Link: Construction Underway For The Army's High-Tech Future Helicopter For 2030s
- Thread starter TideMan09
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Be interesting if they've hit a new speed by somehow beating the retreating blade stall speed.
There's just so fat you can go with a horizontal rotating blade, according to my small brain.
There's just so fat you can go with a horizontal rotating blade, according to my small brain.
The real strides in helicopter engineering aren't all that sexy. The speed increases and noise reduction get the attention, but the more practical advances are in dependability and longevity, both of which have been sore subjects in the helicopter arena since the advent of these creatures. Thanks to materiel and manufacturing advances, overhaul times have increased dramatically since the days of the venerable Bell Huey.
Believe it or not, the civilian market, especially the oil and gas market, has led the charge. We used to joke that Bell designed their machines to fly 500 hours and get shot down - there may have been an element of truth to that joke. Long-term civilian operators need reliability and reduced overhead, and the industry has responded.
Turbine engine overhaul times were commonly about 2000 hours not so long ago. Now, 6000 to 10000 hour intervals and are normal. The old rotor heads relied on oil and grease for lubrication and needed daily attention. Newer self-lubricating heads rely on Teflon and elastomerics to decrease maintenance. On-board diagnostic systems are aeons ahead of the first primitive monitoring systems, and have added levels of accuracy to preventative troubleshooting.
Helicopters have quietly entered a different plane in the last ten to twenty years. I would compare the advances from the Vietnam-era machines to modern ones to the technological jump made by fixed wing aircraft from 1935 to 1945.
Believe it or not, the civilian market, especially the oil and gas market, has led the charge. We used to joke that Bell designed their machines to fly 500 hours and get shot down - there may have been an element of truth to that joke. Long-term civilian operators need reliability and reduced overhead, and the industry has responded.
Turbine engine overhaul times were commonly about 2000 hours not so long ago. Now, 6000 to 10000 hour intervals and are normal. The old rotor heads relied on oil and grease for lubrication and needed daily attention. Newer self-lubricating heads rely on Teflon and elastomerics to decrease maintenance. On-board diagnostic systems are aeons ahead of the first primitive monitoring systems, and have added levels of accuracy to preventative troubleshooting.
Helicopters have quietly entered a different plane in the last ten to twenty years. I would compare the advances from the Vietnam-era machines to modern ones to the technological jump made by fixed wing aircraft from 1935 to 1945.
One idea to get around the retreating blade stall was the X-wing project back in the 80's
Read about it hereThe X-Wing[edit]
Sikorsky S-72 modified as the X-Wing testbed
Rotor Systems Research Aircraft / X-Wing aircraft during a 1987 high speed taxi test.
The X-Wing circulation control rotor concept was developed in the mid-1970s by David W. Taylor Naval Ship Research and Development Center under DARPA funding.[SUP][9][/SUP] In October 1976, Lockheed Corporation won a DARPA contract to develop a large-scale rotor to test the concept.[SUP][10][/SUP]
Intended to take off vertically like a helicopter, the craft's rigid rotors could be stopped in mid-flight to act as X-shaped wings to provide additional lift during forward flight, as well as having more conventional wings. Instead of controlling lift by altering the angle-of-attack of its blades as more conventional helicopters do, the craft used compressed air fed from the engines and expelled from its blades to generate a virtual wing surface, similar to blown flaps on a conventional platform. Computerized valves made sure the compressed air came from the correct edge of the rotor, the correct edge changing as the rotor rotated.[SUP][11][/SUP]
In late 1983 Sikorsky received a contract to modify one S-72 RSRA into a demonstration test bed for the X-Wing rotor system. The modified airframe was rolled out in 1986, but never flew before the program was cancelled in 1988.[SUP][[/SUP]
The idea was to route high pressure air to slots in the leading edge of the x wing blades thus controlling lift with boundary layer control. This required some complex valves and plumbing to accomplish.
Love this technology. Thanks for sharing. The tilt rotor looks like a Blackhawk/Osprey mix.
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No problem my friend & I too love reading up on our war technology as well Flum..
Just out of curiosity..Do any of y'all know if helicopters have evolved with our stealth technology, I know about our Stealth Bombers & Submarines having stealth technology, but, really haven't seen or read articles about helicopters having stealth technology..
I thought the defunct LHX program had stealth built in.
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Two stealth whirlies were used in the Bin Laden raid, one of which fell into enemy hands...
Just give the ground troops some good ole Apaches and Warthogs and sprinkle in some AC-130s and bring back the Skyraiders like we did in Vietnam, and I don't think the boys on the ground will need much more...maybe a little napalm to burn out a couple of pesky areas. 
Pieces of it. There was an incendiary charge set off on it, but I still for the life of me, don't understand why that compound wasn't "nuked" as soon as the operators were extracted?
Looks like the Vietnam era OV-10 has made a comeback as well.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/america’s-antique-planes-battling-isis/ar-AAgyucu?li=BBnb7Kz
Wasn't this the type of plane Danny Glover was flying in Bat 21?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/america’s-antique-planes-battling-isis/ar-AAgyucu?li=BBnb7Kz
Wasn't this the type of plane Danny Glover was flying in Bat 21?
Shortly after 911, there was some discussion of USAF purchasing prop planes for Close Air Support. Jets have too high a stall speed and the F-16 is mostly a single-seater, requiring one person to be pilot and bombardier simultaneously.
The Embraer Tucano was one possibility.
Of course, the USAF scratched this idea as soon as it could. You can't dogfight jets with that plane.
The Embraer Tucano was one possibility.
Of course, the USAF scratched this idea as soon as it could. You can't dogfight jets with that plane.
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