The Army's Black Hawk
helicopters lead a hard life. Over the next decade or so the Pentagon
will need to begin replacing the ubiquitous UH-60 medium-lift helos, and
when it does, it will require vertical lift with similar cargo carrying
capability to what it has now. And beyond that, what the Army really
wants is speed.
So
what's fast and can takeoff and land like a helicopter?
A tiltrotor.
Bell Helicopter is building a tiltrotor aircraft called the V-280 Valor
for the Army's Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator project, hoping
to win the contract for the Black Hawk's successor. Bell will pit the
Valor tiltrotor against the Sikorsky/Boeing-built SB-1 Defiant coaxial
rigid-rotor helicopter that features two rotors, one placed atop the
other.
The Valor achieves that speed and range via a tiltrotor design that
departs from the V-22 most notably at the wing. Instead of the complex,
forward-swept dihedral wing found on the Osprey, the Valor will use a
straight wing without dihedral. As with the Osprey, the wing is made of
carbon fiber but rather than being constructed using a time-consuming
carbon-fiber tape-strip layup, the Valor's wing is made using swaths of
carbon fiber. Vince Tobin says the difference is akin to having a tailor
made suit starting with thread only versus starting with bolts of cloth
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| V 280 Valor production |
Bell envisions a real production version of the Valor having an aerial
refueling capability, but has given the plane the ability to carry fuel
bladders in its fuselage. Like the Black Hawk, the Valor will be unpressurized, typically operating up to altitudes of 10,000 feet in cruise.
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