The U.S. Army is immersed in testing with two industry teams contracted to develop and build a fuel-efficient, high-speed, next-generation medium-lift helicopter to enter service by 2030.
The service’s Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator, or JMR TD, program awarded development deals to Bell Helicopter-Textron and Sikorsky-Boeing teams to build demonstrator aircraft by 2017 to help inform the development of a new medium-class helicopter.
“These teams will build technology demonstration aircraft with flight tests starting in 2017,” an Army statement said.
Textron Inc.’s Bell Helicopter is building a tilt-rotor aircraft called the Bell V-280 Valor – and the Sikorsky-Boeing team is working on early testing of its SB> 1 Defiant coaxial rotor-blade design.
Planned mission sets for the JMR include cargo, utility, armed scout, attack, humanitarian assistance, medical evacuation, anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, land/sea search and rescue, special warfare support, vertical replenishment, airborne mine countermeasures, and others, Army officials said.
Although requirements for the aircraft are still being refined, the notional concept is to succeed in building a new aircraft which can reach speeds of 230 knots, carry up to 12 troops, operate in what’s called “high-hot” conditions and achieve a combat radius of 424 kilometers.
A key intent of the program is to develop a fuel-efficient aircraft which can reach high-speeds while retaining an ability to hover and maneuver as though it is a traditional helicopter.
A combat radius of 424 kilometers means the aircraft will be engineered with an ability to fly 848 kilometers on a round-trip mission without needing to refuel. Along with calling for increased fuel efficiency, the draft requirements also ask that the aircraft be able to operate at altitudes of 6,000-feet and temperatures of 95-degrees Fahrenheit.
Described as “high-hot” conditions, the decreased air pressure at higher altitudes and hotter atmospheric temperatures typically make it
Bell Helicopter and a Sikorsky/Boeing team will each build flying prototypes for a US Army programme that aims to demonstrate a new generation of high-speed rotorcraft.
The army selected Bell’s V-280 Valor optimum speed tiltrotor and the Sikorsky-Boeing concept for a compound coaxial rotor called the SB-1. Both aircraft are planned to fly for three years starting in fiscal 2017.
The selection means that start-up companies AVX Corp and Karem Aircraft will have to find ways to finance continued development. Other companies, such as Airbus Helicopters, declined to participate in the joint multirole – technology demonstrator (JMR-TD) programme.
The army still plans to hold an open competition in the next decade for the future vertical lift (FVL) programme, which aims to replace all of the army’s helicopters with high-speed rotorcraft.
The JMR-TD winners, however, will receive tens of millions of dollars each from the army to develop and demonstrate their prototype aircraft. The selected companies also have pledged to at least match the government’s investment with internal funding.
For Bell, the V-280 also represents an opportunity to build on the V-22 Osprey programme with what it calls the third-generation of tiltrotor technology, including the original XV-15 prototype first flown in the 1980s.
“We remain focused on providing exceptional capabilities and flexibility in an advanced aircraft with reduced weight, complexity and cost,” Bell says in a statement.
Sikorsky and Boeing, meanwhile, are leveraging the former’s investment in compound, coaxial rotor technology with the SB-1 (pictured below). Sikorsky has already tested and retired the X2 proof-of-concept vehicle, as well as launched the S-97 Raider programme. The SB-1 will further scale up the technology, using Honeywell T55 turbofan engines to power the aircraft for the demonstration.
The army has decided which companies will participate in its JMR TD effort and plans to release details by early September
Two companies are expected to build demonstration aircraft for 2017 flight tests
Details of the first downselect for the US Army's Joint Multi-Role helicopter technology demonstrator (JMR-TD) are slated to be announced in "late August or early September", the army said in a 1 August statement.
Officials plan to unveil their decision alongside the four industry teams involved in the effort to date, according to the statement. Finalists appear to have been chosen from among the contenders, but the army declined to release details until that meeting occurs.
Bell Helicopter has submitted its offering to the US Army for the Joint Multirole Rotorcraft-Technology Demonstrator (JMR-TD) programme, a company official said during a 10 July teleconference with reporters.
Want to see an advanced helicopter fly faster than 230 knots? Well, don’t get out your binoculars and cameras yet, aircraft-watchers.
What may be the next great leap forward in rotorcraft technology begins a month from now with a baby step. By early August, the Army-run Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator program is to choose which of four industry competitors will be given money to build a proof-of-concept aircraft incorporating new or exotic means of making rotorcraft fly faster and farther. The JMR TD is one part of a larger Future Vertical Lift program whose goals include producing a new medium-lift rotorcraft able to fly faster than 230 knots – a hundred knots or so as fast as most existing military helicopters cruise.
While the JMR TD aircraft are to start flight demonstrations in late 2017, any actual military aircraft they might help spawn will fly no sooner than a decade or more later, and probably 2035.
“We’re not building prototypes,” the Army program manager, Dan Bailey, told a CSIS panel discussion on the project Tuesday. “They’re demonstrator aircraft.”
