V-280 Valor flies for the first time | World Defense

V-280 Valor flies for the first time

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V-280 Valor flies for the first time
By: Jen Judson
19 Dec 2017

WASHINGTON — Bell Helicopter’s V-280 Valor tilt-rotor aircraft flew for the first time Monday in a low hover over the ground, according to an official tuned into the proceedings.

The V-280, which took off at approximately 1:59 p.m. CDT at a Bell facility in Amarillo, Texas, was still flying at press time. The flight is expected to last roughly 15 to 20 minutes, according to the official.

The demonstrator aircraft, which Bell finished building in September, began ground runs that month and proceeded to unrestrained ground runs over the past several months, culminating in its first flight, just one week shy of Christmas.

The U.S. Army has been planning — through its Joint Multi-Role demonstrator program — for two very different vertical lift prototypes to begin flight demonstrations this fall as part of a critical path to informing and shaping the design of a Future Vertical Lift helicopter fleet expected to hit the skies in the 2030s.

More significant testing will follow Valor’s first flight over the course of a year as the Army observes the potential capability.

“This is an exciting time for Bell Helicopter and I could not be more proud of the progress we have made with first flight of the Bell V-280,” Mitch Snyder, Bell Helicopter’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “First flight demonstrates our commitment to supporting the Department of Defense leadership’s modernization priorities and acquisition reform initiatives. The Valor is designed to revolutionize vertical lift for the U.S. Army and represents a transformational aircraft for all the challenging missions our armed forces are asked to undertake.”

The Valor is designed to meet what the Army wants for a future vertical lift aircraft: one that can go twice as fast, twice as far with increased agility and flexible payloads.

The other prototype’s first flight has fallen behind the originally intended goal of September. The Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant coaxial helicopter is now expected to start flying some time in the first half of 2018.

The demonstrator’s delay for first flight can be attributed to challenges in manufacturing its complex rotor blades for the helicopter’s coaxial design, Dan Bailey, the U.S. Army’s JMR program manager, told Defense News in September.

Defiant is based on Sikorsky’s patented X2 technology, which is also being used in the company’s internally developed helicopter, Raider, which experienced a hard landing earlier this summer.

The Army is shooting for a low-rate production goal to build an FVL aircraft by 2030 and Bell Helicopter has said many times that it believes it could potentially shorten that timeline.

The way the Army is approaching its JMR demonstrator program will likely serve as a model for future major acquisition programs where prototyping done earlier in the process leads to more capable and reliable weapon systems delivered to the war fighter faster.

https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2017/12/18/v-280-valor-flies/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DFN DNR 12.18.17&utm_term=Editorial - Daily News Roundup

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Bell V-280 Valor Vs Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant
28 April 2020


Just a few weeks after the US Army selected the Bell V-280 Valor and Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant as its finalists in the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) competition both teams are jockeying for position, arguing that their rotorcraft configuration will best replace the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, a utility helicopter used in troop transport that entered service in 1979.

Bell argues that its tiltrotor V-280 offers the army speed and efficiency that cannot be matched. The Sikorsky-Boeing team contends that the compound SB-1 will give soldiers aerial manoeuvrability and rapid deceleration in the final approach to a landing zone that other aircraft cannot offer.

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Both companies say they are leaning on experience from the legacy fleet of US military helicopters they have designed and built. The lesson learned? Simplicity makes for easier-to-fix rotorcraft.

The US Army has been working towards this moment since 2013. In that year, it kicked off the Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstration (JMR-TD) programme, a precursor to FLRAA, which funded the development of new rotorcraft designs and prototypes.

The SB-1 and V-280 were designed, built and flown in service of that demonstration programme. AVX Aircraft and Karem Aircraft also participated in the JMR-TD effort, but are not moving onwards.

Now, with two finalists selected, the army wants to move quickly and hand over the FLRAA to its first unit no later than 2030. Both companies are in talks with the service about further refinements to their designs prior to a fly-off competition and production decision.

The FLRAA is intended to have a wide role within the US Army similar to the UH-60 workhorse. The utility rotorcraft will conduct air assault, maritime interdiction, medical evacuation, humanitarian assistance, tactical resupply, and combat search and rescue operations, among other roles.

To survive flying into a battle against advanced foes such as China or Russia - so-called Great Power nations with sophisticated integrated air defence systems - the army wants its next utility rotorcraft to have significantly better performance than the UH-60. The service’s objective cruise speed is 280kt (519km/h). It also wants the aircraft to have an unrefuelled combat radius of 300nm (556km), and a one-way unrefuelled range of at least 2,440nm. The thinking is that speed equals survival, so adversaries will not have time to react.

The V-280 has the advantage when it comes to maximum speed because of its ability to tilt rotors and fly on its wing like a conventional aircraft. While the army’s objective cruise speed is 280kt, in flight demonstrations, the V-280 has shown it can fly faster than 300kt.

Bell argues that the V-280 is not only fast, but economical at speed. That comes from the ability to generate lift from its wing, but also from the engine selected for the tiltrotor. “We’ve demonstrated the aircraft cruises efficiently,” says Terry Horner, director of government relations for Bell. “We incorporated the Rolls-Royce engine to get efficiency in the engine because that’s important to making sure that you have the legs to get to the ranges you need to.”

Bell is currently flying its V-280 with GE Aviation’s T64-GE-419 engines. At a later date, it plans to switch to R-R, though it declines to name the specific type.

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For its part, the Sikorsky-Boeing team says it believes it will be able to demonstrate the SB-1 flying at 250kt this year, meeting the army’s minimum cruise speed requirement. The aircraft reached 140kt in the first quarter of 2020. Progress has been slowed by some testing snags with the propulsion system testbed, but the companies expect that to be worked out soon.

The Sikorsky-Boeing team believes where the SB-1 really shines is in the last 3-5km before dropping off troops at a landing zone. The push-propeller on the compound helicopter can be reversed, which allows the aircraft to brake rapidly.

“You’re able to do this level deceleration from 200kt into and out of ground effect hover in a half-mile distance,” says Bill Fell, Sikorsky test pilot. “You can keep the speed on until the very last second, and then stop rapidly and get into that landing zone. You’re able to do it without doing the typical helicopter flare where you’re bringing the nose 30° up.”

Sikorsky-Boeing adds that the rotorcraft’s combination of main rotors and pusher propeller give it more agility in two axes.

“If you try to turn a helicopter quickly, it slows down. This machine has the ability to maintain speed in the turn or you can change the radius of your turn very quickly by using the heave axis or the collective,” says Ed Henderscheid, Boeing test pilot. “That ability to do that close to the ground with a level fuselage attitude - it’s going to really change the way we penetrate near-peer threats. It’s going to change our tactics and testing techniques and procedures that we use.”

Bell contends that the V-280 showed US Army Level 1 handling requirements in 2019 in flight testing of a series of low-speed pitch, roll and yaw manoeuvres. The company has claimed that makes the tiltrotor as good as or better than the Black Hawk.

To gain an edge on each other on operating costs, both competitors say they are re-examining their legacy aircraft and looking to incorporate ease-of-maintenance designs into the FLRAA.

Bell says it has learned a lot on the s V-280 from the company’s experience maintaining the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey. For example, unlike the rotating engines on the V-22, the V-280’s engines are fixed in a horizontal position and the aircraft relies on pivoting rotors and drive shafts instead.

The engine is also easier to maintain, says Horner. “On the V-22 you have to take the engine off to take the proprotor gearbox off,” he says. “On the V-280 you do not have to do that, they’re both independently removable, which allows for reduced maintenance time and costs.”

Similarly, Sikorsky-Boeing say the SB-1 has a simplified design, in particular because of the compound helicopter’s rigid rotor system.

“The rigid rotor has a great deal fewer parts. You don’t have lead-lag or flapping bearings. Feathering is the only axis that you’re providing pitch control to those rotor blades,” says Fell. “The numbers count is such that our two rotors have fewer parts than a single [UH-60] Black Hawk main rotor system.”

Ultimately, both aircraft will also heavily rely on modern technologies to reduce the cost of operations and improve flight readiness, including onboard diagnostics, predictive maintenance and fully digitised designs of the rotorcraft.

Should the US Army ever have to distribute its aircraft across austere bases, digital sustainment technologies could help the FLRAA operate longer without upkeep, says Jay Macklin, director of Sikorsky Future Vertical Lift business development.

“That’s going to enable [giving] commanders real-time information that they can use for risk assessment and decision making if they have to do a maintenance-free operating period where these aircraft are in some sort of distributed area,” he says. “It gives the commander a tremendous amount of flexibility because he has access to data that he simply doesn’t have today on the legacy fleet.”

Update: This article was changed on 21 April to clarify that the V-280 is still flying with its original GE Aviation T64-GE-419 engines. The switch to R-R turboshafts is planned for later.
 

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Bell V-280 Valor tech demonstrator retires from flight

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The Bell V-280 Valor technology demonstrator has retired from flight but will live on in the company's solution it will soon submit to the Army's Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft competition. (Courtesy of Bell)


WASHINGTON — Bell’s future vertical lift technology demonstrator, the V-280 Valor tiltrotor, has finished its flying career, according to a June 24 company announcement.

The demonstrator was built for the U.S. Army Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator program and flew for the first time in December 2017. It spent the last three-and-half years proving out the service’s requirements for a future long-range assault aircraft, or FLRAA.

The service continued flying the demonstrator beyond the JMR program in a two-phase competitive demonstration and risk-reduction effort.

Bell will continue into the second phase of the risk-reduction effort “to provide initial preliminary designs for major subsystems and the conceptual weapons system, based on data-proven performance that ensures transformational capabilities will be delivered in line with the Army’s schedule,” the company said in its statement.

The Army is close to releasing its request for proposals for FLRAA that will kick off the official program of record. Bell is expected to compete against a Sikorsky-Boeing team that also flew a JMR technology demonstrator — the SB-1 Defiant coaxial helicopter.

The service is on a path to procure two new vertical lift aircraft by 2030, pursuing a future attack reconnaissance aircraft, or FARA, in addition to FLRAA. Bell and Sikorsky are competing against one another in the FARA competition, and each is building an aircraft for a first flight in fiscal 2022.

Although Bell’s first V-280 technology demonstrator is retiring, the technology and lessons learned from the first aircraft will live on in the company’s solution that will be submitted for the FLRAA competition.

Over the demonstration and risk-reduction phase, the V-280 flew more than 214 hours and showed off low-speed agility and long-range cruise capabilities, and reached a maximum 305-knot cruising speed. The Army’s threshold requirement is expected to be in the 230- to 250-knot range for the FLRAA program of record.

Five Army experimental test pilots have flown the V-280 over 15 sorties, according to the company statement. The company used feedback from Army pilots, mechanics and infantry squads to help inform design plans.

Also through the V-280 program, Bell provided “extensive” data explaining how its aircraft, through the incorporation of a modular, open-systems approach, brings efficiency to a future program.

“We have come a long way since we started our journey eight years ago. We made commitments, we safely executed our program on time, and we validated our performance claims and the accuracy of our digital models through flight demonstrations,” Ryan Ehinger, Bell’s vice president and program director for FLRAA, said in the statement. “Ultimately, the Army doesn’t send warfighters into battle riding in the back of digital models and so we thought it was important to bring that physical proof.”

“The FLRAA challenge presented by the U.S. Army was unattainable using helicopter configurations. They have been clear about the need to modernize and field transformational capabilities,” Keith Flail, Bell’s executive vice president of advanced vertical lift systems, said in the statement. “We assessed several vertical lift technologies and determined the tiltrotor to be the only solution to the agility, range, and speed requirements of a Long-Range Assault Aircraft that can meet the cost, timeline, and risk profile required for a successful acquisition program.”
 
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