Bell-Lockheed Martin JV's V-280 Valor Upraising for US Military's FVL Program

As the Pentagon considers the future of military vertical lift, Bell Helicopter is talking with the US services about designing a next-generation tiltrotor solution that could begin low-rate production in the mid-2020s, one company official said.

Bell Helicopter's V-280 Valor concept

Bell is partnered with Lockheed Martin to build a rotorcraft flight demonstrator as part of the US Army’s Joint Multi-Role program, which will gauge the art of the possible for the path ahead. The demonstrator program will inform the Army’s Future Vertical Lift effort to buy a new state-of-the-art family of helicopters in the 2030s.

The demonstration effort may have implications beyond the Army. The Pentagon has indicated that FVL may eventually replace the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force military helicopters as well. But for now, Bell is working with the Army and Marine Corps to shorten the time line for fielding the aircraft, the V-280, program manager Chris Gehler told the media on Nov. 16.

“Bell Helicopter is working closely with the Army and the Marine Corps on informing the requirements of FVL, exploring the options for shortening the time required to field this aircraft,” Gehler said. “We’ll work with our primary customers in the Army and Marine Corps to explore different ways to enter into a low rate production by the mid 2020’s. We are in close communication with the DOD to bring the V-280 onboard as soon as possible with limited risk to better take advantage of the industry and DOD investment.”

The Bell-Lockheed team is offering its V-280 Valor tiltrotor, which builds on the technology developed for Bell-Boeing’s V-22. The competing team, made up of Sikorsky Aircraft and Boeing, is working on a coaxial helicopter known as the SB-1 Defiant for the demonstrator effort.

Although the demonstrator prototypes will fly in 2017, the Army is currently not planning a contract award until the late 2020s, Richard Harris, Bell’s vice president for international military business sales, said in an interview with Defense News. But he stressed that company officials believe the Bell-Lockheed team could achieve initial operational capability by 2025.

“The Army and DOD are exploring options for shortening the V-280 development timeframe, given the significant investment by DOD and industry,” Gehler said. “The Army intends to enter a technology maturation and risk review (TMRR) phase around 2020. We feel a case could be made to instead jump ahead to the Engineering Manufacturing and Development (EMD) phase, given the technology readiness levels we will demonstrate. This has the potential to move the entire timeline up, and deliver this leap-ahead capability to the warfighters years earlier.”

Bell’s goal is ultimately to replace all the Pentagon’s helicopters with the V-280, Harris said, touting the plane’s speed and flexibility. The Valor will have twice the speed and range of the Army’s UH-60 Black Hawk, more than doubling operational reach, according to Bell’s website. The future plane will also outperform the V-22, Harris said, with a combat radius of 1,200 nautical miles compared to the Osprey’s 900 nautical miles.

In one major difference between the two tiltrotors, the Valor’s engines remain in place for transition to forward-flying position, while the rotors and drive shafts tilt, Harris explained. The V-280 will also build on the V-22’s offensive capability. Unlike the Osprey, the Valor will have a forward-firing capability, likely achieved by integrating Hellfire missiles into the plane’s side panels, he said.

While the new aircraft’s cabin will look much like a Black Hawk’s, the advanced glass cockpit uses similar technology to the F-35, Harris said, touting the plane’s fly-by-wire flight control system.

Bell just received the first cabin, and is getting ready to integrate the wings and engine onto the plane, Harris said, adding that “it went together like Lego blocks.”

“When you take a look at the dynamic world that we live in these days and how fast things happen and how far away things happen, a conventional helicopter just does not meet the requirements of all the services,” Harris said. “We are trying to define the standard for what future vertical lift is based upon [Bell’s] legacy and the fact that we are the ones that developed the secret sauce for the V-22.”

P&W And GE Competing For Sixth-Generation Fighter Engine

Pratt & Whitney and General Electric’s proposals for the next phase of the US Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter engine development effort are due tomorrow, with the two sides anticipating sole-source contract awards in June or July of 2016.

The Adaptive Engine Transition Programme (AETP) is the next step in the development of a highly efficient and adaptive military engine for combat jets and the five-year effort could be worth as much as $950 million to each team.

The Air Force Research Laboratory has been working with GE and P&W on an adaptive, three-stream engines since 2008 with the ultimate goal of introducing a new engine in the 45,000lb thrust class with 25% to 30% better fuel efficiency. The new sponsor is USAF’s Propulsion Directorate.

P&W's director of advanced programs and technology Jimmy Kenyon says the air force originally anticipated a competition for one “winner takes all” $900 million contract for AETP, but through industry engagement has decided to carry two teams forward instead.

Kenyon says an approximately one-year schedule adjustment has also eliminated much of the overlap between the current Adaptive Engine Technology Development (AETD) effort, which started in 2012 to bring two designs up to a preliminary design review.

P&W's conceptual design of next-gen fighter engine. 

The air force now expects to assemble two competing designs for engine testing before transitioning to a competition in the early 2020s for development of a sixth-generation “F-X” and “F-XX” fighter engine.

“There was a lot of concurrency between what they were doing in AETP and what we were still trying to finish in AETD, the current programme, and that posed a lot of risk,” says Kenyon. “It was going to be a fixed-price contract with a lot risk in it – a $900 million winner-takes-all.

“They’ve since taken a step back, because one of the things the air force is hot on is maintaining a competitive industrial base.”

P&W has been pursuing AETP as a critical bridge between the end of F135 development in 2016 for Lockheed Martin's F-35 and the competition for a sixth-generation aircraft.

The company says its current work on AETD will result in product improvements for the F135, which Kenyon says represent a 5% to 7% fuel savings. This next programme is mostly about positioning for the next big development opportunity, but some components could roll into an F135 mid-live overhaul.

“Now you’re thinking five years into the future and where you need to be [in preparation for the sixth-generation fighter engine competition]. How to get to the end of the five years and be in the best position possible?” he says.

“We have a very successful design and we are projecting to meet all of the performance requirements. We have a lot of experience with the fifth-generation fighters and fifth-generation integration, and we can bring all of that experience to bear.”

Photo Source: FlightGlobal

Comparing Type 056 to LCS

This is a comparative analytical article from Chinese Internet Source:

With the recent induction of 056, a lot of comparison has been made between 056 and LCS. The comparisons are understandable. Both are just entering services. Both are expected to be built in large numbers and are also considered to be the lower end ships of their respective navy. 

Type056 and Type 054A Comparison

In many ways, their comparison stops there, because Type 054A would be more comparable to LCS just based on the size and dimensions of the ships. 

PLAN Type 054A+ Jiangkai Class AAW Frigate

I want to break this down to two sections: 

The differences in capabilities/cost between the two classes of ships and what that tells us about the two navies.

General Dynamics LCS's Cutaway

First of all, despite both ships are designed for littoral operations, one is designed to operate in its own waters, whereas the other is designed to operate in enemy waters. 056 is supposed to replace 053 and 037 in the role of patrolling coastal waters. 

For ASW role, Type 056 carries one Harbin Z-9C Helo

It's equipped with enough strike power to conduct ASuW against other regional navy. With some modification, it can also be useful in ASW operations in the littoral waters. On the other hand, LCS is suppose to be faster, stealthier, far more modular and capable of operation in other country's littoral waters. USN has no need for something like 056, since it faces no foreign naval threat within its coastal waters. For any issues like smuggling, piracy and drug trafficking, it should be up to coastal guard to protect. 

 Current Core Mission and Combat System

At the same time, China has no need for a littoral ship as large or fast as LCS, because it really has no need in the near future for a ship built specifically to fight in the littoral waters of a non-neighboring country. While most of the mission packages for LCS have yet to finish development, LCS will be capable of ASuW, ASW, MCM and special ops once that does happen. You might see more dedicated ASW or ASuW variants of Type 056 coming out, but each ship is really not expected to be doing more than one task.

LCS Corrosion Protection

As a result of this difference in roles and size of the ship, there is also a large gap in the cost of the ship. Each LCS cost over $400 million to build and equip. That's about twice as much as the cost of a Type 054A. Type 056 is expected to be a much cheaper ship than Type 054A, since it's much smaller. 

Main Gun of Type 056

My current estimate for Type 056 is around around 60 million just based on the cost of Type 022, Type 054 and equivalent sized cutters (which run for about $15 to 20 million each). The relatively low cost of this should explain why China is able to build so many units in such short time while also build numerous other classes at the same time. If this cost more, China would not be able to use it to replace all of the old Type 053 and 037 ships. Despite the recent austerity in USN and the higher cost of American shipbuilding, USN still has a far higher budget than PLAN, so it could afford more expensive ships.

Systems & Sub-Systems of Type 056:

The size of crews also show us interesting things about the two navies. I think the crew size for LCS is supposed to be at most 75, whereas the much smaller 056 is expected to have 60 to 70 crews (even that is a reduction to 1/3 of Type 053). Even though Type 056 is far more complex and automated than the ships it is replacing, it's probably safe to say that it still lags modern Western ships. I think a large part of that has to do with the greater number of service personnels at the disposal of PLAN. Even with the rising labour cost in China, I think it's safe to assume that the compensation for a USN sailor is far higher than that of a PLAN sailor. Another part to look at is the huge leap facing sailors who are accustomed to operating a low tech ship like type 037 (I was told no training is required to be on that ship) to type 056.

It's simply unrealistic to expect someone who has operated on Type 037/053 for their entire life to be able to be competent on something like LCS. As PLAN continues modernization, this expected improvement in software is often overlooked when one looks at the new ships that are coming out. The cost of training crew members will also go up as ships become more and more complicated.

Another interesting thing is the choice that the two navies made in developing these two ships. LCS is a ship expected to be modular enough to be able to easily reconfigure for different roles by changing to different mission packages. I expect different variants of Type 056 to come with each variant built with specific role in mind. Similary to Type 037, I would expect to see a Type 056 emphasize more toward ASW and one more emphasized toward patrol and another more emphasized toward ASuW. At the same time, LCS had the requirements to be able to travel at faster than 40 knots and also be extremely stealthy. It certainly pushes the technological envelope, whereas Type 056 does not. LCS is not only a new ship design but also requires new weapon system. Whereas PLAN rarely builds a shipping class that requires leap in both the ship design and its weapon system. I think this shows the background of both navies. 

Focusing Features of USN LCS:

USN always had a lot of money to spend, so it is willing to press for that additional performance on the newest ships in the face of budget overruns and delays. In comparison, PLAN had very little money back in the days and most of its programs was canned in the 80s and 90s due to lack of funding. So as a result of this, it has always been more conservative in incorporating improvement from one shipping class to the next. Compared to USN, PLAN is more frugal in the development of new ships and the management of its existing fleet. As an example, Type 052 underwent modernization recently, but the old HH-7 SAM was kept around instead of being replaced by more advance HQ-10 SAM. PLAN has a large stock of HH-7 missiles in stock and did not want them to go to waste by removing them from the ships undergoing modernization. It will be interesting to see how the perspectives of the two navies change in the future as PLAN continues to get more funding whereas USN starts to face austerity.

Boeing unveils updated F/A-XX sixth-gen fighter concept

Boeing is unveiling an updated version of its F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter concept at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space Exposition in Washington DC this week. 

The tail-less twin-engine stealth fighter design comes in "manned and unmanned options as possibilities per the US Navy," Boeing says. The design features diverterless supersonic inlets reminiscent of those found on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Boeing sixth-gen fighter concept

The Boeing concept also features canards, which is somewhat of a surprise because the motion of those forward mounted control surfaces is generally assumed to compromise a stealth aircraft's frontal radar cross-section. But the lack of vertical tail surfaces suggests the aircraft would be optimized for all-aspect broadband stealth, which would be needed for operations in the most challenging anti-access/area denial environments.

Also of note in the manned version of the company's F/A-XX concept is the placement of the cockpit-rearward visibility appears to be restricted without the aid of a sensor apparatus similar to the F-35's distributed aperture system of six infrared cameras.

The Boeing F/A-XX concept is a response to a USN request for information (RFI) from April 2012 soliciting data for a replacement for the service's Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler fleets in the 2030s. The Super Hornet fleet is expected to start reaching the end of the jet's 9000h useful lifespan during that time period. 

"The intent of this research is to solicit industry inputs on candidate solutions for CVN [nuclear-powered aircraft carrier] based aircraft to provide air supremacy with a multi-role strike capability in an anti-access/area denied (A2AD) operational environment," the navy RFI stated. "Primary missions include, but are not limited to, air warfare (AW), strike warfare (STW), surface warfare (SUW), and close air support (CAS)."

Navy leaders had said at the time that they expect any new F/A-XX design to have greatly increased range and offer far superior kinematic performance compared to existing tactical aircraft.