U.S. Army Rotorcraft Initiative Draws Praise

Avaiation Week)  Finally heeding the helicopter industry’s dire warnings of a production gap beyond 2020, the U.S. Army is launching a program to fly technology demonstrators for advanced rotorcraft that could enter production around 2025.
The Army is working to bring other U.S. services into the Joint Multi-Role (JMR) technology demonstration, which is modeled on the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program that led to development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The move comes more than a decade after a similar attempt to launch a JSF-style rotorcraft initiative failed, and it responds to increasingly desperate industry calls for a new program. But it is far from clear whether the Army will have the funding or willpower to follow the JMR technology demonstration with the new-aircraft development and production program manufacturers say they need.
Industry has welcomed news of the JMR demo program, although the level of funding has not been specified and the role of the recently formed Vertical Lift Consortium is not clear. The consortium was formed at the Defense Department’s urging to stimulate innovation in the rotorcraft industry by bringing together large and small companies and academia.
“We’re funded to build two clean-sheet aircraft that may or may not be the same configuration,” says Ned Chase, chief of the platform technology division, Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (Amrdec). Configuration options include advanced and compound helicopters and tiltrotors.
The Army is hoping the other services, NASA and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will bring funding to the program. “We plan to build two demonstrators, but we’d like to have enough money to build three,” says Jim Snider, director of aviation development for Amrdec. The Army officials were addressing the International Powered Lift Conference here on Oct. 5.
JMR is intended to demonstrate technology for a family of rotorcraft that would ultimately replace all of the Army’s helicopters—scout, attack, utility and cargo—as well as similar platforms operated by the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force. The focus is on replacing the “medium” fleets of AH-64 Apaches and UH-60 Black Hawks, but the demonstrator configurations must be scalable downward to replace OH-58D Kiowa Warrior armed scouts and potentially upward to replace heavy-lift CH-47 Chinooks.
The JMR tech demo is similar to the Joint Advanced Rotorcraft Technology (JART) program proposed in 1998 and modeled on the JAST effort. JART was ultimately vetoed by the services as unaffordable. This time, say industry officials at the conference, the Army has recognized it has no choice, because its helicopter fleet is aging.
Although the services are buying new-production helicopters, their designs date from the 1960s and ’70s and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have highlighted shortcomings in performance, reliability and survivability. Attributes for JMR include increased payload, range and speed, with greater durability, survivability and affordability.
Notional performance targets include a speed of at least 170 kt. and an unrefueled radius of 474 km. (294 mi.) in 6,000-ft./95F hot-and-high conditions, with 30 min. on station in the utility/cargo missions and 120 min. in attack/reconnaissance roles.