Armed scout competition: weapons (part 3)

 helicopter market, technology  No Responses »
Nov 032012
 
OH-58D Kiowa

The US Army launched a competition to choose its future armed scout helicopter replacing the ageing OH-58D Kiowa.

This post describes the armament and mission systems proposed for each helicopter. The common characteristics are ballistic weapons (cannons, guns, rockets), guided rockets and anti-tank missiles.

Apparently, not all prototypes are equipped with missile/radar threat detection systems (chaff and flares), but aircraft eventually fielded may have it anyway.

All are equipped with emergency jettison systems.

Two aircraft are not presented here: OH-58D Kiowa and Sikorsky S-97 Raider. The first possibility is a simple no-go from the Army, choosing not to chosse and going only with a retrofit of the current Kiowa fleet. The second aircraft does not exist, except on paper. Therefore everything is still possible and not clearly defined.

OH-58D Kiowa

OH-58D Kiowa

For info: 2,75” = 70 mm; 0,5” = 12,7 mm; 0,3” = 7,62 mm

MD540F

MD540F

MD Helicopters: MD540F (link)

4 weapon stations:

  • 70 mm rockets
  • laser guided rockets (undefined)
  • Hellfire missiles (Laser-guided)
  • 12,7 mm machine gun

other equipment:

AH-6i

AH-6i (http://www.aviationtoday.com)

Boeing AH-6i (link)

2 or 4 weapon stations:

  •  7 x 70 mm rockets launcher (M260)
  • M-134 minigun (7,62 mm Gatling)
  • GAU-19 minigun (12,7 mm Gatling)
  • Hellfire missiles (Laser-guided)
  • laser guided rockets (probably Lockheed Martin DAGR, providing compatibility with Hellfire)

other equipment:

AW139M

AW139M

Agusta Westland AW139M (link)

2 weapon stations:

  • 12,7 mm machine gun
  • 70 mm rockets pods
  • Air-to-Surface Missile (Hellfire?)

other equipment:

  • Electro-Optic / Infra Red (EO/IR) device (looks like a SAFIRE on this picture [source])
  • Missile Approach Warning System (MAWS) and Counter Measures Dispensing System (CMDS)
  • Modular armour, armoured crew seats and armoured floor (link, click “Equipment”)
  • door or window machine guns: 5,56 mm, 7,62 mm or 12,7 mm
AAS-72X

AAS-72X

 Eurocopter AAS-72X and AAS-72X+ (link)

2 weapon stations:

  • 12,7 mm machine gun pod (HMP400)
  • 7 x 70 mm rockets launcher (M260)
  • Hellfire missiles (Laser-guided)
  • DAGR Laser-guided rockets from Lockheed-Martin

other equipment

OH-58F

OH-58F

 Bell OH-58F and Bell OH-58F Block II Kiowa (link)

2 weapon stations

  • M3P 12,7 mm machine gun
  • 7 x 70 mm rockets launcher (M260)
  • Hellfire missiles (Laser-guided)

other equipment

 

Conclusion

All aircraft fulfil the basic requirements. The current Kiowa flies with rockets, 0.5 caliber machine guns and Hellfire missiles. This is the minimum required for the future armed scout. Nevertheless, the guided rockets capability will be welcome.

The question of a bigger caliber weapon may be raised and the answer must consider the definition of an armed scout. This helicopter will need only short range weapons for its self defense within 1 km. 30mm cannon is obviously too powerful for a thin and small aircraft. 20mm caliber have already been seen on UH-1 and EC635, but the weight and the recoil forces make it difficult to install; furthermore, the range capability of the 20mm does not imply a sufficient accuracy ensuring the safety of nearby friendly ground troops. Firing from a distance will be made preferably by attack helicopters providing better cannon accuracy.

Considering the entire mission package, you obviously need missile threat detector and ballistic protection is a big advantage.

Agusta Westland AW139M has still to demonstrate the full weapon system, particularly in the definition of the missile performance which has apparently not been tested yet. On the contrary, the equipment package is very complete and provides mission capability as well as sufficient protection to the crew.

Boeing AH-6i did not show everything. Unmanned capability will be available as well as powerful sensor systems. The choice of 2 or 4 weapon stations is a great advantage, but the performance must still be demonstrated in hot and high conditions.

Eurocopter AAS-72X has promising specifications. Laser guided rockets will be welcome. They have not been announced yet, but since Lockheed-Martin received the responsibility of the mission system development, it would be surprising not to see them on this helicopter. A big strength of this aircraft is a configuration combining a complete weapon package and ballistic protections. If American Eurocopter and Lockheed Martin demonstrate the capability, there is no doubt that pilots will be highly interested in an aircraft that keeps their buttocks in a safe seat.

MD540F is a new aircraft but the equipment looks to be unfortunately limited to the minimal requirements, such as the standard weapons and a FLIR/video camera. This configuration would not correspond to a significant improvement of the current Kiowa.

Last but not least is the Kiowa Block II. The new weapon package provides improved sensors, but only the same weapons as the current Kiowa. It is still not clear if the helicopter will be proposed with Lockheed Martin DAGR, even if the capability has been proven 2 years ago. It would be also interesting to determinate whether Kiowa Block II can be equipped with armour plates in hot and high conditions.

Considering all these arguments, the top aircraft is AAS-72X. All performances are promising, even in hot and high conditions. AW139M is performing as well, but it may be too big to correspond to a realistic armed scout.
Boeing AH-6i could be too light. Nevertheless, the future drone version should be highly interesting.
Kiowa OH-58F Block II would be the second best choice. Beside the performance and the weapon package, the experience of the Bell Helicopter company will work in its favor.

 

Armed Scout competition: cockpits (part 2)

 helicopter market, technology  No Responses »
Oct 262012
 
AH-6i cockpit

Cockpits of the modern helicopters proposed in the frame of the Armed Scout competition are all mainly composed of screen displays. The era of traditional airspeed indicators, compass or artificial horizon is almost over.

Boeing AH-6i

AH-6i cockpit

AH-6i cockpit

Equipped with the probably most impressive interface in this competition, Boeing provides a cockpit highly similar to the oncoming Block III of AH-64D Apache.

Boeing says “These displays can be used to present to either crew member the electro-optic/infrared sensor video, engine data, moving map display, armament and identification friend or foe transponder control”

Nothing less than a small Apache! This argument is hard to beat… Nevertheless, we can hope for an improvement of the helmet mounted sight. Ed Macy’s book “Apache” describes the monocle on the pilot’s left eye as causing “terrible headaches as the left and right eye competed for dominance.” He needed “two years to learn how to ‘see’ properly”.
This is clearly not an optimised interface.

Apache monocle and helmet

US Army Captain P. Lain Hancock, Commander of C Company, 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Texas, looks down from the cockpit of his AH-64D Apache Longbow Helicopter. CPT Hancock is pictured during a refueling and reloading stop at the Dalton/Henson Range Complex at Fort Hood, Texas, during an annual aerial gunnery exercise. (Duplicate image, see also DASD0306784 or search 990915A4980V030)

The displays provide all information necessary to the pilots in flight and on a mission; a complementary helmet mounted sight with flight (and combat?) data may simply be the cherry on the cake.

 

Eurocopter AAS-72X

Unfortunately, no cockpit picture of the military aircraft has been released yet. We can have a look at the EC-145 instead:

EC145 cockpit

EC145 cockpit

With a sufficient number of screens to display every information needed for a mission flight, the panel looks interesting.

The AAS-72X features a Helionix glass cockpit, accommodating two crew members. The cockpit is equipped with liquid crystal displays, avionics suite and a four-axis autopilot system. The modern avionics include vehicle and engine management display (VEMD). (source)

Helionix is the most modern state of the art of the Eurocopter cockpit. It is fair to expect the best.

AAS-72X helmet

AAS-72X helmet. The pilot is flying “without hands”

However, helmet equipment does not look ready to show off for now. The mount lets expect installation of at least night vision goggles. Standard NVG? Well, it might only be due to current demonstration limitations. In fact, the brand new EC635 is equipped with a Helmet Mounted-Sight Display (HMSD). (source)

It seems very realistic to expect state of the art pilot and gunner helmets with flight and combat symbology. (here the Tiger)

 

MD540F

MD540F Elbit Systems Garmin cockpit

MD540F Elbit Systems, Garmin cockpit

MD-Helicopters MD-540F cockpit

MD-Helicopters MD-540F cockpit

Garmin G500 and Elbit Helmet HDTS should be the core of the pilot’s interface. Dealing with equipments off the shelf, MD is ensured to get an aircraft flying well enough, but probably not providing the state of the art of military Human-Machine Interfaces.

Elbit HDTS

Elbit HDTS

Agusta Westland AW139M

AW139 civil cockpit

AW139 civil cockpit

No interesting cockpit photo of AW139M were released until today. We can compare the civil (above) and  military (below) versions, but unfortunately, no hint is given concerning the mission systems.

AW139M

AW139M

It feels like flying a big passenger airplane. In fact, it’s not wrong, the aircraft is first dedicated to passenger transport. Weapons are optional; this helicopter does not look like being optimized for reconnaissance and scouting missions.

 

Bell OH-58 F (Block II)

OH-58F BLOCKII

OH-58F BLOCKII

Two models and one cockpit are displayed on http://www.scoutsout.com. The only difference will actually be in the engine performance, much greater for the Block II.

So what do we have? A “digital cockpit”!

  • Single pilot operable
  • 2 5×7 Color displays
  • 1 6×8 Color display
  • Dual, independent map channels
  • Control and Display Subsystem version 5 (CDS5)
  • SWB 4 and Beyond
  • Improved MCPU
  • Emergency Standby Attitude Indicator (ESIS)

All information are available to the copilot, even if the helicopter can be flown by a single pilot. Wide displays, safety analog dials, everything’s here but not much more. Furthermore if we believe the picture below, no high-end helmet is available for the pilots.

OH-58F-Block II front side

OH-58F-Block II front side

Conclusion

The most convincing proposals are obviously Boeing and Eurocopter. If you want the best for your troops during the next decades, you will not just afford simple off the shelf equipments. You want modern and highly performing equipments.

Armed Scout competition: performance (part 1)

 helicopter market  No Responses »
Oct 242012
 

 

The competition to the definition of a new Armed Scout helicopter is in full swing as Bell Helicopter, Boeing and Eurocopter participated in the voluntary flight demonstration. Considering the great number of participants, I think a performance comparison may be helpful.

Two aircraft are not considered in this article, even if already presented earlier: the AVX, based on a twin propeller redesign of the current Kiowa, and the S-97 Raider of Sikorsky, new concept based on the high-speed X2. Because these aircraft have not been flown yet, no actual performance data are available. Therefore, we cannot consider them in the comparison today.

Technical data

 

Unfortunately not all values are available for all aircraft,  because some of them are still under development and improvement and the manufacturers have not explored the entire flight envelope yet. Nevertheless, we can consider that similar platforms share similar performance, such as a the payload for AH-6i and for MD540F.

Also OH-58D has a useful load of 909 kg and we’ll take it for OH-58F and Block II.

You will notice that Boeing uses the same platform as MD Helicopters, but brought deep modifications. A new tail rotor (similar to AH-64 Apache) or another weapon pylon are the most visible differences, but we will see in a later article that Boeing leads a highly interesting technology development in order to propose a drone option of AH-6i.


Engines number

Twin-engined aircraft must carry the additional weight of the second engine, but the reliability of the system is increased. You are allowed to lose one engine and continue your flight back to base.

Range

The aircraft of MD Helicopters, Boeing and Bell Helicopter offer a relatively low range (from 260 to 430 km, or 232 nautical miles). Eurocopter and AgustaWestland have a much wider range of respectively 680 km and  950 km (513 nautical miles).

Engine power

Engine power alone is not significant, we need to relate it to the gross weight (MTOW). Under this conditon, the great winners are the AW139M, AAS-72X and OH-58F Block II. We see here that the exchange of a newer engine for OH-58F provides a competitive advantage.
Unfortunately, we cannot pull the analysis any further with aerodynamical parameters due to their unavailability. (if you have values like the balde chords or the rotor rotation speeds, send them to us !)
In order to obtain a strictly correct analysis of performance in the aerodynamical point of view, we need to determine the rotor solidity ratio. Unfortunately, geometric data of rotors have not been released for all aircraft yet, but this topic will be the object of a future article when possible.

Max speed

Apparently, Bell’s OH-58 Fs are not the fastest helicopters, even if Vne is not known for now. On the other hand, Eurocopter, MD and Boeing are performing quite well. The helicopter with the top speed is the AW139M providing an impressive 306 km/h (165 kt).

Weight

Payload capability is critical as well as agility. Too light aircraft will not have the capability to perform well in a constraining environment while carrying payload. On the other hand, big aircraft will be limited in their agility.
Therefore AW139M is at risk of being considered too huge for the typical mission of an armed scout. 6800 kg are more than twice as much as the other competitors. Military pilots need easy maneuverability in tight spaces, like narrow streets during urban combat or under high voltage power lines.

In order to make a clean comparison, we need to know the fuel tanks capability as well, which are not provided for every aircraft. Therefore, we will have to remind the fact that lightest aircraft have no possibility to carry both weapons and passengers. It will even not be possible to install a third crew member as door gunner.

 

Conclusion

Based on the perfomance of the aircraft, the best competitor is the Eurocopter AAS-72x, followed by Bell Helicopter OH-58 F Block II. They provide the best power availability, high agility, sufficient cruise speed and an interesting range.

Against the Kiowa, the best assets of AAS-72X are its increased range and the space available in the cabin, making it able to carry passengers, door gunners or a camera or winch operator.

Nevertheless, the Little Bird is famous for the support it provides to the US forces on many combat theatres and the experience provides positive consideration. A future analysis will consider the drone instead of the manned aircraft.

 

[edited after constructive comments from Mike Hampson, owner of http://helicopterlinks.com/, October 27th, 2012]

[HD pictures] Eurocopter open day

 experience, helicopter market  No Responses »
Oct 022012
 
EC145 T2

Most viewed pictures are displayed in full resolution.

Eurocopter product family

Eurocopter product family


UHT banking seen from front

UHT Tiger banking seen from front

BO105 RedBull taking off

BO105 RedBull taking off

BO105

BO105

CH-53GA

CH-53GA

EC145 T2

EC145 T2

EC175 prototype in flight

EC175 prototype in flight

EC175 prototype in flight

EC175 prototype in flight

EC175 prototype in flight

EC175 prototype in flight

EC175 on parking

EC175 on parking

EC175, EC120

EC175, EC120

X3 nose on profile

X3 F-ZXXX nose on profile

helicopter industry goes online

 helicopter market  No Responses »
Aug 202012
 

Some helicopter companies have interesting communication platforms that everybody can see.

I speak here about stuff that almost all of you use daily: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr…

Needless to say, but it’s always good to insist: those channels are very nice to follow during special events, such as airshows or official presentations.

 

EADS, Eurocopter

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eadspics

https://www.facebook.com/AmericanEurocopter

https://www.facebook.com/EADSfan

http://twitter.com/EADSlive and http://twitter.com/EADSgroup

http://www.youtube.com/user/EADStv

 

Bell Helicopter

http://twitter.com/one_bell

https://www.facebook.com/bellhelicopter

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheBellHelicopter

 

 

Russian Helicopters

http://twitter.com/RusHeliCo

https://www.facebook.com/RussianHelicopters

 

 

 

Some other interesting pages

https://www.facebook.com/HeliOpsMagazine

https://www.facebook.com/HelicopterLinks

https://www.facebook.com/airliners.net

 

Also, did you know that Blueskyrotor is on Twitter too?

Check http://twitter.com/blueskyrotor!

Aircraft catalogs for every manufacturer

 helicopter market, website  No Responses »
Aug 062012
 

A new page has been added and improved.

You have perhaps noticed this: it is now possible to see the current catalog of products of every manufacturer.

 

You can see all aircraft currently produced and also display only military or civil helicopters.

A small improvement was brought as well. For each manufacturer, not only their own models are displayed, but also aircraft built under license or in the frame of a partnership.

 

For example, Bell used to develop AB609 (later BA609), but left the program. The aircraft is now under full responsibility of Agusta Westland. For this reason, the only denomination displayed on Bell’s page is AW609.

Another example is the NH90 which is sold by NHI, but actually built by Agusta Westland, Eurocopter and Fokker Aerostructures. Therefore, you will see the aircraft appear on the pages of AW and EC, but under the name of NHI.

 

If you notice any information missing or mistake, please use the contact form.

Multicopter

 helicopter market, technology  No Responses »
Nov 052011
 

E-volo is a german team which performed the first flight of its prototype during October 2011.

“At the end of October 2011, Thomas Senkel of e-volo had completed a series of unmanned tests and was ready for the first manned flight on an airstrip in the southwest of Germany. The flight lasted one minute and 30 seconds, after which the constructor and test pilot stated:

“The flight characteristics are good natured. Without any steering input it would just hover there on the spot”.

This could be the future of flight, piloting a device as simple as a car.”

http://www.e-volo.com/Home.html

 

Continue reading »

Robinson factory visit

 helicopter market  No Responses »
Oct 122011
 

One month ago, I was given the opportunity to visit the factory of Robinson helicopters in Torrance, Los Angeles. It is actually quite simple to get, you should just try to register by sending an-e-mail as described on this page. You will see the production lines and the flight test preparation, but nothing of the offices.

production line Robinson R66

production line Robinson R66

Once there, you see the final assembly line and all the different section for the manufacturing of all parts of the helicopters. Most of the components are manufactured there, Plexiglas windshield as well as machined gear boxes. Main materials are fiber glass, stainless steel and aluminium. I did not really see much use of composite materials. Robinson works very close to Garmin for the avionics equipment.

They just finished to build a new hall, which almost doubled the surface available for the production lines. The result is nice and clean, not very noisy.

Around 800 people work for the company, which is able to manufacture one aircraft a day, making a fuselage with its electric harnesses within one week and making it ready to fly during the following week.

Actually, five or six fuselage were ready for assembling and several dozens of rotor blade were stowed, waiting for their first flights.

Also, overhaul operations can be made very quickly. Our guide talked about a customer who brought his machine for a simple repair, but he got angry when he saw, few hours later, his aircraft completely dismantled for a deep inspection.

Robinson helicopters, rotor blades

Robinson helicopters, rotor blades

The visit finishes with the preparation of aircraft for test flights. Considering bigger companies, you miss prototype helicopters. Robinson is very efficient in producing good affordable helicopters, but it does not make innovation its spearhead.

R44 cockpit

R44 cockpit

The guys of Robinson are very fair and let us climb inside the helicopters. The R66 is a big R44, able to carry one more people with much more baggage.

R66 helicopter prepared for test flight

R66 helicopter prepared for test flight

 

The most impressive during the visit was the capability of the company of a high production rate. The plant is very well organized and optimized. As an helicopter fan, my sole regret is that the company seems to put more innovation in its manufacturing tools than in the final helicopter.

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