BUILDING A BETTER ROTORCRAFT
the past two decades. … So rotor-wing operations have been doing God’s work in theater. But they haven’t been the priority for investments for future capabilities.”
Philip J. Dunford, Vice President/General Manager and Operating Executive of Boe- ing Co., had a similar perspective: “I think industry is all ears, but what we need is some
velocity, which means we need speed and direction in where we’re going.”
The Vertical Lift Consortium, established by DoD and industry to improve the long-term state of the military’s vertical lift aircraft and the vertical lift sector of industry, is concerned “about having a program ready when the Army is ready, that there will be a design team avail- able to design an aircraft,” said James R. Moran,
Boeing’s Vice Army Systems.
The consortium, composed of manufac- turers, members of academia, suppliers, and others involved in the vertical lift industry, aims to be a single resource for DoD to leverage the best approach and technological solutions to FVL needs.
DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS Looking at innovations in vertical
lift
for the next-generation aim point of 2030, panelists in a session titled “Evolv- ing Technology for the Future of Army Aviation” focused on desired capabilities in power, speed, noise, lethality, autono- mous flight, and systems architecture.
Christopher Van Buiten, Vice Presi- dent, Sikorsky
Innovations, Research
and Engineering at Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., presented the company’s concept of a next-generation aircraft with two engines developed through the ongoing Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) flying at 250 knots (see related article on Page 54).
152 President,
Less noise—The Aviation Applied Tech- nology Directorate (AATD) of the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center,
OSPREY FILLS A VOID
The V-22 Osprey is the only combat rotorcraft fielded in the past quarter-century. Here, Soldiers with 4th Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group fast-rope from a CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft during exercise Emerald Warrior 2011 at Cannon Air Force Base, NM, on March 1, 2011. (DoD photo by TSgt DeNoris Mickle.)
“This vehicle will traverse the battlefield with half the noise, will have 3G maneu- ver instead of 1.5. It will do climbing turns.
“It will be optional to fly with two people, one, and sometimes none,” Van Buiten said. “Sometimes two crew members … will guide a pack of five of these and other UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] into the fight; two crew members will do the work of 10. It will incorporate auton- omy technology such that the vehicle will not enable controlled flight into terrain, the leading cause of death and fatalities in current wars.” Autonomous platform technology and crew platform technol- ogy are not separate and distinct, he noted. “They go together.”
The panelists cited a number of key capa- bilities to be addressed, including:
and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are pursuing integrated active rotor technology to drive down rotorcraft signatures by at least half.
Open architectures—“We absolutely have to get to where applications are being developed that are usable across the fleet and across the services. … You could have a common architecture that replaces many systems Van Buiten said.
across DoD,”
Propulsion technology—The challenge is to produce 50 percent more shaft horsepower while improving fuel con- sumption by 25 percent and fitting in the same space as today’s engine, said Jerry W. Wheeler, Vice President, Advanced Turbine Engine Co. The ITEP effort
is addressing these capa-
bility targets as well as the need for increased range.
“The ITEP engine is the engine of choice for future vertical lift initiatives,” Wheeler said. “Assuming this engine is
Army AL&T Magazine
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