAA and FARA by Bell is a greater risk than either alone, the politics in Congress would be awful, and Sikorsky would lose another contract.
Sikorsky has nearly expended a generation of engineering years on an unsuccessful configuration and needs to launch a program that will actually be fielded. Getting to fleet experience trains engineers better than prototypes which are better than design studies and new configurations are better training experience than modification/upgrade programs. Rotorcraft are bizarre enough vehicles that the knowledge to do this type of work isn't written sufficiently in manuals, it's via transmitted experience taught by the people that do. Don't "do" long enough and there's no one left to teach.
So, perhaps better to just drop FARA entirely since FLRAA is more important. Standardize on the 60M as the default UH-60 configuration and continue an ITE integration program for H-60 and AH-64. While the better SFC would provide longer range (nowhere near FLRAA, though), really tapping the ITE capability will require modified/new transmissions and rotors. There's already a fly-by-wire H-60 demonstrator, so roll those capabilities in. Hopefully we'll see a UH-60Z model with a generally better performance and an autonomous capability. Same with the Apache, though I don't know if Boeing has started autonomy work at all. These would provide the "low" capability in a high/low product mix.
Budgets are constrained and moreso going forwards. The interest on the federal debt is becoming a larger line item than the DoD. Of the three large US VTOL primes, two are damaged and need political support. Ukraine experience provides political cover to simplify the Army aviation mix and spread out contracts to all three primes, while preserving the most important aviation upgrade (FLRAA).
X-2 is dead for another forty years.
My views... time for another cup of coffee.
Wouldn't surprise me to see FLRAA turn into the Army ALE/drone truck. Something has to carry them to the battlefield and that something might as well have the range and speed to match FLRAA. We will see FLRAA turn into a range of mission capabilities and armed penetration and missile/drone truck can certainly be one of them.
The production FARA was also growing in size and would be a more direct Apache competitor, which gets to the industrial base issues.
Boeing hasn't developed a new helicopter from scratch in generations at this point. There have been substantial AH-64 upgrades and perhaps less so on the Chinook, but the last new design to be designed/built/flown entirely by Boeing was YUH-61 in the late 70's. They partnered on V-22, RAH-66, and SB>1 and on most/all of those, the core technologies were owned by their partners. If FARA was going to eat away at the Apache mission, I could see some industrial base discussions to help keep Boeing viable.... hence the promise of CH-47F BkII purchases.
Sikorsky is dealing with self-imposed damage. The X-2 arrangement doesn't actually solve all the problems identified forty years ago during the XH-59A program. SB>1 lost (the systems engineering miss in the proposal provided an easy out) and it is my deep suspicion that Raider-X was not going to be a good aircraft either and could have been out performed by Invictus during the competitive prototype phase. As the production aircraft configuration grows into a twin Apache sized platform, the X-2 problems of vibrations, yaw authority, weight, cost, etc just grow. If Bell, in the end, was going to win FARA, more industrial base concerns arise. Successful execution of both FLRAA and FARA by Bell is a greater risk than either alone, the politics in Congress would be awful, and Sikorsky would lose another contract.
Sikorsky has nearly expended a generation of engineering years on an unsuccessful configuration and needs to launch a program that will actually be fielded. Getting to fleet experience trains engineers better than prototypes which are better than design studies and new configurations are better training experience than modification/upgrade programs. Rotorcraft are bizarre enough vehicles that the knowledge to do this type of work isn't written sufficiently in manuals, it's via transmitted experience taught by the people that do. Don't "do" long enough and there's no one left to teach.
So, perhaps better to just drop FARA entirely since FLRAA is more important. Standardize on the 60M as the default UH-60 configuration and continue an ITE integration program for H-60 and AH-64. While the better SFC would provide longer range (nowhere near FLRAA, though), really tapping the ITE capability will require modified/new transmissions and rotors. There's already a fly-by-wire H-60 demonstrator, so roll those capabilities in. Hopefully we'll see a UH-60Z model with a generally better performance and an autonomous capability. Same with the Apache, though I don't know if Boeing has started autonomy work at all. These would provide the "low" capability in a high/low product mix.
Budgets are constrained and moreso going forwards. The interest on the federal debt is becoming a larger line item than the DoD. Of the three large US VTOL primes, two are damaged and need political support. Ukraine experience provides political cover to simplify the Army aviation mix and spread out contracts to all three primes, while preserving the most important aviation upgrade (FLRAA).
X-2 is dead for another forty years.
My views... time for another cup of coffee.
Last edited by SplineDrive; 17th Feb 2024 at 21:55.
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Thanks for saving me the time and responding
Splinedrive,
Thank you for saving me the time, and responding with most of the points I would’ve been making. Building on one point that really concerns me, is training the next generation of rotorcraft engineers.
Boeing’s capability to develop a clean sheet rotorcraft design (as you pointed out), ceased existence two decades ago.
Without a DOD customer to fund the cost of developing Sikorsky’s X-2 technology, Lockheed will be pulling the plug on all future X-2 investment.
This leaves, both Boeing and Sikorsky engineering teams performing only upgrades to existing platforms for probably another decade.
The only hope for either companies long term future is to invest in developing a new generation of commercial rotorcraft. Had it not been for Nick Lappos convincing Textron management to invest in the fly by wire Bell 525, Bell would likely never have been able to develop the V-280 Valor.
Thank you for saving me the time, and responding with most of the points I would’ve been making. Building on one point that really concerns me, is training the next generation of rotorcraft engineers.
Boeing’s capability to develop a clean sheet rotorcraft design (as you pointed out), ceased existence two decades ago.
Without a DOD customer to fund the cost of developing Sikorsky’s X-2 technology, Lockheed will be pulling the plug on all future X-2 investment.
This leaves, both Boeing and Sikorsky engineering teams performing only upgrades to existing platforms for probably another decade.
The only hope for either companies long term future is to invest in developing a new generation of commercial rotorcraft. Had it not been for Nick Lappos convincing Textron management to invest in the fly by wire Bell 525, Bell would likely never have been able to develop the V-280 Valor.
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There is no valid financial or technical reason for the Army to buy more Black Hawks, other than to maintain Sikorsky as a supplier. Stop wasting taxpayer money, let it go. Sikorsky was given the CH-53K contract sole source. Same for Chinook, a derivative of the V-280 could perform this function with speed and range advantages, even if sacrificing some load carrying capability. So the Army made a political decision, probably to maintain Congressional support for Army Aviation funding.
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With respect to the 525, it was supposed to be certified in the 2017/2018 time frame. Now it is 2024 and it is still not certified. Knowing the FAA Southwest Region (and the fallout of the 737 Max debacle) I surmise the 6 to 7 year slip is due to it being FBW with all the new rules (roadblocks) that the regulators could come up with. So in hindsight going FBW does not look like the right approach for a commercial helicopter.
The fly-by-wire on the V-280 was the logical/only option considered as the next step from the V-22 and 609 programs. When the 525 was being designed the staff was populated with 609 lead engineers who decided to go fly-by-wire. There was absolutely no 525 design influence on the V-280.
With respect to the 525, it was supposed to be certified in the 2017/2018 time frame. Now it is 2024 and it is still not certified. Knowing the FAA Southwest Region (and the fallout of the 737 Max debacle) I surmise the 6 to 7 year slip is due to it being FBW with all the new rules (roadblocks) that the regulators could come up with. So in hindsight going FBW does not look like the right approach for a commercial helicopter.
With respect to the 525, it was supposed to be certified in the 2017/2018 time frame. Now it is 2024 and it is still not certified. Knowing the FAA Southwest Region (and the fallout of the 737 Max debacle) I surmise the 6 to 7 year slip is due to it being FBW with all the new rules (roadblocks) that the regulators could come up with. So in hindsight going FBW does not look like the right approach for a commercial helicopter.
Are you familiar with the song from the musical Hamilton, “The Room Where it Happens”?
I was in the proverbial room at Bell when it happened. A small group engineers risked their future careers at Bell, and went against the direction not to pursue commercial FBW by the VP of Engineering JL. JL was known for his vindictiveness, and forced many excellent engineers to pursue careers elsewhere.
From your comments, it is obvious to me you were not even in the building, let alone the room. Your comments are based on either incorrect secondhand sources, flawed personal beliefs, or a combination of both. I am rarely this harsh in an online post response. However in this case it was required.
Had the 525 not been FBW, following the completion of the 609 sale to Leonardo, Bell’s ability to develop FBW controls would have been dissolved by JL.
Regarding the delays in 525 certification, there are many reasons. However FBW is not a primarily factor.
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CTR
Been in a lot of rooms with senior executives at Bell where critical decisions were made. I wish I had been in that one. I would have been in the anti-FBW camp due to the obvious impact on cert risk based on my experience with the FAA SW region. Not surprised to see Lowinger made the wrong decision again. This doc shows the FAA coming up with new rules for the 525 as late as 2022:
https://www.federalregister.gov/docu...control-system
Been in a lot of rooms with senior executives at Bell where critical decisions were made. I wish I had been in that one. I would have been in the anti-FBW camp due to the obvious impact on cert risk based on my experience with the FAA SW region. Not surprised to see Lowinger made the wrong decision again. This doc shows the FAA coming up with new rules for the 525 as late as 2022:
https://www.federalregister.gov/docu...control-system