i’m confused where are you trying to go with this line of thinking? If you fly them in a C-17, you need clearance for the C-17 and use of an airport. A V-280 will be able to fly directly to where it is needed and will be able to perform its mission almost immediately.

The aircraft is also all weather capable, and can fly at altitudes much higher than any helicopters. Even the Defiant.

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.

I thought it’s max altitude was around 6000 ft by the blurb so unlike a C17 they are never going to fly above the weather and I wouldn’t fancy chugging across the Atlantic in the winter at 320 MPH below 6000ft in case of a rapid deployment requirement. I mentioned clearance as I might imagine some countries having issues with military aircraft so visibly transiting through their airspace where as a C17 to those on the ground could just be another airliner.

That’s all
BTW you are still going to need fuel, etc to fly its mission.

A Corvette is not a Half Ton Pickup
 

SASless,

Why do Tiltrotor trashers always try and dismiss them by comparing them to conventional helicopters?

Corvettes make terrible trucks. And while a V-280 can match the lift of a 40 year old design Blackhawk, why would you?

Unlike the Defiant, the Valor achieved all its customer requirements in flight test. This included matching Blackhawk performance.

Using a Valor to haul cargo is a stupid waste of a valuable asset. Blackhawks will be around until 2050. They will be the trucks.

Unlike Helicopters, Tiltrotors Have Wings
 

Unpressurized Tiltrotors like the V-22 can fly at 20,000 ft with pilot oxygen. The pressurized 609 does 25,000 ft without pilot oxygen.

Fuel can always be trucked in to remote areas.

Army set a cost limit of $43. million in con-stat dollars (I don't remember which year) for FLRAA.

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.

Bell returns to the Lead
 

I was glad to see Bell win this FLRAA. I was thinking about buying Textron stock (an article said the stock soared) but I just had this sinking feeling that somehow Boe-Sik was going to win due the "industrial base concern". I coulda made some good $$.. With the AH-64 and UH-60 having won tons of the recent foreign competitions recently; both Morocco and Poland seemed to be leaning towards the AH-1Z, then *boom* they selected the AH-64, I was SURE that some behind-the-scenes thing was going to see the SB>1 as the winner. Then there was the Leonardo AW-139 winning the UH-1N comp, and Airbus seems to be selling their copters ALL over. But as Bell had two decades with the AH-1 and UH-1 at the forefront, say, 1962 to 1982, the Blackhawk and Apache came around in the late 70s to surpass them, now the V-280 and probably even the B360 will return Bell back on top after being 2nd fiddle. Maybe even the USAF will look into it, hopefully as their H-60 replacement, and maybe they can axe their deal with Leonardo and have the V280 as the UH-1N replacement, a Bell for a Bell..
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7bc977057e.jpg

My scale model Bell helicopters are celebrating!

Relative to all weather, I would think that the ability of autonomous flight without a crew covers that nicely.

At least there is a physical solution to shipboard stowage, and a wing stow mod could feasibly be integrated.

Not so with Defiant. The mast height is non-starter for fitting in any deck elevators or doors. And since that total airframe height is the entire MGB and integral hub, there is no way to address that problem.

I noticed that throughout the demo SB never released a diagram with dimensions showing the height. The pictures and personal observations indicate that Defiant is twice as tall as the 280 would be with V-22 type folding rotors. That alone says the Defiant could never replace UH-60's in naval applications, but the 280 could.

Sikorsky was always careful to compare the overall height of SB-1 as being on par with the UH-60...but that included a spinning tail rotor.

And even then, SB-1 is still 2 feet taller over the entire rotor diameter (18.7' vs 16.8')

CTR,

Wrong response.....if you are going to "replace" the Blackhawk with a Tilt Rotor....it is absolutely relevant to ask what its "helicopter" performance actually is compared to the Blackhawk.

That is not being a "Tilt Rotor Trasher"..... that is asking for an apples to apples comparison of the Blackhawk and its replacement.

We found out that places like Afghanistan demand performance that was lacking in the V-22 and some helicopters...with the Chinook and CH-53 becoming the airframes of choice for Ops in the higher elevations.

We know from V-22 experience that Tiltrotors do have an Achilles Heel of sort when it comes to the "helicopter" side of business.....due to the very design of the machine.

The V-22 is an amazing machine, especially considering it’s a 1980’s technology aircraft, but it’s unfortunate that it was the first tiltrotor to go into production because in may ways it represents the worst case for a tiltrotor. High disk loading, far higher than XV-15, 609, V-280, etc. means downwash is high, hover power required is high, autorotation isn’t possible, etc. FLRAA will have lower disk loading, addressing many of these weaknesses. The V-22 was also burdened with blade fold and wing stow, adding weight, cost, and complexity. Its primary operator is the Marines and Navy, which have higher DOC for any aircraft they operate as a result of the seaborne environment and requirements. So the tiltrotor concept gets a poor reputation, when those issues are particular to one implementation, not the concept in general.

Restating what has been said before.

The FLRAA had a requirement to operate at mission gross weight as a “helicopter” at a height of 6000’ and a temp of 95F. Something you admit the UH-60 couldn’t do. The winning selection has a rotor/engine configuration designed to meet this requirement.

As to the V-22, it was designed for the ship based sea level air assault mission.

SASless,

No, this is the correct response. Tiltrotors are not helicopters. Just like a Corvette will not haul a half ton of cargo, or a 8 x 4 sheet of plywood, a truck cannot go 0-60 in 4 sec, or pull one G in a corner.

There are some missions where the aircraft capabilities overlap, and because of the V-280 increased size and power, the V-280 matches the and lift capability of a Blackhawk. But again, why would you want to waste a expensive asset like a tilt rotor to do a cargo job that can be done cheaper by a conventional Helicopter?

Increased speed and range requirements drive design compromises. However, the V280 achieved the performance specifications required by the US Army, and exceeded others like range and speed.

I did not say the V280 is replacing the Blackhawk, that quote was made by press trying to get a story line. I said that the Blackhawk would continue in the fleet, performing roles where it is better suited to its capabilities.

If I came across as harsh, it comes from decades of responding to people who regurgitate what they read or see online from clearly biased sources. Just a few minutes doing research today allows an individual in most cases to determine what is true and what is false.

Back in the 80s, I was working on the F/A-18 Hornet. In the early days of the F/A-18 program we had to continuously respond to criticism that the aircraft did not match the payload of an A-6, or the speed of an F-14.

Recently, when the V-22 was selected by the Navy for the COD mission, similar criticism was leveled.

Note: A tiltrotor is not a fixed wing aircraft either.

Two decades from now there will still be Blackhawks flying in the US Army.
The UH-60M handled the cited High Hot and Heavy requirement (thanks to the wide chord blade) I think.
I find the discussion about the V-280 being possibly modded for a maritime role interesting - that will take folding. :)
I am sure a few of the sharp folks at Bell are already figuring that out, in terms of forward thinking.

Already done as part of the 247 effort.

From the attached the 60M is designed to operate to a 4000 ft/95F mission albeit at 4000 lb less than max gross with an improved engine in addition to the wider blades.

https://www.lockheedmartin.com/conte...M-brochure.pdf

A little expansion on the high disk loading issue, which is unique to the V-22. The proprotor diameter in the V-22 was constrained because Navy/USMC wanted it to be able to operate from the two spots abeam the island on the smaller amphib classes of the time. This required reducing said diameter by five feet from optimum, IIRC, which ups the disk loading. But there was also another factor that isn't that well known. During design, Navy was running a competition for the engine to power the JVX (V-22). Bell/Boeing were told to expect an engine of a certain power, in a certain weight range of a certain size, with a given fuel burn. The competitors were Pratt and GE bidding advanced latest technology , with Allison included with a roe conventional engine as a fallback in case Pratt an GE couldn't design an engine that would meet requirements. Both of the advanced engines met the requirements and according to information at the time, the evaluation board recommended award for one of the advanced engines. The story goes that it was GE, but we'll never know for sure because at the last minute the Navy decided not to go with their team's recommendation and awarded the contract to Alison. Allison's engine actually produced more power, but more importantly it was heavier than the other two engines and had a higher fuel burn, which meant more fuel had to be carried, both factors necessitating more structure which further increased weight. So higher weight on top of constrained proprotror size gives you higher disk loading. BTW, a derivative of that GE engine today powers the CH-53K.

Regarding autorotation, the V-22, like all Tiltrotors can do it, but because of the issues mentioned above, does it badly. Of course most large helicopters (the CH-47 is an exception) don't autorotate that well. The decision was made to meet the power off landing survivability requirement by gliding, which gives you more landing area choices.

For some reason I can't get multi quote to work. In any case, Bell had designed in the option for folding for a naval variant from the start of the V280 program and that work may have even preceded V247. They wanted it to be able to operate from shipboard hangars that can accommodate an H-60. Folded up, they say a V280 would occupy the same cubic "box" as a folded UH-1Y.



https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....272bfe2b32.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7427544caa.jpg

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a5fc2546aa.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e4092a3353.jpg

SASless:

I would say it's not relevant as to what the V280's (or SB>1's) helicopter performance actually is compared to the Black Hawk. Army is not asking for another Black Hawk, any more than the Army was asking for another Huey when it ran the UTTAS competition. The question is how well the V280 will perform the Army's FLRAA mission. It's the mission that's relevant. If you want to do apple to apple comparisons that's where you do them and there the Black Hawk fails completely. That's not a fault of the H-60 series, never in the designers' wildest dreams would they expect their craft to be capable of that.

I think SAS is correct here. If what Sultan said is true, what I will say is moot, but all we have experienced so far in form of Osprey leaves a lot to be desired. While it is true that tilt rotors are neither the helicopter nor the fixed wing aircraft, you can't tout speed and range and just dismiss "helicopter part " of the job. What is the point of sending tiltrotor, in this case 280, to do a mission of insertion, extraction, medevac (anything where hovering/vertical landing is required) if it can't do the final part? Yes, it will get there faster and then what?

Admikar

Where do you get that the V-280 can’t take off and land like a helicopter? It’s hover envelope exceeds that of a UH-60 and it met all of the “helicopter” mode maneuverability requirements in the FLRAA spec. Having witnessed V-280 demos low speed maneuverability is not an issue. As to decel/accel the 280 can tilt the rotors past 90 to rapidly decel with a level fuselage, and when it wants to depart the rotors tilt forward and it is gone (very Airwolf-ish).

it is the close stacked coax config of the X-2 technology which has maneuverability issues. Despite stating the rotors are so stiff they can never collide under any circumstance, the S-97 demonstrated this was a lie when the rotors on the S-97 collided while in a hover during computer induced roll reversals which occurred at rates less than expected in aggressive flight maneuvers. That incident exposed the fatal flaw of the ABC for all to see.

Read the last part of my second sentence from the post you responded to. Or maybe even better, read whole second sentence. And than let it sink.
If there is only one existing operational tiltrotor, that's what we will use as a measuring tool.
And I never said that V-280 can't do those things ( what I said in aforementioned post was more of making a point than stating a fact). And my post was in response to CTR who asked "why do tiltrotor bashers always compare it with conventional helicopter? It's so much faster, but if it needs to hover, we'll disregard that part of comparison." If it can hover, great, it will be worthy successor. And we just asked if it can hover as good as a conventional helicopter, we never said that it can't.

Measuring Tool
 

admikar,

The one “operational” Tiltrotor you are referring (V-22) has flown over 700,000 flight hours in combat and severe environments. The smaller 609 commercial Tiltrotor in development has accumulated over 2,000 flight hours and with proportionally bigger rotors than the V-22 has proven safe autorotation landing. The XV-15 Tiltrotor that first flew in 1977 accumulated over 500 flight hours, and now resides in the Smithsonian air and space Museum at Udvar Hazey. Finally, the V-280 accumulated over 200 flight hours, meeting or exceeding all US Army specification requirements. The aircraft was only retired, because there was nothing left to test, and the government did not wish to pay for further testing.

All X-2 technology Sikorsky aircraft combined have at my best estimate less than 500 flight hours. This includes at best guess about 80 flight hours on the Defiant. Unlike, Bell, Sikorsky does not openly publish information on the progress of flight testing. Time of the award announcement, Defiant flight testing was still ongoing because it has not proven its capability to meet all US Army requirements.

Accumulated flights test and operational use data was used by the US Army to determine the potential risks in FLRAA development. This was a significant US Army “measuring tool”.

Please also reread my post you referenced. You will see that I stated the V-280 matches the lift capabilities of the Blackhawk.


“There are some missions where the aircraft capabilities overlap, and because of the V-280 increased size and power, the V-280 matches the and lift capability of a Blackhawk. But again, why would you want to waste an expensive asset like a tilt rotor to do a cargo job that can be done cheaper by a conventional Helicopter?”

I mentioned that there are good sources out there. They will help you understand why the V-280 was selected by the US Army over the Defiant. One is a podcast by Aviation Week editors Steve Trimble, Brian Everstine and Graham Warwick;

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000589202664

The second is an article this morning in Drive:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...er-sb1-defiant

Actually, I calculated this for another project back in June. IIRC, Every Tilt Rotor design has flown more hours than all X2 aircraft combined. In fact, you have to add the S-69's (which was a design that eventually evolved into X2 technology) flight time to get the total flight time to reach the flight hours the V280 alone achieved. I can't easily find the flight hours for XV-15 #1 but excluding it and production V-22s that have flown for less than three years, I believe every single Tilt-Rotor airframe that ever flew has more flight hours than all X2s combined.

I don't know why folks (not just you) focus so much on hover. The facts are simple: A Tilt-Rotor will not hover as efficiently as a comparable conventional helicopter of the same technology level. . Although a Tilt-Rotor can put more twist on its blades than a conventional helo, that's not enough to overcome the weight of the wing and the effects of downwash on it. There's no overcoming the laws of physics. But, so what? The Tilt-Rotor concept is based on the fact that for most missions 85-90+% of the flight is not going to be spent hovering or at very low speed. The question is rather can a Tilt-Rotor do hover/low speed well enough to perform all missions assigned and that its other advantages outweigh that lesser efficiency in that small percentage of time in the real world Clearly, the answer is yes.

As to uncertainty whether the V280 can hover...

XV-15 ship 1 flew for ~800 hours before its crash and ship 2 flew for a similar number of hours. I think combined they were over 1500 hours. Hell, the even the 911 Eagle Eye flew about twice as many hours as the X-2 Demonstrator.

Thanks. #2 flew over 900 hours

Maybe hover wasn't the right word. Vertical landing and subsequent take off. And I am not talking airport-to-airport flying. Yes, it is less than 5-10% of flight time, but what's the point sending it to some unprepared landing site during combat if it can't land or take off afterwards. And that will be the case sooner or later. Yes, I have seen all those videos.
Now, all this being said, what I said previously is from what I have known before CTR and Sultan gave me some new information. Thx for that.
Another thing I would like to know is downwash? We know V-22 has abysmal downwash. I guess with larger discs Valor less so. But how does it compare to other helicopters (not just Blackhawk)?

V-280 was the Right Choice
 

Having had an opportunity to fly the X-59 in the early 1980s and later follow the V-22 through its development and fielding, one has to wonder why one aircraft (tilt rotor) has progressed nicely while the other, the co-axial system aircraft have lagged so far behind. Early in the V-22 program naysayer’s argued that the V-22 didn’t have enough rotor to be a descent helicopter and not enough wing to be a descent airplane. History has been proven this wrong. The V-22 has a successfully found a niche within the military system.

In the meantime, the coaxial system aircraft proposed by Sikorsky still languishes in development with many questions unanswered. Sikorsky/ Boeing marketing projects an unsubstantiated story of an aircraft with capabilities not actually demonstrated in flight test. I believe that, at this time, the decision to select the V-280 was correct. Going forward we will see a mix of V-280s and legacy H-60s many years into the future.

V-22 Disk Loading 22.2 LB/SQFT
V-280 Disk Loading 16.0 LB/SQFT
CH-53K Disk Loading 18.0 LB/SQFT

Amikar,

The information is out there at reputable sources if you look.

Please make a donation to Wikipedia while you’re at it. :-)

The following chart was calculated compliments of Ray Prouty circa 1998. for the NSHP


Aircraft Model Gross Weight Down Wash Velocities (MPH) Down Wash Velocities at Half Fuel Load
S-61N 20,500 51.5 48.6
S-70(HH-60J) 21,884 61.5 58.6
S-92 25,200 62.9 59.8
H-53E 69,750 74.6 70.3
Cougar2 21,494 61.6 59.1
NH-90(NFH) 22,046 61.9 58.8
EH-101 32,190 65.6 61.7
MV-22 55,000 97.4 91.1

I just wish I'd followed my belief and actually put money on the V-280 to win. It was just the obvious winner when you looked st the complexities of the Coaxial/ pusher system

Is the V-280 Valor the right choice for the Army? On YouTube
 

The You Tube video link below is a balanced and open minded discussion on the V-280 selection, by a former Tiltrotor skeptic.

You Tube

Enjoy

CTR and Jack Carson provided good data already, let me try to add a bit more.

I can't figure out what you mean by, "...but what's the point sending it to some unprepared landing site during combat if it can't land or take off afterwards". Why would you think a production V280 wouldn't be able to operate from unprepared fields? Kinda goes with the territory, and you'd think the Army might have said something if they didn't believe it could. Unless you're referring to the phony Sikorsky-pushed issue about vehicle size? Remember, the Army specified the minimum number of craft that could operate from a defined landing field with a required distance between spinning rotor tips and from surrounding terrain/vegetation, and the V280 meets the acquirement

Regarding downwash, V-22 has a lot, what it has is not solely a function of being a Tilt-Rotor. There are two big factors in its development that contributed to this. The first was the desire to be able to operate from the two spots abeam the island on the smaller amphibs of the time. This meant that the proprotors had to be constrained to a diameter less than optimum for its size and weight. Naturally, this raised the disk loading.

The second was the engine. During the design phase the Gov't told Bell/Boeing to plan on a Gov't supplied engine of a certain size, weight and fuel burn. Then during design the Gov't chose to supply an engine that weighed more and burned more fuel. This upped the weight on the craft and requiter a heavier structure in places to support this . The result was that those constrained proprotors had to lift even more weight, hence more disk loading hence more downwah.

Neither of those conditions apply to the V280.

I saw an a video article on ‘Military times’ that mentioned it’s also eventually replacing the Apache.
Is that right?

Sikorsky/Boeing Defiant Main Rotor Diameter?
 

Out of curiosity, I decided to take a look at the Defiant footprint, in comparison to the Blackhawk. However, unlike Bell on the Valor, I can’t find a published number for the main rotor diameter on the Defiant.

There are published photos of both the Blackhawk and Defiant next to each other by Sikorsky, however, most are taken from a perspective that makes it difficult to judge the main rotor size. I finally found one plan view photo, and based on the Blackhawk rotor diameter being 53.66 feet in diameter, I am estimating the defiant rotor diameter at 65.23 feet.

Does anyone know what the Defiant main rotor diameter is?

I find it odd that the tail pusher prop diameter of 11 feet is published, but I can find no reference to the main rotor diameter.