The U.S. Army has announced that it’s next helicopter isn’t a helicopter.
The US Army awarded Textron Inc’s Bell unit with the contract to build the next-generation helicopter, ending years of fierce competition between Lockheed Martin Corp.-Boeing Co. to replace the aging fleet of Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks by 2030.
The Army’s “Future Vertical Lift” award went to Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft, similar to the V-22 Osprey. The new aircraft can take off and land vertically like a helicopter but rotate massive props to fly like a fixed-wing aircraft at impressive speeds.
Indeed, the specs are pretty impressive:
General characteristics
Crew: 4 Capacity: 14 troops Length: 50.5 ft (15.4 m) Width: 81.79 ft (24.93 m) Height: 23 ft 0 in (7 m) Empty weight: 18,078 lb (8,200 kg) Max takeoff weight: 30,865 lb (14,000 kg) Powerplant: 2 × Rolls-Royce AE 1107F[54] turboshaft Propellers: 35 ft 0 in (10.7 m) diameter Performance
Cruise speed: 320 mph (520 km/h, 280 kn) Combat range: 580–920 mi (930–1,480 km, 500–800 nmi) Ferry range: 2,400 mi (3,900 km, 2,100 nmi) Service ceiling: 6,000 ft (1,800 m) ; in hover out of ground effect at 95 °F (35 °C) Disk loading: 16[55] lb/sq ft (78 kg/m2)
The cruise speed is almost twice the 175 mph of the Black Hawk it’s replacing, and significantly faster than the competing Defiant X design (265 MPH). It also has higher troop carrying capacity than the Black Hawk (14 vs. 12). “Firstest with the mostest” is still hugely important in combat. And though the V-280 carries considerably less than the V-22, it has a much longer combat range.
Here’s a video showing the V-280 in flight, and covering some of the reasons it was selected over Defiant X:
One of the biggest reasons is simply logging more flight time, hundreds of hours since 2017. Defiant X first flew in 2019.
Any drawbacks? Well, tilt rotors share features of both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, so they can suffer the problems of both. The Osprey had fourteen crash or hull loss incidents (nine of them fatal), plus an additional eight non-loss incidents (with one additional fatality) for some 400 aircraft built.
By contrast, the UH-60 Black Hawk it’s replacing has been involved in its own share of deadly accidents, but with a much larger number being built (4,000, though how many of those were in U.S. as opposed to foreign service during the period covered is unclear). All V-22 Ospreys (save 2-5 used by Japan) are used by the U.S. military.
So expect some teething pains for the V-280…