The US Army has decided on its largest rotorcraft procurement in 40 years: Bell Textron won the competition for the so-called “Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft” (FLRAA) against Sikorsky’s SB-1 Defiant-X with its V-280 Valor.
In March 2013, the US Army (i.e. the US land forces) invited the industry to submit proposals for the “Future Vertical Lift” (FVL) system family, which “clearly exceed all current rotorcraft” in terms of hover, speed, range/payload and fuel efficiency characteristics. Originally, five procurement categories were defined for this, but only the “Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft” (FLRAA) and “Future Armed Reconnaisance Aircraft” (FARA) are currently ready for a decision. While FARA concerns the replacement of the lighter OH-58D Kiowa Warrior (whose “scout role” has since been taken over by the Apache and the Shadow drone system), which has already been retired and passed on to Croatia, for example, FLRAA is about nothing less than the long-term replacement of the approximately 1,700 UH60 Black Hawk multi-role and 1,200 Apache combat helicopters introduced from the end of the 1970s. The FLRAA should therefore be able to transport troops to and from the battlefield and at the same time provide fire support and anti-tank defence. In addition to the Army, the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the US Marine Corps (USMC) are also involved in the program.
Almost one billion euros in development costs
The first FLRAA development phase in 2014 saw the creation of a Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR-TD) to develop all the necessary basic principles. Subsequently, both coaxial and tilt-rotor designs were pursued, with a focus on larger and established contractors over smaller manufacturers. Piasecki, Karem, EADS and AVX were subsequently eliminated from the program and in March 2020, the Army Contracting Command’s concept development contract was then only directed at the Sikorsky Boeing Defiant-X coaxial rotor with pusher propeller (valued at around 91 million euros) and the V-280 Valor tiltrotor from Bell Textron (79 million euros). In March 2021, the same department then awarded Bell an increase of €276 million and the Sikorsky Boeing team €268 million, each with an estimated €18 million in research, development, test and evaluation funding for the US fiscal year 2021 at the time of award. Interesting fact: Sikorsky is part of Lockheed Martinthe US defense manufacturer is involved with computer electronics units (in the revolutionary cockpit presented for the first time in 2020) as well as sensors and armament for Bell’s V-280. According to Brigadier General Rob Barrie, as the US Army’s program manager for Army Aviation, the additional funding should enable him and his evaluators to “make informed decisions early” to ensure that FLRAA capabilities are “not only affordable, but that they meet the requirements of multi-domain operations”.
Milestone for the US armed forces
The type decision in favor of the Bell V-280 from Bell Textron now represents a milestone for the US armed forces, which have not procured two large helicopters since the 1980s. Although there has always been a desire to do so, all attempts to do so in recent decades have failed. For example, the Boeing Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche stealth helicopter program was discontinued in 2004 after costing around 6.6 billion euros. Brigadier General Barrie did not explain in detail why the contract was awarded to Bell Textron during a media roundtable in early December, nor did he go into detail about what now sets the tiltrotor apart from the competition. “We are not going to talk about the technical details of the evaluation now because the decision cannot be justified by individual technical details. We looked for the best price-performance ratio and included numerous factors such as performance, cost and schedule to calculate this ‘best value’.” Barrie continued: “This is the largest and most complex procurement in the history of Army aviation. This system will be with us for decades to come and it goes without saying that we want to ensure its success.”
The Bell team is now to carry out a further preliminary digital design phase at a budgeted cost of 219 million euros 19 months after the formal contract award – which is likely to be delayed by an objection from Sikorsky Boeing. The V-280 test aircraft, which was canceled in June 2021 after 214 hours, measured only 92 percent of the final dimensions. The army is then expected to enter the design and production development phase in October 2023, followed by a critical design review in early 2025. The first prototype could then be delivered in summer 2025, followed by five further prototypes by summer 2026. Development and production costs of up to 1.23 billion euros are expected. The manufacturing development to series production could then consume a further 6.6 billion euros. According to Barrie, the replacement procurement of the Black Hawk and Apache could then be worth “up to 66 billion euros” over their entire service life. https://militaeraktuell.at/abschreckung-2-0-der-neue-b-21-raider/ Many pros and cons, but in the end it was ...
The maturity of its design certainly spoke for Bell Textron in the decision that has now been made. Before Bell retired its Valor flight demonstrator in June 2021, the model flew for more than 214 hours, demonstrating agility at low speed and close to the ground and reaching the extraordinary maximum speed of 305 knots (569 km/h) for a rotorcraft. Five US Army test pilots completed a total of 15 flights with it, and their feedback was taken into account in the decision-making process, as was the feedback from the infantry units involved and – something Sikorsky did not have with its coaxial design – the more than 700,000 hours already flown with its tilt-rotor predecessor, the V-22 Osprey, which was also able to demonstrate its capabilities in combat missions. The V-280 is also significantly lighter than the SB-1 due to the extensive use of composite materials and the Rolls-Royce AE 1107F turboshaft engines, which are mounted in a fixed position and connected to a shaft in the rotor nacelles, while only the rotors themselves tilt. This eliminates the exhaust jet and, according to the manufacturer, reduces costs by 30 percent compared to the Osprey. Sikorsky’s Defiant-X, on the other hand, only flew for 64 hours (top speed 460 km/h), aggravated by the crash of a Sikorsy Raider in West Palm Beach in August 2017 – which is essentially a smaller version of the Defiant. This left Sikorsky with only one device to continue the internal test program to refine its coaxial helicopter/pusher technology, which began with the X2, for both the FLRAA program and FARA. The latter, by the way, is a second chance for Sikorsky, pitting its S-97 Raider-X against Bell’s more conventional Invictus-360.
… about the ranges!
However, the decisive factor for the type decision was ultimately the range. US Army helicopters were designed for conflicts in Europe and, to a certain extent, the Middle East, not for the vastness of the Pacific. But when combat radius is measured in just a few hundred miles, thousands of helicopters suddenly have a lot less to lose in that theater of war during a conflict with an – easily guessable – near-peer adversary. If today’s types were deployed close enough to the front to be effective in most types of operations, they would become the target of a vigilant adversary. And even operating deep in the enemy’s anti-access space exposes conventional helicopters to extreme risk. US Army and US Marines – the latter will likely operate the second highest number – therefore wanted FLRAA to be able to travel approximately 2,810 miles or 4,520 kilometers (minimum 1,985 miles or 3,195 kilometers) without payload and refueling, but be maneuverable enough to maneuver in and out of dangerous hotspots with 12 to 14 fully equipped soldiers or alternatively appropriate external and weapons loads. The deployment radii of these missions would then be – still – at least a third of those maximum rendition ranges. The aim was therefore to fly as fast and as far as possible, and this factor is also likely to determine the upcoming FARA decision.
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