March 18, 2020 | International, Aerospace
After two years of intensive digital engineering, in 2020 the Army will pick either a Bell tiltrotor or a Sikorsky-Boeing compound helicopter to replace the UH-60 Black Hawk.
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
WASHINGTON: A Sikorsky-Boeing team won a $97 million award to refine their SB>1 Defiant high-speed helicopter over the next two years, the Army announced today, while Bell Textron won $84 million for its V-280 Valor tiltrotor. The two designs are vying to replace the Reagan-era UH-60 Black Hawk, the Army's workhorse air assault and medevac transport.
The difference in amounts purely reflects the different approaches the two teams proposed for what's called Competitive Demonstration & Risk Reduction, Army officials told reporters. It doesn't imply either team has an advantage going into 2022, when the service will choose one design as its Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), with the first operational units flying in 2030.
FLRAA is just part of the flying “ecosystem” of manned and unmanned aircraft that the Army is developing under its Future Vertical Lift Cross Functional Team, which in turn is just one of eight CFTs working on 31 high-priority projects. But FLRAA has been unusually visible, literally, because – as part of a program called the Joint Multi-Role Tech Demonstration – both companies have prototype aircraft actually flying.
As we've reported previously, the SB>1 Defiant started flight tests a year later than the V-280 Valor, but Army officials reasserted today they'll have enough test data on both aircraft.
“The flight envelope continues to expand for Sikorsky-Boeing, so they're flying a bit more aggressively now than the V-280,” said Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen, head of the FVL CFT. “Towards the end of this fiscal year, maybe August, we're going to see very comparable data on both.”
“Flight time is only one of the inputs that goes into a multivariable non-linear calculation,” added the Army's aviation acquisition chief, Program Executive Officer Pat Mason. Not all flight hours are equally valuable, he told reporters, and flight hours alone are not enough. “[It's] what you did in flight, what you've done in modeling and simulation, how you're administering model design, how you [set up] your digital engineering development environment, what you've done in your component test, lab test, SIL [System Integration Lab] test. Taking the totality of those elements into consideration, what we see is a good competition between two vendors.”
So while the two aircraft will continue flying to provide more performance data, the lion's share of the work over the next two years will be digital, explained the Army's program manager for FLRAA. “The preponderance of this effort is associated with digital engineering and model-based systems engineering,” Col. David Philips said. That means taking the real-world data from physical tests and rigorously refining every aspect of the design to meet the Army's needs from flight performance, combat survivability, affordability, sustainability, safety and more.
The program's reached the phase of design refinement that's traditionally handled by engineers with slide rules on “reams of paper,” Mason explained, but which will now be accomplished in painstakingly precise virtual models and simulations of every aspect of the aircraft.
“That is the future of design,” Mason said. “The key is that digital environment.... digital engineering and model-based engineering.”
The flight tests of physical aircraft are proving out their novel configurations – designed to achieve high speed and long range that are aerodynamically unattainable for conventional helicopters. But the digital design phase is especially suited for working out the software that's essential to everything from flight controls to navigation to evading incoming anti-aircraft missiles.
Rather than have each vendor fit the electronic jigsaw together in their own unique, proprietary way, the Army insists that FLRAA, its sister design the FARA scout, and a whole family of drones all use the same Modular Open Systems Architecture. MOSA is meant to ensure that all the aircraft can easily share data on everything from maintenance diagnostics to enemy targets, and that the Army can easily replace specific components (hence “modular”) using whatever vendor offers the best technology (hence “open”).
To ensure different vendors' products plug and play together, Mason said, “we specify what we need in those interfaces, and we flow those out in models.” Those models will include simulations of the aircrafts' physical characteristics, but, since they're software themselves, they can contain the actual prototype code for the Modular Open Systems Architecture.
In other words — let's get digital.
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/fvl-bell-sikorsky-boeing-split-181m-to-finalize-flraa-designs
February 1, 2022 | International, Naval
About 25,000 people work at Newport News Shipbuilding, which builds and refuels all the Navy's aircraft carriers and builds nuclear-powered submarines.
June 18, 2019 | International, Naval, C4ISR
Richard Scott, London The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is soliciting proposals for novel concepts aimed at integrating 'intelligent systems' into future warships. Being competed through the MoD's Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) programme, the Intelligent Ship programme is seeking to mature innovative technologies and techniques applicable to ship classes in the 2040+ timescale. A budget of GBP1 million (USD1.3 million) is available to fund multiple Phase 1 proposals, with an additional GBP3 million potentially available to fund follow-on phases. Released on 12 June, the Intelligent Ship competition document has set out to de-risk and evaluate technologies and approaches that could enable alternative, revolutionary future fleet concepts that can maintain or enhance UK military advantage. "This aim is based on a future vision where elements of automation, autonomy, machine learning and artificial intelligence [AI] are closely integrated and teamed with human decision makers," said the MoD. It added, "It is expected that this will ensure timely, more informed and trusted decision making and planning, within complex, cluttered, contested and congested operating and data environments." Phase 1 proposals are sought to improve automation, autonomous functions, AI-enabled decision aids, or alternative human-machine interfaces, and how they could improve speed and/or quality of decision-making and mission planning in a future operating environment. Proposals may also aim to demonstrate innovative system and platform design options that could enable the exploitation of intelligent systems in alternative platform concepts. The competition document has set out six specific 'challenge' themes: mission planning and decision aids, information fusion, sensor and information management, novel human-machine interfaces, human-machine teaming (applied to challenges 1-4), and integration. Phase 1 submissions are due on 23 July. Potential further phases are expected to include the development of an evaluation environment to enable demonstration of quantification of the selected intelligent functions. https://www.janes.com/article/89315/uk-sets-out-vision-for-intelligent-warship-technologies
July 6, 2020 | International, Aerospace
By: Nigel Pittaway MELBOURNE, Australia — Airbus will offer its H145M helicopter on July 11 for Australia's special operations support helicopter program, the company's Australia Pacific managing director confirmed Thursday. “We're excited to have the opportunity to present the H145M as part of [Project] Land 2097 Phase 4,” Andrew Mathewson said. “We have a fantastic opportunity to offer an aircraft which has a family heritage of over 5 million flight hours of operations.” Mathewson noted that the helicopter is currently used by the German Army's special forces. With its bid, Airbus will become the second contender in the competition, behind an industry team of Bell and Babcock Australia, which is proposing a militarized version of the Bell 429 commercial helicopter. The team announced its intention to bid on May 28. Bell is also partnering with Hawker Pacific for Land 2097 Phase 4 and has independent teams working on each bid. Other contenders are likely to include Boeing's AH-6i Little Bird; MD Helicopters' MD530G; and Leonardo Helicopters, but neither company has publicly declared its intent to participate. The Australian Defence Force is seeking an off-the-shelf helicopter in the 4-ton class to support the Army's special forces, primarily in their domestic counterterrorism role. Australia plans to buy up to 16 aircraft to provide an air assault capability for small teams within the special forces, and a fast-roping system to rapidly deliver troops while hovering. Secondary roles include intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, fire support, and general utility. A weapons capability is optional. Four helicopters are required to fit in a single C-17A airlifter and be capable of rapid deployment from the Australian Army's 6th Aviation Regiment base at Holsworthy, outside Sydney. The regiment currently operates the NHIndustries-made MRH-90 Taipan in a special forces support role, and the new helicopter is to complement that capability. Deliveries are expected to begin in 2022. For its planned bid, Airbus Australia Pacific has teamed with 15 local suppliers to meet the Australian Industry Capability policy, which calls for defense suppliers to include local industry in their efforts. Those domestic companies include Safran Australia, Qinetiq Australia, HeliMods, Toll Helicopters, Helicopter Logistics, Sigma Bravo and Thales. The company has also entered a strategic partnership with Deakin University, near Melbourne, to develop innovative solutions and modifications throughout the H145Ms' proposed 25-year life span. Mathewson says Airbus Australia Pacific has also offered seven H145Ms to the commonwealth, which, together with a series of technology inserts to the Australian Army's Tiger helicopters, is an independent bid to meet the requirements of Land 4503 (for armed reconnaissance helicopters). https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2020/07/02/airbus-reveals-h145m-bid-plan-for-australian-special-forces-helo-competition