Bell V-280 Valor

Helicopters and tilt-rotor aircraft
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by tritonprime » 24 Sep 2015, 00:43

Spirit delivers first V-280 tiltrotor aircraft fuselage to Bell (+video) "
by Jerry Siebenmark

The Wichita Eagle
September 22, 2015

Source:
http://www.kansas.com/news/business/avi ... 23228.html

Published on Sep 22, 2015

Bell Helicopter CEO John Garrison talks about Spirit AeroSystems' first V-280 fuselage delivery and the advantages of a tilt rotor aircraft over a helicopter on the battlefield. Video by Jerry Siebenmark.




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by tritonprime » 24 Sep 2015, 00:59



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by bigjku » 24 Sep 2015, 14:52

Got to say based on looking at them I will be stunned if this beats the other concept out there for the program provided it is capable of meeting requirements. It just looks much less complicated and much more compact.


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by count_to_10 » 18 Oct 2015, 18:41

Bell had a V-280 mock-up on display at AUSA last week. Though it wasn't on the mock-up, there was a model that showed the attack version holding 16 Hellfire missiles internally, with an additional 24 side-facing tube launchers for things like expendable (kamikaze) drones. They have also changed the structure of the engine inlets from the images they released a couple of years back, and gave it the same wing-pivoting stowage mechanism the Osprey has.
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by count_to_10 » 18 Oct 2015, 18:53

bigjku wrote:Got to say based on looking at them I will be stunned if this beats the other concept out there for the program provided it is capable of meeting requirements. It just looks much less complicated and much more compact.

The competing tandem rotor design is pretty complicated internally and isn't as fast. Additionally, there are certain safety advantages to putting the engines out on the wings, both in terms of a crash landing and in terms of taking enemy fire.
Einstein got it backward: one cannot prevent a war without preparing for it.

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by sferrin » 19 Oct 2015, 00:51

count_to_10 wrote:
bigjku wrote:Got to say based on looking at them I will be stunned if this beats the other concept out there for the program provided it is capable of meeting requirements. It just looks much less complicated and much more compact.

The competing tandem rotor design is pretty complicated internally and isn't as fast. Additionally, there are certain safety advantages to putting the engines out on the wings, both in terms of a crash landing and in terms of taking enemy fire.


Meets the requirements and cheaper will always win. If the req. is 230 knots Bell will get zero points for hitting 280. And a coaxial rotor isn't anywhere near as complex as a tilt-rotor all things considered.
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by bigjku » 19 Oct 2015, 02:05

sferrin wrote:
count_to_10 wrote:
bigjku wrote:Got to say based on looking at them I will be stunned if this beats the other concept out there for the program provided it is capable of meeting requirements. It just looks much less complicated and much more compact.

The competing tandem rotor design is pretty complicated internally and isn't as fast. Additionally, there are certain safety advantages to putting the engines out on the wings, both in terms of a crash landing and in terms of taking enemy fire.


Meets the requirements and cheaper will always win. If the req. is 230 knots Bell will get zero points for hitting 280. And a coaxial rotor isn't anywhere near as complex as a tilt-rotor all things considered.


For me the big difference will be agility in hover. I don't see tilt rotors ever being all that agile nor would I expect it to be nearly as stable in hover. The bell may be a quicker pure troop move but I don't see it adapting to the range of things the UH-60 does.


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by popcorn » 19 Oct 2015, 04:12

How much of the time in the air will be spent hovering vs. in hi--speed flight, actually transporting stuff? If extra points are awarded for speed, Bell would have an edge. Also, I've also wondered about the relative agility and low-speed handling of the Valor but that's what the competitive flyoff should reveal. IMO the TCO will carry factor heavily.
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by bigjku » 19 Oct 2015, 14:37

popcorn wrote:How much of the time in the air will be spent hovering vs. in hi--speed flight, actually transporting stuff? If extra points are awarded for speed, Bell would have an edge. Also, I've also wondered about the relative agility and low-speed handling of the Valor but that's what the competitive flyoff should reveal. IMO the TCO will carry factor heavily.


For the straight UH role not a ton. For replacing the Seahawks for the navy in the ASW role quite a bit. For special forces work quite a bit. I believe they are used for EW by the army as well. Sling loads are important too and I would guess that the tilt rotor won't do as well there. A Uh-60 can lift 9,000 slung vs an Osprey that does 15,000. But the V-22 has 2.5 times as much engine power to do that. The CH-47 has a similar 15,000 pound along load but with only 76% as much installed horsepower.

If this were a pure troop mover I would agree that speed is great. But it will have to do a ton of roles. I don't see it being quite as efficient as a cargo mover. And I really don't see it at all as an ASW platform on a destroyer or LCS flight deck. And if we don't replace the UH-60 with something adaptable to those roles the cost of those kind of helicopters will sky rocket.


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by popcorn » 19 Oct 2015, 14:52

bigjku wrote:
popcorn wrote:How much of the time in the air will be spent hovering vs. in hi--speed flight, actually transporting stuff? If extra points are awarded for speed, Bell would have an edge. Also, I've also wondered about the relative agility and low-speed handling of the Valor but that's what the competitive flyoff should reveal. IMO the TCO will carry factor heavily.


For the straight UH role not a ton. For replacing the Seahawks for the navy in the ASW role quite a bit. For special forces work quite a bit. I believe they are used for EW by the army as well. Sling loads are important too and I would guess that the tilt rotor won't do as well there. A Uh-60 can lift 9,000 slung vs an Osprey that does 15,000. But the V-22 has 2.5 times as much engine power to do that. The CH-47 has a similar 15,000 pound along load but with only 76% as much installed horsepower.

If this were a pure troop mover I would agree that speed is great. But it will have to do a ton of roles. I don't see it being quite as efficient as a cargo mover. And I really don't see it at all as an ASW platform on a destroyer or LCS flight deck. And if we don't replace the UH-60 with something adaptable to those roles the cost of those kind of helicopters will sky rocket.

Good points all.
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by tritonprime » 19 Oct 2015, 23:36

bigjku wrote:For the straight UH role not a ton. For replacing the Seahawks for the navy in the ASW role quite a bit. For special forces work quite a bit. I believe they are used for EW by the army as well. Sling loads are important too and I would guess that the tilt rotor won't do as well there. A Uh-60 can lift 9,000 slung vs an Osprey that does 15,000. But the V-22 has 2.5 times as much engine power to do that. The CH-47 has a similar 15,000 pound along load but with only 76% as much installed horsepower.

If this were a pure troop mover I would agree that speed is great. But it will have to do a ton of roles. I don't see it being quite as efficient as a cargo mover. And I really don't see it at all as an ASW platform on a destroyer or LCS flight deck. And if we don't replace the UH-60 with something adaptable to those roles the cost of those kind of helicopters will sky rocket.


Unfortunately, the Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant is too large to fit in a United States Navy ship's hanger. Therefore, Mick Maurer, Senior Vice President of Strategic Projects at Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, has said that coaxial rotors are unlikely to be offered for the United States Navy's MH-XX helicopter program. What they will offer instead is unknown at the present time.

Source:
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... er-409714/


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by count_to_10 » 20 Oct 2015, 02:53

sferrin wrote:
count_to_10 wrote:
bigjku wrote:Got to say based on looking at them I will be stunned if this beats the other concept out there for the program provided it is capable of meeting requirements. It just looks much less complicated and much more compact.

The competing tandem rotor design is pretty complicated internally and isn't as fast. Additionally, there are certain safety advantages to putting the engines out on the wings, both in terms of a crash landing and in terms of taking enemy fire.


Meets the requirements and cheaper will always win. If the req. is 230 knots Bell will get zero points for hitting 280. And a coaxial rotor isn't anywhere near as complex as a tilt-rotor all things considered.

The pusher prop adds cost and complication.
As far as hovering agility goes, tilt-rotors have a larger lever arm for torque in yaw, and actually tilt the rotors to get that torque. Tilt-rotors have a very large advantage in terms of acceleration from hover.
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by tritonprime » 20 Oct 2015, 03:12

Does the Active Vibration Control of Sikorsky's X2 Technology also add complexity?


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by sferrin » 20 Oct 2015, 03:20

tritonprime wrote:Does the Active Vibration Control of Sikorsky's X2 Technology also add complexity?


If they ditched the swashplate, and are controlling the blade pitch with software, then it would just be part of the software.
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by vilters » 20 Oct 2015, 12:02

Tilt rotors are very good on paper. Just like "swing wing" airplanes are very good on paper.
In a decade or so, the "tilt-rotors" will be were the swing-wings are now.


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