2936

Better not deploy that forward landing gear by accident. :)

2937
2938

Has Congress thought about the advertising opportunities with such a large flat surface area? It’s a veritable flying billboard.

2939

Problem with that is, with a stealth plane, no one would see the ads!

2940

But stealth advertising is a thing!

2941

I’ll be honest… I don’t understand this. Tilt-rotor has always been problematic. More expensive per unit, more expensive per hour flown, and requires more hours of maintenance. So why go with the Bell Textron design vs. the Sikorsky counter rotating option? The Defiant was a brilliant design.

The Defiant is faster for entering and exiting an LZ, doesn’t require as much space to land, and can fly lower to the tree-tops. This far outstrips the slightly increased range and speed of the Bell Textron Valor.

2942

I thought the Defiant seemed like the more promising design too, but this article mentions that the Defiant prototype flew fewer hours due to having more technical issues. No idea if that had anything to do with the decision. Hopefully the concept can move forward targeting other applications. It does seem like the tilt-rotor stuff is getting figured out and certainly this prototype seems to be on another level of reliability than the Osprey was during its long development.

2943

My off the wall guess is that the decision is as much emotional and cultural as technical. Who is famous for using helos with counter-rotating rotors? The Russians.

2944

“Can we be more specific on the factors of how exactly we arrived at this point? No,” Barrie said. “However, best value is meant in the truest sense that it was a comprehensive analysis of a variety of factors. No one really drove that decision. So, if you look broadly at a very high level, the factors are variables and performance, cost, and schedule, all were considered, and the combination of those are defined explicitly and evaluated and what’s arrived … that is what I would describe as the best value … what the Army would describe as its best value selection.”

Or in short, “Look, just don’t ask.”

2945

I just assume with the looming likelihood that LM protests the decision that they try very hard not to give away any details behind the decision that could end up causing them problems there.

2946

The thing with tilt-rotors is that you need to be able to know how to fly a helicopter as well as how to fly a plane. So the entire Blackhawk pilot community needs to be retrained. Or, more likely, they will just train new pilots on both. But the Marines went through this and it was a struggle.

Also, you can’t rappel out of a hovering Osprey because the downward force of the propellers is too strong. Does this have the same issue?

2947

If it makes you feel any better, people seem to believe that the version of the technology that’s competing for the FARA program will win that.

2948

Not much of use to add here, just remembering the one time I was in an Osprey, and we were receiving fire from the Taliban.

Nice little percussive sounds for a minute or so before we got out of range.

2949

A video on the new V-280. Comparison of V-280 vs. Blackhawk (speed and range differences). Data on how safe or unsafe V-22 Osprey is. Discussion of size of V-280 (it’s much bigger).

I did find this map (prepared by Bell) somewhat informative highlighting why range would be particularly important in the Pacific Theater — comparison of V-280 vs. Blackhawk ranges:

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2950

Those range circles look impressive, until you start to look under the hood a bit. We’re talking tactical transport aircraft, mostly, right? The Blackhawk’s range is fine for, well, tactical stuff. The V-280’s much longer range seemingly gives it more capability, but so much of that additional range would be in a very hostile air defense environment–not the sort of place you’d want to be flying plane-things filled with soldiers one wouldn’t think.

2951

First step in the conflict is going to be assert air dominance though. Once you achieve that, that range could be leveraged.

2952

Maybe? I don’t think super long range helicopter operations for anything other than specops forces have every been reliable or practical, have they?

Not that more range isn’t good–there are plenty of operational reasons for that range, and in a clean environment even moving troops would be fine. It’s just that it does not strike me as quite as dramatic as I’m sure Bell wants it to look.

2953

The recent conflict in Russia/Ukraine has led me to believe that this is something that will be either incredibly difficult or will not happen, thanks to how advanced anti-air capabilities have become. Either way, I wouldn’t count on that fact as a given anymore, and planning for that to happen is risky.

2954

Part of this is true, but I would not judge the capacities of the US military on the basis of the performance by Russia.

We would be dramatically more effective at destroying anti air capabilities.

2955

Well, true. But, I feel like if we are talking about a potential pacific theater conflict with China, they will put up a much better defense than Ukraine can.

It is hard to say, which is why it would be dangerous to count on air superiority in any peer/peer battle.