The U.S. Army's 'New Heliopter'

Credit: Credit: Bell Helicopter

Bell Unveils Third-Gen Tiltrotor Concept -- Aviation Week

Bell Helicopter says it has taken lessons learned from the V-22 Osprey and is incorporating them into the third-generation tiltrotor it is offering for the U.S. Army’s Future Vertical Lift requirement.

The V-280 Valor, being unveiled at the Army Aviation Association of America convention in Fort Worth this week, is a clean sheet design to meet the Army’s medium-size requirement for as many as 4,000 aircraft in the coming years, replacing both the UH-60 Black Hawk and the AH-64 Apache in the utility and attack roles. In delivering a tiltrotor, Bell is putting its emphasis on speed, range and productivity, claiming the tiltrotor will be twice as productive as the conventional designs and some of the hybrids that have emerged from its competitors.

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My Comment: The Pentagon wants 4,000 of them .... but will Congress give them the money?

Darpa Wants A Better Helicopter

Image: Some of Darpa’s imagined designs for its new VTOL X-Plane program. Image: Darpa

Darpa Wants to Rethink the Helicopter to Make It Go Way Faster -- Danger Room

Helicopters are great. They’re maneuverable in very tight spaces, they haul heavy things relative to their small sizes — and, very importantly, they take off and land vertically, removing the need for a big airstrip or aircraft-carrier deck. That function is so important to the military that the U.S. designed fixed-wing aircraft to do the same thing, like the Marines’ iconic Harrier jet or their weird tilt-rotor Osprey.

And they actually all suck, according to the Pentagon’s blue-sky researchers at Darpa, who are launching an effort to blow up and re-imagine helicopters, jump jets and tilt-rotors. It’s time to make these “VTOL” aircraft — the collective term for Vertical Take-Off and Landing — way, way faster, without sacrificing their ability to hover or other functionality.

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My Comment: So .... what Darpa wants is a 'helicopter' that comes in fast, lands fast, and leaves fast. Hmmmm ..... easier said than done.

Are Chinook Helicopters Safe?

Soldiers with the 101st Division Special Troops Battalion, 101st Airborne Division watch as two Chinook helicopters fly in to take them back to Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. Spc. Mary L. Gonzalez, CJTF-101 Public Affairs

How Safe Is A Chinook Helicopter? -- Popular Mechanics

Big helos, a vital part of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, can thwart high-tech threats. But cruder weapons, like the RPGs that destroyed a Chinook and killed more than a dozen Navy SEALs, can evade current defensive systems and take them down. And the Army's effort to install new defenses is lagging.



The shooting down of a CH-47 Chinook by a Taliban-launched rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) did more than kill 30 Americans, including 17 Navy SEALs. It also highlighted an important vulnerability of U.S. helicopters flying in Afghanistan. Army helicopters have defensive systems that can help protect against guided missiles, but those systems are not effective against cruder, unguided threats like RPGs. New defenses are on the way, but the most advanced system is already behind schedule.



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My Comment: All it takes is one lucky shot in .... something that no preventive measures can stop even with all the best counter-measures and safeguards built in.

Reducing Helicopter Vulnerability To Low-Tech Weapons

U.S. soldiers look over their CH-47 Chinook before an aircraft turnover mission on Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, Dec. 1, 2009. The soldiers are assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion, 214th Aviation Regiment. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Joshua Murra

Military Aims to Reduce Helicopter Vulnerability to Low-Tech Weapons -- Wall Street Journal

The downing of a U.S. military helicopter by Afghan insurgents underscores an urgent problem for the U.S. military: Finding ways to make low-flying helicopters less vulnerable to attack.

The U.S. military hasn't confirmed the exact cause of the crash of an Army Chinook helicopter on Saturday that claimed the lives of 38 coalition troops, including at least 20 members of the Navy SEALs. But Afghan officials said the aircraft was brought down by a lone militant firing a rocket-propelled grenade.

U.S. military aircraft are equipped with defenses that can fool guidance systems of sophisticated missiles, such as the Stingers left over from the campaign to force the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Army has equipped some Chinooks with a high-tech jammer that uses a laser to confuse a missile. U.S. military helicopters also carry defensive systems that can launch flares to confuse heat-seeking missiles.

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My Comment: After what happened this weekend in Afghanistan .... all that I can say is faster please.

New Generation Of Helicopters At The Paris Air Show

Helicopter Manufacturers Develop a Need for Speed -- Wall Street Journal

PARIS—Helicopters can hover, hop and reverse midair. Now they're trying a new trick: speed.

Rivals Eurocopter, U.S.-based Sikorsky and other companies are testing fast prototypes, all with an eye toward redefining the helicopter's place in the sky and expanding its market. Eurocopter's X3 is set to make its public debut Monday at the Paris Air Show.

The companies hope that increasing range and boosting maximum speed to as fast as 280 milesper hour from about 175 mph will spark increased use as emergency vehicles and as transportation for executives and workers in remote locations.

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My Comment: The military applications for this next generation of helicopters cannot be ignored .... even with defense budget cuts.

Top Secret Helicopter Revealed In Osama Bin Laden Raid

Top Secret Stealth Helicopter Program Revealed in Osama Bin Laden Raid: Experts -- ABC News

Before an elite team of U.S. Navy SEALs executed a daring raid that took down Osama bin Laden, the commandos were able to silently sneak up on their elusive target thanks to what aviation analysts said were top secret, never-before-seen stealth-modified helicopters.

In the course of the operation that cost the al Qaeda leader his life, one of the two Blackhawk helicopters that carried the SEALs into bin Laden's Pakistani compound grazed one of the compound's wall and was forced to make a hard landing. With the chopper inoperable, at the end of the mission the SEALs destroyed it with explosives.

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More News On A Secret US Stealth Helicopter

Mission helo was secret stealth Black Hawk -- Army Times
Aviation Geeks Scramble to ID bin Laden Raid’s Mystery Copter -- The Danger Room
Secret Bin Laden Raid Chopper A Modified MH-60? -- Defense Tech
What the Secret Bin Laden Raid Helo Might Look Like -- Defense Tech
A Secret Helo Used In Bin Laden Raid -- Defense Tech
Bin Laden Raid May Have Exposed Stealth Helo -- Aviation Week
New top-secret stealth choppers used on bin Laden raid. Wreckage shows whisper silencing, IR, radar pimpage. -- The Register
Top Secret Helicopters -- AJC
Mystery helo is stealth Black Hawk -- Military Times
Did U.S. forces use secret stealth helicopters in bin Laden raid? -- Daily Mail
Could the bin Laden Raid Have Revealed a Secret New Helicopter? -- Time
Speculation is rampant when it comes to the secret copters used in Bin Laden raid -- The Inquisitor
The Helicopter That Crashed in the Bin Laden Raid Was a Secret Stealth Helicopter -- PopSci
Secret Stealth Helped U.S. Accomplish bin Laden Raid -- AINOnline
Helicopter loss in bin Laden raid highlights risks -- Reuters
Osama Raid: How Much Money Did We Waste on That Useless Helicopter? -- Slate

The U.S. Army's Next, Superfast Helicopter?

Sikorsky's Superfast Helicopter To Be Readied For Military Use -- Popular Mechanics

With its sights on military contracts, Sikorsky will build super fast helicopter prototypes outfitted with its groundbreaking coaxial system.

Sikorsky is throwing its hat in the ring for the U.S. Army's armed aerial scout (AAS) program: The company announced today that it will build two prototypes outfitted with its X2 technologies to the Army's specifications.

One of the new "Raider" helicopters will be crammed with diagnostic and evaluative equipment, or "orange boxes and orange wire," as Sikorsky's president Jeff Pino put it in a teleconference this morning. "But we're building a second one to let our customers experience what we believe is eye-watering new performance with very typical helicopter flight characteristics," Pino said.

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A New Generation Of Helicopters Are Smashing Speed Records

Faster Helicopters More Rotors, More Speed -- The Economist

A new type of helicopter breaks speed records.

THE ability of a helicopter to hover and land almost anywhere makes it an enormously useful machine. But helicopters have their limitations, particularly when it comes to flying fast. In a recent series of test flights, a new type of chopper has begun smashing speed records.

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Video: A Silent Rotor Blade Paves The Way For Super-Stealth Choppers

From Popular Science:

For all the government conspiracy militia nuts out there, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that there is no such thing as silent, stealth black helicopters. The bad news is that, thanks to Eurocopter's noise-canceling Blue Edge rotor blades, there soon will be.

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My Comment: Silent hellicopters .... wow.

DARPA Wants Morphing Helicopter Blades By Yesterday

Smart Blade: Smart blades for better copters. U.S. Air Force

From Popular Science:

Future whirlybirds may change their rotor blades to suit the mission.

Helicopters won't transform into rampaging Decepticons anytime soon, but near-future rotor blades could actively change shape on the fly.

Military lab DARPA has put out a call for rotor blades that could boost payloads by 30 percent and range by 40 percent, as well as reduce sound by 50 percent and vibration by 90 percent compared to the usual fixed rotor blades.

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My Comment: The efficiency experts at DARPA are always thinking .... I have to give them credit for that.