As I told somebody else above, a lot of the time, the aircraft designs chosen by the US military are nearly always heavily influenced by which powerful politicians own stock in which companies... I.e. "Ladybird" Johnson (Lyndon's wife) owning boatloads of Bell stock-- which is why the OH-58/Jet Ranger beat out the Defender series in wide-spread military inventory...
It comes down to overall range and top speed. While this replaces the Blackhawk. The S97 Raider (X Defiant little brother) will probably replace the Apache and Little Bird.
In my opinion, there's one factor that I suspect played a large part in the decision that only a few people have touched on: The relative achievements of the two technologies in the demonstrations. Bell would announce what they were going to do next and then just go out and do it. In a straightforward manner and didn't parse language when they met or exceeded all the requirements and all of their promises. They did what they said they'd do when they said they would, and except towards the very end thy didn't take snipes at the other guys. The Defaint (and the S-97, for that matter) were late, would announce an upcoming goal and when it would be demonstrated and then when it wasn't achieved they'd just be silent about it. For example, the Army's schedule for JMR-TD was first flight in 2017, a year's flight demonstrations where the technologies would demonstrate their promised capabilities as they related to Army criteria in 2018, after which Army would spend 2019 evaluating the test data before deciding in 202 which technology to take further into development. Valor flew as scheduled in 2019. They couldn't get Defiant into the air until 2019, and then in a relatively short time they had to ground it for more work before resuming demonstrations. Valor flew its first Army pilot two months after first flight. Defiant took nearly 2 1/2 years. Defiant flew far fewer hours than Valor. Sikorsky kept saying it was OK because they were providing lots of data from simulations. The thing is, until you actually go out and do the thing for real, there's no way to validate whether your simulations are accurate. For example, Bell could have said the V-280 could do Mach 2 because they did it in simulations. Valor would show high agility in the hover, Sikorsky would brag about their low altitude banks , but leave out the fact that they were moving forward at a good clip, which makes high bank angles easier. They'd talk about their ability to rapidly accelerate after takeoff in a level attitude thanks to the prop, but the videos would show it heading out nose down just like a regular helo. Or, they would announce a new sustained speed achieved, but leave out that it was achieved in a shallow dive. And so on and so forth. Now my point in this case is not to address the relative performance advantages/disadvantages of the promised capabilities of the two technologies. Defiant, for example, if a production aircraft meets the promises, will HOGE hot and high much better than Bell's promises for Valor (although it will meet the Army's requirement). Valor is faster. What I'm getting at is that if in addition to relative promised performance, they're trying to decide which technology generates more confidence that it'll deliver on its claims, from the demonstrations Valor wins that hands down. Some might say that's because there's less experience with X2 but so what? That's not the taxpayers problem, and it further buttresses the Army's choice. Army is not going to come right out and say that, they're going to wait for the protest to be heard and then use what happened in the demonstrations as further justification for their choice.
@@theofficialmbc No reason to. That will be years from now, and the Sikorsky didn't do as well in the tests so far and no work would have been done on it since.
One thing Bell smartly did was to get rid of the full-tilting engine nacelle, which proved to cause no end of trouble with the V-22 in terms of both aerodynamics and mechanical reliability. In essence, it went back to the design from the original XV-3 experimental helicopter from the 1950's.
While I wanted it to win you're correct. Footprint and gun placement is definitely the only downsides but the range and speed alone make up for it. Helicopters are reaching physical limits in both areas. So tilt rotor are the future so better get use to them.
I'm wondering if in the final production version, they'll move the engines in closer to the body, since the whole engine isn't shifting, there doesn't seem to be much point in having all that mass sitting all the way out on the ends of the wings. It would also allow keeping the mechanisms for the rotation of the rotors armored at least against some small arms fire, since as it stands, it looks like when the rotors tilt up, all that is totally exposed
@@dianapennepacker6854 How is gun placement a downside? You can just as easily put door guns on this thing as you can on a Blackhawk, you can mount rocket and gun pods slung under the wings, and/or you can have a chin mounted gun like on an attack helicopter. The footprint is larger, but not significantly larger, and the ability to carry more troops per aircraft offsets that to an extent
@@pdxmarine1430 Well putting them under the wings makes them only available in hover mode. Not sure how fast it can move with them out of the way. Yeah I see them using door guns mostly. Still it will have it's arc of fire limited. I'm only saying it has less options compared to a helicopter. I don't know if they are planning on a chain mounted gun but that would be great if they did. Either way I am all for it and believe tilt powered vehicles make the most sense. Way too many advantages as helicopters reach their physical limits in speed and range. People will look for any reason to hate tilt rotors it seems although they are proven to be JUST as safe. The Valor already can fly on its own without pilot input.
@@dianapennepacker6854 why would guns mounted under the wings be limited to only firing in hover mode? There's nothing preventing any guns under the wings from firing while it's in level flight because interrupters that make sure that props don't get hit by machine gun fire have been a thing since WWI, so shooting through a propeller is not a problem.
The only thing I'd be concerned about is the footprint for an LZ. If anyone has studied Vietnam you'd know that in a jungle environment it is important to fit as many landing zones in a field as possible. This thing is so wide that I can see this being a problem. But I guess it was chosen because the pros outweighed the cons.
So it has the same footprint as the Blackhawk just inverted- the Blackhawks length equal it's width and its width equals the Valors length. There maybe an additional 30ft overall but I'm not too clear on that
They can always say no to landing somewhere, I am worried about no ability to auto rotate or glide. Hit one side, and won't it flip like a pancake? But you are right, and it seems like they are fighting the last war again, with VERY few trees.
@givemethedaily1052 so the 22 can auto rotate, but it's not trained. It's so heavy that the "cushion" isn't enough. It could still break the frame . Glide slope is non existent. But can still run off one engine to make emergency landing.
The speed of the aircraft gets the attention but two other factors helped the V-280 win. The range, which is a major increase over the UH-60 and better than the SB-1, gives air assault planners all sorts of possibilities in future conflicts. The other selling point is bell and rolls Royce offered the engine on the V-22 to power the aircraft if the engine the army is developing for these aircraft runs into problems or delays (program risk). It was the safer bet for army aviation. I’d still like to see the army acquire the S-97 so they could get the best of both designs.
That did not work out well for LCS ship program V280 is the right choice there is only one thing and I don't think it will be a problem that I see is the foot print besides that V280all day every daye
The V-280 kicked butt! Exceeded almost every criteria the Army set well before the Defiant was even airborne. The Bell team did an outstanding job! Wish I could be at Rucker when the V-280s arrive in number to inaugurate this leap forward in Army aviation.
My guess would be the biggest factors is the speed and range. Those are going to be important in the pacific. Also it seems the valor program was going far smoother than the Defiant and the valor was surpassing the milestones set for the program. Frankly, I think either one is a good choice.
@@MFKR696 bri the osprey does not crash as much as the blackhawj bro you just have recency bias because of the news you read go do more research and come back when you jave read it all turns out that the v 280 was better than the defiant x in every metric and that was with the protitype engines not to tlak of its engines which are more powerful when it enters full production which could exceed all army requirements of speed range and weight requirements so bro your arguments are invalid cause of recenvy bias
yeah that too, i'd imagine a fleet of V-280 with infantry doing long-range deployment escorted with autonomous V-247 dropping munitions and launching smaller drones, sounds deadly as hell
A very sensible decision. The Tiltrotor has so much longer range, because it is more like an airplane. It has less inside the cabin, because it doesn't need a shaft going to the back. There will be applications where the other design would be superior, but the speed and range is awesome, and the Osprey design has been proven to work. That they would protest the decision is stupid; the mission requirements made the tiltrotor design the obvious choice.
Also no fuel or heavy equipment are above the crew compartment meaning less risk of fires and you can break off the wings in a crash taking away energy with them.
The 280 is based on a proven design the Osprey. The Defiant X is new and unproven. However I believe the coaxial pusher prop may be the future of reconnaissance and attack helicopter.
I would not call the Osprey a “proven design”. It’s currently grounded by the USAF. The Offsprey has also killed dozens of Marines in training. I hope the Valor does not follow in the footsteps of the Offsprey.
The Blackhawk had its problems when it first was fielded, it had the dubious moniker of Crash Hawk the blades would separate from the hub. The Defiant is a new design the closest thing ever was the Cheyenne and that was a single main rotor with a pusher prop. Aircraft are subject to the laws of physics. The aviation industry has a perfect record, It has never left one up there.
@@codedlogic The Osprey is safer per flight hour than the blackhawk. Many of the deaths on its first few years was because it turned out the training on it was wrong, and pilots were told to do X in the event of Y, turned out to actually cause crashes, so they had to update the training to correct that
@@pdxmarine1430 What you’re referring to as “event Y” is the transmission slipping causing one rotor to have more power than the other which can easily lead to the aircraft tipping over and crashing. It’s a fundamental design flaw they’ve had to train around. And now it’s grounded indefinitely.
Yep. Speed and range are the biggest differences if you ask me. This is especially true for the Pacific. That being said, I'm definitely not qualified to make the decision.
There's also a full article about mechanics looking at both helicopters and saying that the composite rotor system was extremely hard to work on on the defiant and it looked complicated and that the fixed motors with moving props on The valor or much easier to work on also the defiant crashed and had transmission problems
I absolutely agree. I mean, the defiant will definitely get a contract somewhere else seeing as it’s the completed design, but the US Army definitely can’t afford to go without one or the other. They are both able to warfare and defence as well as functionality. Both have their abilities and the US Army can’t go without one or the other. They need both, even if one is manufactured more than the other.
While "best value" is not the same as most capable, the Army's risk averse position saw potential to build upon Osprey near-commonality and familiarity for maintainers and flight crew. With such a hard Osprey learning curve -and phenomena still struggling to understand- the Army is sensitive to even more unproven tech. It didn't help that Defiant had rotor dev issues while Valor racked-up significant flight time. Also, The Valor also fits better with long range assault payload. There were just so many points to juggle. But, don't cry: The Defiant may yet find some love; the game is not over.
I read recently that the Italian Army was looking at FVL (before Bell's win) as a potential buy, but they favored the "simplicity" of the SB>1. Countries that don't deploy, like in NATO/Europe, wouldnt need the Valor's range so badly. BUT!! Sik/Boe can't even get their copter to fly reliably, it's like coax rotors are an evolutionary dead end. So much for simplicity.
Still the Defiant is the one closest to a regular helicopter of the two and compound helicopters are way less exotic, also big tiltrotors have a history of development hells and accidents (such as the V-22 and the one from Leonardo).
@@Defender78 how is the defiant simpler than the valor? You got 2 coaxial rotors and a pusher prop on a single transmission while the v-280 has 2 identical rotors and engines and a slightly less complex (I am assuming) transmission on the wing, all easily accessible. The defiant looks so much like a pain in the ass to service when you think about it. The Valor does not look that much different from a twin engine turboprop, aside the transmission.
This is the right choice Bell makes a great helicopter they're also very good at Budget on time no over costs and proven technology over the last decade faster farther easier transport for troops sliding doors fly bye wire plus with new tilt when troops land no wind blowing everything around the air shoots out the back don't have to cover eye's this is all very important for troops to get in the fight much quicker without stress this aircraft is the right choice by far Bell deserves this it must be a great price for to beat out a company like Lockheed with all there connection tells me a whole lot this aircraft is very good 😊👍
What a load of guff.. landing vertically you will now have two vortex rings blowing crap in through the sliding doors, those have been fitted on helicopters since the Westland sycamore. Defiant is the far better choice for the user and will not bring about overstretch from the support and supply chain.
@@keithavery7087 how can the defiant be a better choice when they haven't even finished putting it together. The fact that Valor is so far ahead of defiant in every testing category should tell you all you need to know. What good is a hellcitoper if the damn thing is either never ready or in the shop all the time?
A bonus for the Army is that this decision can piss off both the Air Force and the Navy. The Air Force as this now lets the Army stick their foot across the line of operating armed fixed wing aircraft, and the Navy as they would probably prefer the Defiant-X (this was a joint evaluation program) due to the horrible experience they are having with the constructive interference downdraft between the rotors of Ospreys making it a nightmare to land tilt rotor aircraft on ships at sea. In the end, both models will likely go to production with the Valor for the Army and the Defiant-X for the Navy.
The rotor plane acts as a wing at speed with the pusher configuration. The lift of the Defiant in forward flight is not direct rotor power like a hovering craft.
It's political, the armed services alternate suppliers to keep at least two independent manufacturers working continuously, Blackhawk was Sikorsky/Boeing, they will have work maintaining the Blackhawk into the future, Bell won because if they didn't they would struggle for a future. Politically keeping both suppliers working and keeping voters employed is what counts most, not which is superior when they are both this close.
Bell is doing quite well in the civila market and is developing new aircraft so they would survive without FLRAA. Sikorsky's Limited presence in the civil market is limited to derivatives of the H-60 (which the S-92 is, BTW).
right. makes no sense. the only advantage is forward speed. pretty sure sikorsky will question the decision as the army defined the concept to be a helicopter and not an airplane. The decision is most likely not done by best choice but by factors we won't see publicly.
there is another contest for the same needs you talk about. v280 is means to transport cargo and troops fast, and sometimes adding fire supression. its a transport, not an attack helicopter
@@pablo17667140 well, it will be what the blackhawk was. the other contest is for the apache replacement. the debate correctly reflects the defiant vs. valor debates.
Pretty sure Somalia was a hard lesson on why deploying (big) helicopter in contested urban area is a bad idea. If anything, the future tactic will be artillery or airstrikes, then light/shock infantry supported by light scout copters, then finally tanks and APC once the perimeter is secured. Heli landing will be reserved for big open area
the pentagon released the report of the decision. basically sikorsky said it would be $6 billion cheaper than the v280 but provided 0 evidence to support that claim. in basic terms sikorsky disqualified itself because its proposal was incomplete and/or inaccurate
The Army's need for speed and range is easily the top reason why Bell's Valor beat Sikorsky's Defiant. While I'm no tilt-rotor fan, the Osprey has given the services some hard lessons learned in operating this type of aircraft.
Doesn’t make sense you cannot fight fires or do any disaster response It merely moves soldiers faster longer. What about the other missions that the Blackhawk does? You are not sling loading long distances with the rotors in the vertical position. So the Army also has to rebuild all their hangers also because it is a much bigger footprint. This just doesn’t make sense I think the Army needs both platforms.
Why can't you fight fires or do disaster response? It meets the Army's requirement for sling load, and should be able to do it as well as Black Hawk (as an aside, V-22 holds world speed record for carrying external load). If you look at Army bases, most helos aren't stored in hangars all the time. V-280 is wider than Defiant (H-60, BTW, is wider than the H-1 it replaced), but so what? It's shorter. More importantly, even acknowledging the greater width, nothing is better than everyone at everything. The choice is, weighing up the pluses and minuses, what gives you the most overall?
My son is a Blackhawk pilot in the Army and is glad he will be retired before the tilt rotor goes operational (if it actually ever does). He’d like to live to enjoy his retirement
As a former army aviator I kind of like it better than the Defiant. That thing would have real problems landing in unimproved areas due to the low clearance of the prop on the back. The Bell product on the other hand is going to struggle with crosswinds due to the HUGE sails on the back. Just an arm chair analysis but overall I like the Bell better.
It turns ou that because of the layout of the twin proprotors and the wing Tilt-Rotors are less susceptible to crosswinds than single rotor helicopter.
How to award a no bid contract while making it look like a "contest" The V-280 definitely does not fit inside the same footprint area or less of a Blackhawk so they just ignored that particular stipulation of the competition for Bell Textron while other competitors abided by it. Aside from that the V-280 isn't even a new platform, it's just a reduced sized V-22 that only angles the propellers instead of the whole wing along with the props and engine nacelles. Another case of a misleading military contract "contest" favoring a pre-existing design because it's already "proven". A tilt-rotor design inherently has major advantages in speed and range over a helicopter. So why did the Army mislead the competitors into thinking they were "replacing" the Blackhawk when clearly they wanted the specific speed and range advantages of a tilt-rotor?
Uh, the wing on the V-22 doesn't rotate, never has. The requirement is "operational footprint", not just be the size of the Black Hawk (which the Defiant isn't either). Army actually lowered the speed requirement to allow for other technologies than Tilt-Rotor. Even so, Defiant never demonstrated its promised speed while Valor exceeded its by 25 knots. The V-280 is no more a reduced sized V-22 than an F-35 is a reduced sized F-15.
Jesus boomer, how many times do we need to teach you this lesson old man. The damn thing can autorotate, so unless the whole nacelle goes flying off the thing will be fine.
It is hard for me to just look at the and say one is better than the other. I do think the delays in the Defiant X to the competition are a red flag. I think the speed and range of the V-280 came into play plus the lessons learned in the tiltrotor technology for the Osprey. That counter-rotating mechanism on top seemed oversized and over-engineered. The Russians have had the tech fielded for years and we do not see them with any advantage that is a game changer.
Seems like the V-280 would present a huge radar and acoustic target vs. the smaller, nimbler Defiant, but who knows... The X2 tech in the Defiant is clearly the future, which is why it wasn't as far ahead in development. Hopefully X2 will have a better shot as a scout helicopter.
Defiant is not small as you believe. It is almost twice as high as blackhawk and longer too. There is no effective use of stealth in helicopter. Helicopter is not safe from anti-aircraft missile no matter how small it is.
Acoustic signature favors the valor. If you ever seen a turboprop up close, you must have noticed that you only really hear them when they are on top of you, the same should be true for the valor in the horizontal rotor configuration.
correction - Defiant is HUGE, look at some images of people standing next to it, it's almost 2x as tall as the UH-60. No way it could have been as nimble as V-280. You may be thinking of the smaller Raider X, which is FARA.
Both aircraft would operate at lower altitudes. The war in Ukraine has proven that low flying aircraft are vulnerable to manpads. If they operate at higher Altitudes, SAM's can easily target them.
i live near an army aviation field... i just hope the damn thing is quieter. plus... the reason bell got it is because boeing/sikorsky is getting the attack helicopter. got to spread the money around.
No auto-rotate, less nimble (obviously turns slowly and can not move directly left or right), if damaged it seems as if it will not be repairable, It seems to have a bigger footprint on the ground. It seems the army just wants the speed. Not saying that is bad, but they are giving up a lot.
Tilt rotors can auto rotate... "less nimble (obviously turns slowly and can not move directly left or right)" ... wrong... do some research man. It has passed the same level 1 handling requirements the Black Hawk had to bass. "if damaged it seems as if it will not be repairable," ... ???? based on what? " It seems to have a bigger footprint on the ground" ... 19% larger footprint while carrying more troops and cargo 3 times the distance and at 2 times the speed...
If the Army was smart they would buy both Bell and Sikorsky systems. The Bell for SF, Rangers and other special force units and Sikorsky for everyone else.
The more I see the bell the more I like it over the competitors. It travels further and faster, it can support more weight and thus more armour. It is more reliable in combat situations, one engine rota failing can be supported by the other, where as the other copter looks like a maintenance nightmare, snd has all the same weaknesses as the black hawk. It has its drawback I.e. landing diameter and reduced carry space inside. But the positives outweigh..
More reliable and better fuel mileage? Reliability and fuel mileage won’t be accurately known until its really been aggressively tested in real world scenarios.
@stewarthill5878 you do know that it already made thousands of miles for flights before the decision was made AND it hasn't killed any of the testers like the Osprey has. Those are low bars sure but it has already proven it does what it says on the tin.
This design looks to be an eventual regional transport vehicle that will be capable of serving a wider area and carry cargo perfect for areas like Alaska/Yukon.
As a former active duty serviceman I am wonderig about the survivability of the crew and men on board the aircraft. I have been in several helo crashes and walked away with every one else on board. That happened because the rotor still turned and allowed for a"softer" landing. If the Valor is hit on one of it's ncells won't it just spiral in outting everyone on board at risk? I guess only time will tell but i am abit concerened on that.. I would love to be proven wrong because it IS an amazing aircraft but safety of my men is paramount in my mind. They have enough to deal with in combat with out concern over mode of transport
@@kdrapertrucker ok..I figured that would happen but since it's only on one side wouldn't the craft spin? With the center blade on a helo..it turns even without power and slows over a center line..??
It’s a cool solution just hope this new helicopter can be 99% operational ready and maintenance costs are no more than the Blackhawk and lesser trained mechanics can keep it flying
I have a question. How will the Army deploy its divisions while using the Valor. It can’t be easily placed into an aircraft, boat, nor even placed on to a lowboy to be moved In order to do so you would have to first, box the blades and the wings. This is a difficult and long process., measured in days. With the Defiant you just fold the blades back and tie them off; a process which takes just a few minutes. For the Defiant, deploying is a matter of a few minutes work on either end. I have heard say that the Valor is a tilt-rotor, just like the Osprey, a “proven concept”. I reject this thought out of hand. What the Osprey is: is a Hanger-Queen. It is a very maintenance intensive aircraft. For the Navy this can be made to work. They bring their maintenance assets with them. The Army can’t. The Army works in a very diffferent world from the Navy. The Navy’s world requires crossing vast stretches of water, where speed is king, and you have all maintenance assets a ship can carry. The Army on the other hand can never break contact with the enemy. Their aviation assets are just a few dozen miles outside of artillery range. They hide under trees and cammo nets, and move their support assets by trucks on unimproved road networks. And then maintain their birds with a few cases of oil, a hand full of tools, and a shockingly small set of spare parts. It surprises me that the Army would choose an aircraft the will cost them several days more on their deployment time tables, and then will overtax their maintenance capabilities when finally make contact with the enemy.
One of the main benefits of the tilt-rotor is is ability to self-deploy with is 2,000+ mile ferry range. You can also be certain is can be broken down to fit in a C-17 so damaged aircraft can be flown home. But 99% of the time it'll be flying itself where it needs to go.
I presume you are talking about putting these aircraft in a C-5 or -17. There was no requirement for either of these aircraft to be carried within a cargo aircraft without significant disassembly, and Neither of them do.
As a Vietnam era helicopter pilot, we all knew that Lady Bird Johnson owned significant stock in Bell and that is why the useless Kiowa scout was picked over the much better OH6 Cayuse, a Hughes helicopter that is still preferred by Special Forces everywhere. The Huey and the Cobra were excellent ( but I thought the Cheyenne was better than the Cobra) and made the Johnsons a LOT of money. Sikorsky's are usually better built aircraft which is why the Blackhawk has been such a successful helicopter. The fact that they are not saying why they chose the Bell is troubling- and I guarantee there was a LOT of political pressure to get Bell back into the money
The OH-6 was indeed better. IIRC, on the initial award it looked Hughes bid below cost in order to get in for follow-on buys. Then, when the initial buy was completed Hughes price for follow-ons was dramatically higher. This embarrassed the customer, and if there's one thing you Never do is embarrass the gov't; it's memory is long. Even though it would result in pries higher than what Hughes was asking then no matter who won, a new competition was ordered. Bell had redesigned their buttt-ugly YOH-4 into the Model 206A JetRanger, one of the most beautiful helicopters ever built. They bid a military derivative of what was now essentially a civil design,, Faichild-Hiller declined to rebid their OH-5, which had come in second the previous time around and concentrated on their civil derivative the FH-1100. Bell's design was selected quite posibly because teh gov't wasn't mad at them. The Cheyenne would have more capable than the Cobra, but it kept having development problems and its schedule was continually slipping. With Vietnam going hot and heavy Army just couldn't wait until the uncertain date when it could be fielded. . Air Force lobbying against it didn't help either. So a new competition was held for an interim gunship that could be fielded quickly until Cheyenne could eventually show up, and Bell's model 209 was the clear winner. If Cheyenne had met its schedule there would have been no Cobra, and if it hadn't been canceled there wouldn't have been so many Cobras The reason they didn't give out ll the details of the decision is that they were preparing for the inevitable protest. .
@@tararaboomdiay7442 I agree with most of what you said except for the Bell Jet Ranger- it was underpowered and not well liked. A friend of mine crashed in one due to the weakness of the engine, and he was a quadriplegic after that. Not just him, but others also hated it. On the other hand, unlike the PH6, the Bell Jet Ranger's tail rotor did not dissolve while flying in rain
@@frankdrevinpolicesquad2930 But Bell sold a lot more civil JetRangers than Hughes/MD sold Model 500s. One of the other early OH-58 "unlikables" was the tendency of the tail boom to come over the top of the aircraft in certain kinds of hard landings. BTW, I'm a fan too (more of the TV show than the movies), so as a purist nerd I've got to point out his name was Frank DreBin 😁
Seems to include a transmission to be able to tilt the rotor while leaving the power plant stationary. The more complex a machine, the higher the probability of failure.
Both helicopters have pro’s and cons but as a true, go anyway, fly anywhere, land anywhere utility helicopter for me the Defiant wins hands down. I could see a big market for in it European and Asia theatres of war where wide open space is not a premium.
Choose BOTH...Sikorsky can access smaller area of landing (shown by the clip in the jungle/everglades) and the Bell for speed. Both are going to be useful for different, as well as overlapping, missions. Yes, I understand duplication of support teams, but there is room for both. We certainly already have multiple helicopters for various missions (the Huey, the Apache, the Scout, etc). Just saying...:) ...signed--from a wanabe warrior, but too old at 69!!
The Marine Corps proved the concept as a force multiplier considering we have less troops now, more complicated alliances & base arrangements, and need to get them farther faster now. And in todays battlefield, speed means safety compared to the helicopter that can be a sitting duck for man portables and AA systems. Bell has already proved they can deliver the concept with the Osprey, but also that they have learned the limitations & improved on it. They deserved the contract.
helicopters arnt to be used over AA zones. cant outrun missiles Like the Osprey, the dual engines will be an issue .... and it provides a larger target at the cost of even less relaibility.. if either engine goes so to does the bird
It is clearly the right choice for the army, an airplane is what they need, an airplane with VTOL capabilities and that is that a tilt-rotor aircraft is, a VTOL airplane. Why? because they need to transport troops and equipment, as much and as fast as possible and a Helicopter is just not up for that task, even if it can reach speeds close to that of a subsonic airplane, it will always lack range compared to a tilt-rotor. Why? Because the helicopter uses fuel to stay aloft in addition to the fuel it uses to produce forward motion. An aircraft only needs to use fuel to provide forward motion, the lift part is taken care of by the wind resistance that forward motions causes, by means of its wings. Now there are many use cases where a helicopter is better suited, in some, much better, yet as an army personell and equipment transporter, often needing to fly large distances, fast and non stop, that's where the tilt-rotor shines. What surprises me though is that this hasn't been done a long time ago, for this use-case, the advantages of a tilt-rotor should be obvious for anyone with basic understanding of flight. Cause it is not like Tiltrotors where just invented yesterday, they have been around for quite some time.
You have massively jumped the gun. It was cleared for further development. A standard hurtle that happens several times before a system is actually adopted. In the recent new rifle acquisition, there were several rounds of cleared for further development. The Comanche was cleared for further development too, but you don't see them anywhere. Be patient. It might win, it might not. In layman's terms all that has happened is to announce that the game will advance to the second half.
@@brianmoore1164 It's not a matter of patience, this whole thing is going to take years. It's a matter of they can only afford one, and it would be silly to build both even if they could afford it, and one of the two was more successful in its demonstrations.
@Tara Raboomdiay Maybe, but again I say patience. The actual fielding is planned for 2030. If in 2030 we do not own any Lockheed helicopters I will be happy to admit that I made a mistake. The military has made some horrible mistakes in the past so they are not immune, but for now we either wait, or admit that we are just blowing hot gas. I'll wait.
@@brianmoore1164 It's not that we won't have any Lockheed helicopters. H-60s and H-53s are going to be around for a while, and if X2 starts fully living up to its potential, they may get FARA. I'm just saying that for FLRAA, the choice has been made and given how the two concepts performed in the demonstration, I don't see how having patience will change that.
Crazy thing is that Boeing(Sikorsky) actually pioneered the valor's prop moving instead of the whole nacelle when tiltrotors were first being tested. Bell originally had the whole nacelle moving which is what the v22 went with.
Valor's range and speed are superior. Defiant also ran into a lot of delays while Valor's development was smooth sailing comparatively. The complicated prop system the Defiant uses isn't quite ready yet.
I disagree. The Valor can fly like a helicopter and a traditional twin prop airplane. Guarantee it can fly if one engine were shot out. Definitely can't say the same about helicopters.
@@michaelreedx6823 No it won't any more than an H-60 or CH-47 drops like a stone if it loses an engine. Both rotors keep turning, but performance takes a significant hit.
Not giving reasons because the reason is kickbacks....the company that paid them the most played ball the most and allowed them to embezzle the most won the contract....period...that's what they meant by ( best value)...best value for politicians and generals in charge....
Well that and the V-280 is more mature than the Defiant. Because you know, the Osprey has been flying reliably for 10 years now with like 400 built so Bell could leverage experience from that onto the Valor.
As you are probably aware that all the reasons weren't initially given because of the protest which has now been denied. During the examination it was shown the V-280 performed far better. But their relative performance didn't even have to be disclosed. Sikorsky Boeing didn't provide all the information required for their bid and didn't provide data to validate their price was realistic.
this smells a lot like the decision mechanics between the YF-23 and 22, the wrong one was chosen and was operated a few years only. today everyone goes back to the YF-23 concept. see the f-a/xx concepts. whatever made them decide for the tilt, it was not what was asked for and it is not the aircraft that made the difference.
I love the Valor, but I do have one concern about it. Specifically, it looks relatively fragile, like it wouldn't take all that much small arms fire to bring it down. Or, more precisely, the Valor has greater surface area per unit volume than conventional helicopters do. Its greater surface area makes it a larger target and more difficult to armor well without adding excessive weight.
to me it's easy to see why...the DOD needed to diversify its major projects amongst the defense companies Northrup(B21), Boeing(KC46), Lockheed(F35/others), and Textron(V-280)....Textron also lost out on the small arms contract that the Army just decided on so this probably helped soften the blow
When your aircraft is based on new technology and you are having development problems its no surprise your offering wasn't selected for a major project.
Remember, though: The US Government & common sense aren't always simpatico... Really depends on how much Sikorsky stock is owned by how many politicians. That *is,* after all, how we ended up with the OH-58/Bell Jet Ranger in inventory (when the OH-6 Cayuse/McDonald Douglas Defender series was better-- exactly why our Spec Ops ended up with it). Ladybird Johnson (Lyndon B.'s wife) owned a *lot* of stock in Bell Helicopter... Fwiw
Doubt it, the marines have the V-22. The army is going with the V-280. If another branch chooses a new helo it would most likely be the valor because that would keep costs down and make maintenance cheaper and easier.
We all love that tilt-rotor autorotative capability. I flew H-34s in Vietnam and would not be alive if the rattly old mother had not been good at autos. It took a couple of decades and a stack of coffins to work out the worst bugs in the V-22. The Russian Ka-52 does a pretty good job demonstrating coax capabilities. But U. S. procurement policy prefers the most complicated and unreliable solutions possible. F-35B anyone? And $252 x 10^6 for DATA but nothing we can fly or maybe even physically get a grip on - a thing of beauty.
the gunship variant of v280 would be able to carry a lot of ammunition inside that body, maybe one opening in the body releasing missiles and under or beside the body a machine gun
If it was up to me I would mount a few hellfire missiles on the wings and a 20mm vulcan inside the hull, on the side, in a turret with a thermal sighting system. There are better aircraft for the attack role, this seems better suited to support boots on the ground.
There have been V280 mockups with door mounted plyons for 4 hellfire per side. But more interesting nine Common Launch Tubes per side. That would provide alot of options: Small Guided munition, drones, etc. All the CLT work has already been done on the AC-130.
There's a good deal of assuming that the LZ will be wide enough for this aircraft. Saw a guy with an OH58 put a skid on an NVA bunker and then toss grenades through the MG slit.
Lousy maneuvering, horrible downwash, poor hydraulics, large footprint, high failure rate, useless in close combat. All it has is dash speed because it’s an airplane at its core. The Army will regret this lousy decision. The only reason Bell won this is that they threatened to go out of business if they didn’t get the bid. Epic FAIL!
@@tararaboomdiay7442 nah, clearly you don’t work in the procurement world. I was at Bell Textron when we killed 19 Marines in a V22 tilt rotor flight so I have a much different and insightful view about whether it’s “better” as you say. Plus it simply is not a helicopter and has horrible maneuverability and awful downwash for sling loads.
Huge blow to Connecticut and sikorsky heard rumors day of this announcement many people started to look for new jobs with nearly a 7billion dollar missed opportunity i think there'll be some lay offs
Love the concept, BUT. At least you won't have to worry about leaving a man behind. If this gets shot down, any shootdown by hitting one engine, everyone on board is going down QUICK. There is no auto-rotating, correct? Defiant X may not be revolutionary, but I suggest that is what you want in the field. And yes, arm chair general with nothing but common sense to work off of..... Transport, great. Sea duty, awesome! Front line?
Actually it can probably auto-rotate, with a much lower disk loading than Osprey. Auto-rotation is not considered necessary, as there is a shaft connecting the two rotors, so it can fly on one engine.
@@johnhawkins3507 Yeah, I imagine it can if its just a failure, they even say the two engines are connected, but I am thinking of damage to the nacelle. You shoot at a helicopter, you go through it to get to the engines and most of the props. And hopefully someone shooting is looking to hit the people, but you have two huge 1/2 wings and engines sticking out just begging for a high caliber or RPG round is my concern, if that makes since. You destroy or damage that wing/nacelle, its toast, some things on helicopters are the same, but these...its just way out there begging to be hit. I doubt they have much armor, and from the ground....nothing else between them and a guy with a gun...how big a round penetrates the nacelle in hover mode when its most vulnerable?
@@givemethedaily1052 Bad guys are going to shoot at the fuselage more than they'll shoot at the smaller nacelle. There's also another question to consider. Everyone assumes Defiant-X will autorotate better, but has Sikorsky ever even mentioned autorotation? Seems if they thought that would be a big advantage in their favor, yet they are conspicuously silent on this.
It the old days a plane that was drafted on paper but never put into production was referred to as a, "paper airplane." Way cooler name than "digital airplane."
All cooperating manufacturers and civil servants need to be required to improve their efficiency across the board! Speed up the contracting process and reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and lengthy litigation. This plan was proposed in 2009, tested in 2017, and signed for mass production in 2022. It has been delayed for too long. The entire project, from proposal to full-speed mass production, requires manufacturers to comply with the timeline, which cannot exceed 7 years. If SB-1 adopts fully autonomous driving and corrects the problems, it will also need to be adopted and mass-produced at the same time. With fully autonomous driving, the design architecture can prioritize performance-based innovation over safety.
I would be surprised to see the selection contested, lockheed is a lead on the defiant and is partnered on the V-280, they are making money either way and they will prob get the armed scout award now. Honestly this selection went backwards from what I thought was going to happen I figured Sikorsky would win the uh-60 replacement and bell was going to win the armed scout program, if bell wins both then Sikorsky (lockmart) will have a meltdown.
Can the tilt mechanism every fail?? If it does, then how can it land? The propeller goes far below the bottom of the aircraft. If it tries to land without tilting the propellers up, they will strike the ground and cause a crash, I think. What could the crew do to survive??
In that case it will land just like a regular plane, its just going to do a lot of damage to the aircraft. The rotor strike itself won't kill the crew.
@@t3m3lkov85 I would think the rotor striking the ground could throw the plane out of control, and then crash. But, then, an engine failure on a helicopter is no better.
@@craigkdillon but the Defiant X has 2 engines ,1 for each counter rotating prop, if 1 engine dies at least it could land slowly like a blackhawk without a tail prop but with 1 main prop rotating The tilt rotor has a shaft connected to the other prop so both can work even if 1 engine dies, but if 1 prop gets shredded with enemy fire I think it will really put the vehicle off balance with just 1 prop working on 1 side, I'd say you got more chances to live in the Defiant than in the tilt rotor in very drastic situations
@@MrMrrome 3:12 unlike a plane, the props of the Valor would hit the ground. Could add a button to discard the blades just before landing and glide in.
Defiant X is more refine and modern looking, more sophistacared in look and design, but the only thing I was rooting for is this because simply of the tilt rotors
That thing can't land in urban areas. If it took a hard time for Rangers to land one in Mogandishu then how are they gonna do that with a wide ass Helo?
It might partly be that the Bell represents a known technology; it's an improved version of the Osprey, with various of its problems addressed. Whereas the Defiant is new and untried, or at least not tried here: There's one military having extensive experience with stacked contra-rotors - and it ain't ours. Rather the opposite, in fact.
The Army chose Bell's product as it is simply better. Does everything better. More complicated, yes. But better. Faster, farther, stronger. On an non important point, they both look cool.
I don't think the Valor is more complicated than the Defiant. The Defiant has coaxial lift rotors and a pusher contrarotating prop. 4 rotors instead of two in the Valor.
They never got the sb-1 quite right after they had to resize the s-97 raider while boeing had the same size design through out the competition. However I doubt the v280 will offer more value for less cost than sb1 in the long term. I dont think theyve made a thorough value analysis when taking this decision.
I know looks don't win wars but I think the defiant x is a beautiful machine. Shame that without the US government market there's no way they'll be able to put up a production lime for them.
I sense that when the Bell V-280 enters production, many problems are going to be encountered because of the aircraft’s very sophisticated rotor system
Why not buy both... The traditional tilt rotor design is better for in close tight situations that the bell solution will not be able to support whereas situations requiring more speed and distance of travel would be well suited to Bell... Different horses for different courses...
not giving a real reason why this design over the other program and saying bell has long history supporting military, gives me a bad taste in mouth.
As I told somebody else above, a lot of the time, the aircraft designs chosen by the US military are nearly always heavily influenced by which powerful politicians own stock in which companies... I.e. "Ladybird" Johnson (Lyndon's wife) owning boatloads of Bell stock-- which is why the OH-58/Jet Ranger beat out the Defender series in wide-spread military inventory...
@@jmmartin7766 It's the American Way.
@@craigkdillon Unfortunately for now, it is
It comes down to overall range and top speed. While this replaces the Blackhawk. The S97 Raider (X Defiant little brother) will probably replace the Apache and Little Bird.
maybe but it is too cynical to assume that is always the case. there probably are valid reasons for the choice.
In my opinion, there's one factor that I suspect played a large part in the decision that only a few people have touched on: The relative achievements of the two technologies in the demonstrations.
Bell would announce what they were going to do next and then just go out and do it. In a straightforward manner and didn't parse language when they met or exceeded all the requirements and all of their promises. They did what they said they'd do when they said they would, and except towards the very end thy didn't take snipes at the other guys.
The Defaint (and the S-97, for that matter) were late, would announce an upcoming goal and when it would be demonstrated and then when it wasn't achieved they'd just be silent about it. For example, the Army's schedule for JMR-TD was first flight in 2017, a year's flight demonstrations where the technologies would demonstrate their promised capabilities as they related to Army criteria in 2018, after which Army would spend 2019 evaluating the test data before deciding in 202 which technology to take further into development. Valor flew as scheduled in 2019. They couldn't get Defiant into the air until 2019, and then in a relatively short time they had to ground it for more work before resuming demonstrations. Valor flew its first Army pilot two months after first flight. Defiant took nearly 2 1/2 years. Defiant flew far fewer hours than Valor.
Sikorsky kept saying it was OK because they were providing lots of data from simulations. The thing is, until you actually go out and do the thing for real, there's no way to validate whether your simulations are accurate. For example, Bell could have said the V-280 could do Mach 2 because they did it in simulations. Valor would show high agility in the hover, Sikorsky would brag about their low altitude banks , but leave out the fact that they were moving forward at a good clip, which makes high bank angles easier. They'd talk about their ability to rapidly accelerate after takeoff in a level attitude thanks to the prop, but the videos would show it heading out nose down just like a regular helo. Or, they would announce a new sustained speed achieved, but leave out that it was achieved in a shallow dive. And so on and so forth.
Now my point in this case is not to address the relative performance advantages/disadvantages of the promised capabilities of the two technologies. Defiant, for example, if a production aircraft meets the promises, will HOGE hot and high much better than Bell's promises for Valor (although it will meet the Army's requirement). Valor is faster. What I'm getting at is that if in addition to relative promised performance, they're trying to decide which technology generates more confidence that it'll deliver on its claims, from the demonstrations Valor wins that hands down. Some might say that's because there's less experience with X2 but so what? That's not the taxpayers problem, and it further buttresses the Army's choice.
Army is not going to come right out and say that, they're going to wait for the protest to be heard and then use what happened in the demonstrations as further justification for their choice.
I would still pick the Defiant over the V-22 look alike every time bro 😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😮😮😮😮😮😮🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
if it fails in real world mission tests will they try the sikorksy?
@@theofficialmbc No reason to. That will be years from now, and the Sikorsky didn't do as well in the tests so far and no work would have been done on it since.
One thing Bell smartly did was to get rid of the full-tilting engine nacelle, which proved to cause no end of trouble with the V-22 in terms of both aerodynamics and mechanical reliability. In essence, it went back to the design from the original XV-3 experimental helicopter from the 1950's.
While I wanted it to win you're correct. Footprint and gun placement is definitely the only downsides but the range and speed alone make up for it.
Helicopters are reaching physical limits in both areas. So tilt rotor are the future so better get use to them.
I'm wondering if in the final production version, they'll move the engines in closer to the body, since the whole engine isn't shifting, there doesn't seem to be much point in having all that mass sitting all the way out on the ends of the wings. It would also allow keeping the mechanisms for the rotation of the rotors armored at least against some small arms fire, since as it stands, it looks like when the rotors tilt up, all that is totally exposed
@@dianapennepacker6854 How is gun placement a downside? You can just as easily put door guns on this thing as you can on a Blackhawk, you can mount rocket and gun pods slung under the wings, and/or you can have a chin mounted gun like on an attack helicopter.
The footprint is larger, but not significantly larger, and the ability to carry more troops per aircraft offsets that to an extent
@@pdxmarine1430 Well putting them under the wings makes them only available in hover mode. Not sure how fast it can move with them out of the way.
Yeah I see them using door guns mostly. Still it will have it's arc of fire limited.
I'm only saying it has less options compared to a helicopter.
I don't know if they are planning on a chain mounted gun but that would be great if they did.
Either way I am all for it and believe tilt powered vehicles make the most sense. Way too many advantages as helicopters reach their physical limits in speed and range.
People will look for any reason to hate tilt rotors it seems although they are proven to be JUST as safe. The Valor already can fly on its own without pilot input.
@@dianapennepacker6854 why would guns mounted under the wings be limited to only firing in hover mode? There's nothing preventing any guns under the wings from firing while it's in level flight because interrupters that make sure that props don't get hit by machine gun fire have been a thing since WWI, so shooting through a propeller is not a problem.
The only thing I'd be concerned about is the footprint for an LZ. If anyone has studied Vietnam you'd know that in a jungle environment it is important to fit as many landing zones in a field as possible. This thing is so wide that I can see this being a problem. But I guess it was chosen because the pros outweighed the cons.
So it has the same footprint as the Blackhawk just inverted- the Blackhawks length equal it's width and its width equals the Valors length. There maybe an additional 30ft overall but I'm not too clear on that
Actually its about the same between the two. the dual rotors blades are quite long.
They can always say no to landing somewhere, I am worried about no ability to auto rotate or glide. Hit one side, and won't it flip like a pancake? But you are right, and it seems like they are fighting the last war again, with VERY few trees.
@givemethedaily1052 so the 22 can auto rotate, but it's not trained. It's so heavy that the "cushion" isn't enough. It could still break the frame . Glide slope is non existent. But can still run off one engine to make emergency landing.
not as wide as you think..
The speed of the aircraft gets the attention but two other factors helped the V-280 win. The range, which is a major increase over the UH-60 and better than the SB-1, gives air assault planners all sorts of possibilities in future conflicts. The other selling point is bell and rolls Royce offered the engine on the V-22 to power the aircraft if the engine the army is developing for these aircraft runs into problems or delays (program risk). It was the safer bet for army aviation. I’d still like to see the army acquire the S-97 so they could get the best of both designs.
Great points. I hope they choose the Raider as the scout/attack helicopter.
The S-97 had better lifting capacity.
That did not work out well for LCS ship program V280 is the right choice there is only one thing and I don't think it will be a problem that I see is the foot print besides that V280all day every daye
@@yolo_burrito no it don't v280 can lift more by a mile there is nothing SB beats it at maybe agility that is it
@Rose Vitelli Yeah I'd love to see the V280 flying around the city of Mogadishu..... So much for agility.
The V-280 kicked butt! Exceeded almost every criteria the Army set well before the Defiant was even airborne. The Bell team did an outstanding job! Wish I could be at Rucker when the V-280s arrive in number to inaugurate this leap forward in Army aviation.
I am very surprised Bell won. I thought the defiant would take it. However the idea of having this escorted by Bell V-247 UAV's, seems amazing.
My guess would be the biggest factors is the speed and range. Those are going to be important in the pacific. Also it seems the valor program was going far smoother than the Defiant and the valor was surpassing the milestones set for the program. Frankly, I think either one is a good choice.
@@ameritoast5174 this. No one mentions that the Defiant crashed a ton on its first flights.
@@MFKR696 bri the osprey does not crash as much as the blackhawj bro you just have recency bias because of the news you read go do more research and come back when you jave read it all turns out that the v 280 was better than the defiant x in every metric and that was with the protitype engines not to tlak of its engines which are more powerful when it enters full production which could exceed all army requirements of speed range and weight requirements so bro your arguments are invalid cause of recenvy bias
yeah that too, i'd imagine a fleet of V-280 with infantry doing long-range deployment escorted with autonomous V-247 dropping munitions and launching smaller drones, sounds deadly as hell
@INF1D3L010 and yet the Blackhawks are going to be retired and that design for carry out troop transporting with it.
A very sensible decision. The Tiltrotor has so much longer range, because it is more like an airplane. It has less inside the cabin, because it doesn't need a shaft going to the back. There will be applications where the other design would be superior, but the speed and range is awesome, and the Osprey design has been proven to work. That they would protest the decision is stupid; the mission requirements made the tiltrotor design the obvious choice.
Also no fuel or heavy equipment are above the crew compartment meaning less risk of fires and you can break off the wings in a crash taking away energy with them.
The 280 is based on a proven design the Osprey. The Defiant X is new and unproven. However I believe the coaxial pusher prop may be the future of reconnaissance and attack helicopter.
I was thinking the same thing.
I would not call the Osprey a “proven design”. It’s currently grounded by the USAF. The Offsprey has also killed dozens of Marines in training. I hope the Valor does not follow in the footsteps of the Offsprey.
The Blackhawk had its problems when it first was fielded, it had the dubious moniker of Crash Hawk the blades would separate from the hub. The Defiant is a new design the closest thing ever was the Cheyenne and that was a single main rotor with a pusher prop. Aircraft are subject to the laws of physics. The aviation industry has a perfect record, It has never left one up there.
@@codedlogic The Osprey is safer per flight hour than the blackhawk. Many of the deaths on its first few years was because it turned out the training on it was wrong, and pilots were told to do X in the event of Y, turned out to actually cause crashes, so they had to update the training to correct that
@@pdxmarine1430 What you’re referring to as “event Y” is the transmission slipping causing one rotor to have more power than the other which can easily lead to the aircraft tipping over and crashing. It’s a fundamental design flaw they’ve had to train around. And now it’s grounded indefinitely.
They chose it cos it's a whopping 100 mph faster, and more range. Both are essential characteristics for the military.
The Valor can go twice as far in half the time, and will be the best thing the Army has ever bought
Yep. Speed and range are the biggest differences if you ask me. This is especially true for the Pacific. That being said, I'm definitely not qualified to make the decision.
There's also a full article about mechanics looking at both helicopters and saying that the composite rotor system was extremely hard to work on on the defiant and it looked complicated and that the fixed motors with moving props on The valor or much easier to work on also the defiant crashed and had transmission problems
The army needs both Valor and Defiant.
Would you like to pay more tax for that?
@@ChrisJu3 The needs and cost could be split between the two different platforms. They are very different in the rolls they can fill.
Yes the choose is easy both
I absolutely agree. I mean, the defiant will definitely get a contract somewhere else seeing as it’s the completed design, but the US Army definitely can’t afford to go without one or the other. They are both able to warfare and defence as well as functionality. Both have their abilities and the US Army can’t go without one or the other. They need both, even if one is manufactured more than the other.
@ ZEUS O:. Defiant for Navy, Marines and the Valor for Army and the Air Force.
While "best value" is not the same as most capable, the Army's risk averse position saw potential to build upon Osprey near-commonality and familiarity for maintainers and flight crew. With such a hard Osprey learning curve -and phenomena still struggling to understand- the Army is sensitive to even more unproven tech. It didn't help that Defiant had rotor dev issues while Valor racked-up significant flight time. Also, The Valor also fits better with long range assault payload. There were just so many points to juggle. But, don't cry: The Defiant may yet find some love; the game is not over.
I read recently that the Italian Army was looking at FVL (before Bell's win) as a potential buy, but they favored the "simplicity" of the SB>1. Countries that don't deploy, like in NATO/Europe, wouldnt need the Valor's range so badly. BUT!! Sik/Boe can't even get their copter to fly reliably, it's like coax rotors are an evolutionary dead end. So much for simplicity.
@@Defender78 Coax rotors have existed for decades, as Russia's Kamov choppers have shown.
Still the Defiant is the one closest to a regular helicopter of the two and compound helicopters are way less exotic, also big tiltrotors have a history of development hells and accidents (such as the V-22 and the one from Leonardo).
@@petergray7576 What caused the issues was the composite material being used.
@@Defender78 how is the defiant simpler than the valor? You got 2 coaxial rotors and a pusher prop on a single transmission while the v-280 has 2 identical rotors and engines and a slightly less complex (I am assuming) transmission on the wing, all easily accessible.
The defiant looks so much like a pain in the ass to service when you think about it.
The Valor does not look that much different from a twin engine turboprop, aside the transmission.
This new V-280 ‘s safety is better than old V-22 …….❤❤🎉🎉
C-22 is one of the safest aircraft the navy flies
This is the right choice Bell makes a great helicopter they're also very good at Budget on time no over costs and proven technology over the last decade faster farther easier transport for troops sliding doors fly bye wire plus with new tilt when troops land no wind blowing everything around the air shoots out the back don't have to cover eye's this is all very important for troops to get in the fight much quicker without stress this aircraft is the right choice by far Bell deserves this it must be a great price for to beat out a company like Lockheed with all there connection tells me a whole lot this aircraft is very good 😊👍
What a load of guff.. landing vertically you will now have two vortex rings blowing crap in through the sliding doors, those have been fitted on helicopters since the Westland sycamore.
Defiant is the far better choice for the user and will not bring about overstretch from the support and supply chain.
@@keithavery7087 how can the defiant be a better choice when they haven't even finished putting it together. The fact that Valor is so far ahead of defiant in every testing category should tell you all you need to know. What good is a hellcitoper if the damn thing is either never ready or in the shop all the time?
A bonus for the Army is that this decision can piss off both the Air Force and the Navy. The Air Force as this now lets the Army stick their foot across the line of operating armed fixed wing aircraft, and the Navy as they would probably prefer the Defiant-X (this was a joint evaluation program) due to the horrible experience they are having with the constructive interference downdraft between the rotors of Ospreys making it a nightmare to land tilt rotor aircraft on ships at sea. In the end, both models will likely go to production with the Valor for the Army and the Defiant-X for the Navy.
Good point. I somewhat hope so.
The wing gives valor the edge in efficiency over long range flight
The rotor plane acts as a wing at speed with the pusher configuration. The lift of the Defiant in forward flight is not direct rotor power like a hovering craft.
@@kennethfharkin But it still isn't as efficient as a real wing.
Sikorsky filed a protest.
It's political, the armed services alternate suppliers to keep at least two independent manufacturers working continuously, Blackhawk was Sikorsky/Boeing, they will have work maintaining the Blackhawk into the future, Bell won because if they didn't they would struggle for a future. Politically keeping both suppliers working and keeping voters employed is what counts most, not which is superior when they are both this close.
You nailed it.
Bro check out the specs of the v280 vs the defiant x the v 280 wins in all metrics with prototype engines
Bell is doing quite well in the civila market and is developing new aircraft so they would survive without FLRAA. Sikorsky's Limited presence in the civil market is limited to derivatives of the H-60 (which the S-92 is, BTW).
How is this going to work in Urban warfare with tight buildings
It's really wide
Same applies to jungle or forestry environments
right. makes no sense. the only advantage is forward speed.
pretty sure sikorsky will question the decision as the army defined the concept to be a helicopter and not an airplane.
The decision is most likely not done by best choice but by factors we won't see publicly.
there is another contest for the same needs you talk about. v280 is means to transport cargo and troops fast, and sometimes adding fire supression. its a transport, not an attack helicopter
@@pablo17667140 well, it will be what the blackhawk was. the other contest is for the apache replacement. the debate correctly reflects the defiant vs. valor debates.
Pretty sure Somalia was a hard lesson on why deploying (big) helicopter in contested urban area is a bad idea. If anything, the future tactic will be artillery or airstrikes, then light/shock infantry supported by light scout copters, then finally tanks and APC once the perimeter is secured. Heli landing will be reserved for big open area
the pentagon released the report of the decision. basically sikorsky said it would be $6 billion cheaper than the v280 but provided 0 evidence to support that claim. in basic terms sikorsky disqualified itself because its proposal was incomplete and/or inaccurate
The Army's need for speed and range is easily the top reason why Bell's Valor beat Sikorsky's Defiant. While I'm no tilt-rotor fan, the Osprey has given the services some hard lessons learned in operating this type of aircraft.
Doesn’t make sense you cannot fight fires or do any disaster response It merely moves soldiers faster longer. What about the other missions that the Blackhawk does? You are not sling loading long distances with the rotors in the vertical position. So the Army also has to rebuild all their hangers also because it is a much bigger footprint. This just doesn’t make sense I think the Army needs both platforms.
Bingo
Why can't you fight fires or do disaster response? It meets the Army's requirement for sling load, and should be able to do it as well as Black Hawk (as an aside, V-22 holds world speed record for carrying external load). If you look at Army bases, most helos aren't stored in hangars all the time. V-280 is wider than Defiant (H-60, BTW, is wider than the H-1 it replaced), but so what? It's shorter. More importantly, even acknowledging the greater width, nothing is better than everyone at everything. The choice is, weighing up the pluses and minuses, what gives you the most overall?
My son is a Blackhawk pilot in the Army and is glad he will be retired before the tilt rotor goes operational (if it actually ever does). He’d like to live to enjoy his retirement
When I served in the armed forces, we were always told to remember, your weapons and equipment were made by the lowest bidder. 😁
As a former army aviator I kind of like it better than the Defiant. That thing would have real problems landing in unimproved areas due to the low clearance of the prop on the back. The Bell product on the other hand is going to struggle with crosswinds due to the HUGE sails on the back. Just an arm chair analysis but overall I like the Bell better.
It turns ou that because of the layout of the twin proprotors and the wing Tilt-Rotors are less susceptible to crosswinds than single rotor helicopter.
How to award a no bid contract while making it look like a "contest"
The V-280 definitely does not fit inside the same footprint area or less of a Blackhawk so they just ignored that particular stipulation of the competition for Bell Textron while other competitors abided by it. Aside from that the V-280 isn't even a new platform, it's just a reduced sized V-22 that only angles the propellers instead of the whole wing along with the props and engine nacelles. Another case of a misleading military contract "contest" favoring a pre-existing design because it's already "proven". A tilt-rotor design inherently has major advantages in speed and range over a helicopter. So why did the Army mislead the competitors into thinking they were "replacing" the Blackhawk when clearly they wanted the specific speed and range advantages of a tilt-rotor?
Uh, the wing on the V-22 doesn't rotate, never has. The requirement is "operational footprint", not just be the size of the Black Hawk (which the Defiant isn't either). Army actually lowered the speed requirement to allow for other technologies than Tilt-Rotor. Even so, Defiant never demonstrated its promised speed while Valor exceeded its by 25 knots. The V-280 is no more a reduced sized V-22 than an F-35 is a reduced sized F-15.
its amazing since valor looks wider with it wing but have the similar footprint with blackhawk. how about defiant?
Normal for Army.
Buy the more complex machine. Buy one that can not run on one rotor. Push rotor looks like better design.
I’m sure when the Army kills as many soldiers as Marines in Osprey’s they will figure out its a bad design, especially when one engine looses power.
Jesus boomer, how many times do we need to teach you this lesson old man.
The damn thing can autorotate, so unless the whole nacelle goes flying off the thing will be fine.
US military needs both.
It is hard for me to just look at the and say one is better than the other. I do think the delays in the Defiant X to the competition are a red flag. I think the speed and range of the V-280 came into play plus the lessons learned in the tiltrotor technology for the Osprey. That counter-rotating mechanism on top seemed oversized and over-engineered. The Russians have had the tech fielded for years and we do not see them with any advantage that is a game changer.
Bell is making a revolution again, just as Bell did in the mid-20th century with the UH-1.
Seems like the V-280 would present a huge radar and acoustic target vs. the smaller, nimbler Defiant, but who knows... The X2 tech in the Defiant is clearly the future, which is why it wasn't as far ahead in development. Hopefully X2 will have a better shot as a scout helicopter.
I was thinking, how are they going to land in those small hideaway areas during stealth insertion missions?
Defiant is not small as you believe. It is almost twice as high as blackhawk and longer too. There is no effective use of stealth in helicopter. Helicopter is not safe from anti-aircraft missile no matter how small it is.
Acoustic signature favors the valor. If you ever seen a turboprop up close, you must have noticed that you only really hear them when they are on top of you, the same should be true for the valor in the horizontal rotor configuration.
correction - Defiant is HUGE, look at some images of people standing next to it, it's almost 2x as tall as the UH-60. No way it could have been as nimble as V-280. You may be thinking of the smaller Raider X, which is FARA.
Both aircraft would operate at lower altitudes. The war in Ukraine has proven that low flying aircraft are vulnerable to manpads.
If they operate at higher Altitudes, SAM's can easily target them.
i live near an army aviation field... i just hope the damn thing is quieter. plus... the reason bell got it is because boeing/sikorsky is getting the attack helicopter. got to spread the money around.
No auto-rotate, less nimble (obviously turns slowly and can not move directly left or right), if damaged it seems as if it will not be repairable, It seems to have a bigger footprint on the ground. It seems the army just wants the speed. Not saying that is bad, but they are giving up a lot.
Tilt rotors can auto rotate...
"less nimble (obviously turns slowly and can not move directly left or right)"
...
wrong... do some research man. It has passed the same level 1 handling requirements the Black Hawk had to bass.
"if damaged it seems as if it will not be repairable,"
...
???? based on what?
" It seems to have a bigger footprint on the ground"
...
19% larger footprint while carrying more troops and cargo 3 times the distance and at 2 times the speed...
If the Army was smart they would buy both Bell and Sikorsky systems. The Bell for SF, Rangers and other special force units and Sikorsky for everyone else.
He got a fat under the table check. The army will have to trash the bell eventually and go right back to the Sikorsky
USA , ты лучшая ❗❗❗
Спасибо за помощь Украине ❤
The Bell should awarded 100%
The more I see the bell the more I like it over the competitors. It travels further and faster, it can support more weight and thus more armour. It is more reliable in combat situations, one engine rota failing can be supported by the other, where as the other copter looks like a maintenance nightmare, snd has all the same weaknesses as the black hawk.
It has its drawback I.e. landing diameter and reduced carry space inside. But the positives outweigh..
More reliable and better fuel mileage? Reliability and fuel mileage won’t be accurately known until its really been aggressively tested in real world scenarios.
@stewarthill5878 you do know that it already made thousands of miles for flights before the decision was made AND it hasn't killed any of the testers like the Osprey has. Those are low bars sure but it has already proven it does what it says on the tin.
This design looks to be an eventual regional transport vehicle that will be capable of serving a wider area and carry cargo perfect for areas like Alaska/Yukon.
We need a replacement for the black hawk because we left all of them in Afghanistan.
Today I learned the US forces only had 33 Black Hawks.
@@mad_max21 Dude for real?
Dayum
@@hunormagyar1843 Yeah man, hyperbolic for sure, but not outside the ballpark of the truth.
Question: What's the pilot license type? Rotor Wing? or Fixed One?
what is the price of the v-280 ???
$43 million in 2018 dollars.
As a former active duty serviceman I am wonderig about the survivability of the crew and men on board the aircraft. I have been in several helo crashes and walked away with every one else on board. That happened because the rotor still turned and allowed for a"softer" landing. If the Valor is hit on one of it's ncells won't it just spiral in outting everyone on board at risk? I guess only time will tell but i am abit concerened on that..
I would love to be proven wrong because it IS an amazing aircraft but safety of my men is paramount in my mind. They have enough to deal with in combat with out concern over mode of transport
The engines would be cross shafted just like the osprey, so if one engine gets shot out, the other would power the rotor.
@@kdrapertrucker ok..I figured that would happen but since it's only on one side wouldn't the craft spin? With the center blade on a helo..it turns even without power and slows over a center line..??
It's a lifting wing it can glide
@@bernadmanny drag and lift don’t work like that pal
Good point, tilt rotors do not have a great auto-rotation envelope.
"best value" is creative word for Bribe money.
that's why its sooooo difficult to give an example without getting arrested.
The tilt rotor has less rotating parts and has fewer points of failure seems to me.
It’s a cool solution just hope this new helicopter can be 99% operational ready and maintenance costs are no more than the Blackhawk and lesser trained mechanics can keep it flying
I have a question. How will the Army deploy its divisions while using the Valor. It can’t be easily placed into an aircraft, boat, nor even placed on to a lowboy to be moved In order to do so you would have to first, box the blades and the wings. This is a difficult and long process., measured in days. With the Defiant you just fold the blades back and tie them off; a process which takes just a few minutes. For the Defiant, deploying is a matter of a few minutes work on either end.
I have heard say that the Valor is a tilt-rotor, just like the Osprey, a “proven concept”. I reject this thought out of hand. What the Osprey is: is a Hanger-Queen. It is a very maintenance intensive aircraft. For the Navy this can be made to work. They bring their maintenance assets with them. The Army can’t.
The Army works in a very diffferent world from the Navy. The Navy’s world requires crossing vast stretches of water, where speed is king, and you have all maintenance assets a ship can carry. The Army on the other hand can never break contact with the enemy. Their aviation assets are just a few dozen miles outside of artillery range. They hide under trees and cammo nets, and move their support assets by trucks on unimproved road networks. And then maintain their birds with a few cases of oil, a hand full of tools, and a shockingly small set of spare parts.
It surprises me that the Army would choose an aircraft the will cost them several days more on their deployment time tables, and then will overtax their maintenance capabilities when finally make contact with the enemy.
Duh, how do you deploy it? Fly it there.
One of the main benefits of the tilt-rotor is is ability to self-deploy with is 2,000+ mile ferry range. You can also be certain is can be broken down to fit in a C-17 so damaged aircraft can be flown home. But 99% of the time it'll be flying itself where it needs to go.
I presume you are talking about putting these aircraft in a C-5 or -17. There was no requirement for either of these aircraft to be carried within a cargo aircraft without significant disassembly, and Neither of them do.
As a Vietnam era helicopter pilot, we all knew that Lady Bird Johnson owned significant stock in Bell and that is why the useless Kiowa scout was picked over the much better OH6 Cayuse, a Hughes helicopter that is still preferred by Special Forces everywhere. The Huey and the Cobra were excellent ( but I thought the Cheyenne was better than the Cobra) and made the Johnsons a LOT of money. Sikorsky's are usually better built aircraft which is why the Blackhawk has been such a successful helicopter.
The fact that they are not saying why they chose the Bell is troubling- and I guarantee there was a LOT of political pressure to get Bell back into the money
The OH-6 was indeed better. IIRC, on the initial award it looked Hughes bid below cost in order to get in for follow-on buys. Then, when the initial buy was completed Hughes price for follow-ons was dramatically higher. This embarrassed the customer, and if there's one thing you Never do is embarrass the gov't; it's memory is long. Even though it would result in pries higher than what Hughes was asking then no matter who won, a new competition was ordered. Bell had redesigned their buttt-ugly YOH-4 into the Model 206A JetRanger, one of the most beautiful helicopters ever built. They bid a military derivative of what was now essentially a civil design,, Faichild-Hiller declined to rebid their OH-5, which had come in second the previous time around and concentrated on their civil derivative the FH-1100. Bell's design was selected quite posibly because teh gov't wasn't mad at them.
The Cheyenne would have more capable than the Cobra, but it kept having development problems and its schedule was continually slipping. With Vietnam going hot and heavy Army just couldn't wait until the uncertain date when it could be fielded. . Air Force lobbying against it didn't help either. So a new competition was held for an interim gunship that could be fielded quickly until Cheyenne could eventually show up, and Bell's model 209 was the clear winner. If Cheyenne had met its schedule there would have been no Cobra, and if it hadn't been canceled there wouldn't have been so many Cobras
The reason they didn't give out ll the details of the decision is that they were preparing for the inevitable protest. .
@@tararaboomdiay7442 I agree with most of what you said except for the Bell Jet Ranger- it was underpowered and not well liked. A friend of mine crashed in one due to the weakness of the engine, and he was a quadriplegic after that. Not just him, but others also hated it. On the other hand, unlike the PH6, the Bell Jet Ranger's tail rotor did not dissolve while flying in rain
@@frankdrevinpolicesquad2930 But Bell sold a lot more civil JetRangers than Hughes/MD sold Model 500s. One of the other early OH-58 "unlikables" was the tendency of the tail boom to come over the top of the aircraft in certain kinds of hard landings.
BTW, I'm a fan too (more of the TV show than the movies), so as a purist nerd I've got to point out his name was Frank DreBin 😁
@@tararaboomdiay7442 Leslie was my uncle
@@frankdrevinpolicesquad2930 Wow! Apparently they're going to start production this summer on a Naked Gun reboot with Liam Neeson starring.
A big target! I’d prefer the Defiant from Sikorsky.
Seems to include a transmission to be able to tilt the rotor while leaving the power plant stationary.
The more complex a machine, the higher the probability of failure.
Both helicopters have pro’s and cons but as a true, go anyway, fly anywhere, land anywhere utility helicopter for me the Defiant wins hands down. I could see a big market for in it European and Asia theatres of war where wide open space is not a premium.
The only certainty is that it will take twice as long to come into service and cost 4 times more than originally promised.
Choose BOTH...Sikorsky can access smaller area of landing (shown by the clip in the jungle/everglades) and the Bell for speed. Both are going to be useful for different, as well as overlapping, missions. Yes, I understand duplication of support teams, but there is room for both. We certainly already have multiple helicopters for various missions (the Huey, the Apache, the Scout, etc). Just saying...:) ...signed--from a wanabe warrior, but too old at 69!!
I second this motion!
They have near the same footprint... the valor outperformed the Defiant in nearly all tests and the defiant had multiple issues.
The Marine Corps proved the concept as a force multiplier considering we have less troops now, more complicated alliances & base arrangements, and need to get them farther faster now. And in todays battlefield, speed means safety compared to the helicopter that can be a sitting duck for man portables and AA systems. Bell has already proved they can deliver the concept with the Osprey, but also that they have learned the limitations & improved on it. They deserved the contract.
helicopters arnt to be used over AA zones. cant outrun missiles
Like the Osprey, the dual engines will be an issue .... and it provides a larger target at the cost of even less relaibility.. if either engine goes so to does the bird
It is clearly the right choice for the army, an airplane is what they need, an airplane with VTOL capabilities and that is that a tilt-rotor aircraft is, a VTOL airplane. Why? because they need to transport troops and equipment, as much and as fast as possible and a Helicopter is just not up for that task, even if it can reach speeds close to that of a subsonic airplane, it will always lack range compared to a tilt-rotor. Why? Because the helicopter uses fuel to stay aloft in addition to the fuel it uses to produce forward motion. An aircraft only needs to use fuel to provide forward motion, the lift part is taken care of by the wind resistance that forward motions causes, by means of its wings.
Now there are many use cases where a helicopter is better suited, in some, much better, yet as an army personell and equipment transporter, often needing to fly large distances, fast and non stop, that's where the tilt-rotor shines. What surprises me though is that this hasn't been done a long time ago, for this use-case, the advantages of a tilt-rotor should be obvious for anyone with basic understanding of flight. Cause it is not like Tiltrotors where just invented yesterday, they have been around for quite some time.
"Stingy on details" is code for "got enough kickbacks."
You have massively jumped the gun. It was cleared for further development. A standard hurtle that happens several times before a system is actually adopted. In the recent new rifle acquisition, there were several rounds of cleared for further development. The Comanche was cleared for further development too, but you don't see them anywhere. Be patient. It might win, it might not. In layman's terms all that has happened is to announce that the game will advance to the second half.
But only one team gets to advance.
@Tara Raboomdiay Apparently the human race is no longer capable of patience. I guess that means I have a superhuman power now.
@@brianmoore1164 It's not a matter of patience, this whole thing is going to take years. It's a matter of they can only afford one, and it would be silly to build both even if they could afford it, and one of the two was more successful in its demonstrations.
@Tara Raboomdiay Maybe, but again I say patience. The actual fielding is planned for 2030. If in 2030 we do not own any Lockheed helicopters I will be happy to admit that I made a mistake. The military has made some horrible mistakes in the past so they are not immune, but for now we either wait, or admit that we are just blowing hot gas. I'll wait.
@@brianmoore1164 It's not that we won't have any Lockheed helicopters. H-60s and H-53s are going to be around for a while, and if X2 starts fully living up to its potential, they may get FARA. I'm just saying that for FLRAA, the choice has been made and given how the two concepts performed in the demonstration, I don't see how having patience will change that.
Good day thanks for the support and help 🙂
Crazy thing is that Boeing(Sikorsky) actually pioneered the valor's prop moving instead of the whole nacelle when tiltrotors were first being tested. Bell originally had the whole nacelle moving which is what the v22 went with.
Boeing proposed burying twin engines in the fuselage for the competition for the XV-15, which they lost.
well now i know who has the best lobbying strength
The capabilities of the Defiant were so overwhelming, the Army did not have anyone qualified to evaluate it.
Doubt
Plenty of pockets were evaluated for cash and who feed the pigs in the trough the best.
Valor's range and speed are superior. Defiant also ran into a lot of delays while Valor's development was smooth sailing comparatively. The complicated prop system the Defiant uses isn't quite ready yet.
Defiant didn't even meet all the claims made for it, let alone "overwhelm" anything.
Because the fix was in! Kick backs anyone?
Seems to me that any battle damage to one the Valor’s engines will result in a catastrophic total loss of the aircraft.
I disagree. The Valor can fly like a helicopter and a traditional twin prop airplane. Guarantee it can fly if one engine were shot out. Definitely can't say the same about helicopters.
@@thynysan In vtol this thing will drop like a stone if it loses one engine.
@@michaelreedx6823 No it won't any more than an H-60 or CH-47 drops like a stone if it loses an engine. Both rotors keep turning, but performance takes a significant hit.
Answer... Bell paid more for the win
Not giving reasons because the reason is kickbacks....the company that paid them the most played ball the most and allowed them to embezzle the most won the contract....period...that's what they meant by ( best value)...best value for politicians and generals in charge....
Well that and the V-280 is more mature than the Defiant. Because you know, the Osprey has been flying reliably for 10 years now with like 400 built so Bell could leverage experience from that onto the Valor.
As you are probably aware that all the reasons weren't initially given because of the protest which has now been denied. During the examination it was shown the V-280 performed far better. But their relative performance didn't even have to be disclosed. Sikorsky Boeing didn't provide all the information required for their bid and didn't provide data to validate their price was realistic.
It must be very good to beat such strong competition!
this smells a lot like the decision mechanics between the YF-23 and 22, the wrong one was chosen and was operated a few years only. today everyone goes back to the YF-23 concept. see the f-a/xx concepts. whatever made them decide for the tilt, it was not what was asked for and it is not the aircraft that made the difference.
I love the Valor, but I do have one concern about it. Specifically, it looks relatively fragile, like it wouldn't take all that much small arms fire to bring it down. Or, more precisely, the Valor has greater surface area per unit volume than conventional helicopters do. Its greater surface area makes it a larger target and more difficult to armor well without adding excessive weight.
to me it's easy to see why...the DOD needed to diversify its major projects amongst the defense companies Northrup(B21), Boeing(KC46), Lockheed(F35/others), and Textron(V-280)....Textron also lost out on the small arms contract that the Army just decided on so this probably helped soften the blow
Or it could have been their product is both better and so much farther ahead with actual data to judge it by made the difference 🤔
@@Bigmojojo it's not a better product.
When your aircraft is based on new technology and you are having development problems its no surprise your offering wasn't selected for a major project.
One of the other services should go with the Sikorski helo to have both capabilities in the DoD inventory.
Remember, though: The US Government & common sense aren't always simpatico... Really depends on how much Sikorsky stock is owned by how many politicians. That *is,* after all, how we ended up with the OH-58/Bell Jet Ranger in inventory (when the OH-6 Cayuse/McDonald Douglas Defender series was better-- exactly why our Spec Ops ended up with it). Ladybird Johnson (Lyndon B.'s wife) owned a *lot* of stock in Bell Helicopter... Fwiw
Doubt it, the marines have the V-22. The army is going with the V-280. If another branch chooses a new helo it would most likely be the valor because that would keep costs down and make maintenance cheaper and easier.
We all love that tilt-rotor autorotative capability. I flew H-34s in Vietnam and would not be alive if the rattly old mother had not been good at autos. It took a couple of decades and a stack of coffins to work out the worst bugs in the V-22. The Russian Ka-52 does a pretty good job demonstrating coax capabilities. But U. S. procurement policy prefers the most complicated and unreliable solutions possible. F-35B anyone? And $252 x 10^6 for DATA but nothing we can fly or maybe even physically get a grip on - a thing of beauty.
the gunship variant of v280 would be able to carry a lot of ammunition inside that body,
maybe one opening in the body releasing missiles
and under or beside the body a machine gun
If it was up to me I would mount a few hellfire missiles on the wings and a 20mm vulcan inside the hull, on the side, in a turret with a thermal sighting system.
There are better aircraft for the attack role, this seems better suited to support boots on the ground.
There have been V280 mockups with door mounted plyons for 4 hellfire per side. But more interesting nine Common Launch Tubes per side. That would provide alot of options: Small Guided munition, drones, etc. All the CLT work has already been done on the AC-130.
There's a good deal of assuming that the LZ will be wide enough for this aircraft. Saw a guy with an OH58 put a skid on an NVA bunker and then toss grenades through the MG slit.
Lousy maneuvering, horrible downwash, poor hydraulics, large footprint, high failure rate, useless in close combat. All it has is dash speed because it’s an airplane at its core. The Army will regret this lousy decision. The only reason Bell won this is that they threatened to go out of business if they didn’t get the bid. Epic FAIL!
You sound like one of trumps tweets😂 even down to the CAPITALIZED FINAL WORD
Bell will do fine without FLRAA, but they'll do butte with. They have a large civil base.
@@tararaboomdiay7442 that’s not what they were whining about publicly during the competition
@@Michael02703 What whining? Their demonstration spoke for itself, and it was Much better.
@@tararaboomdiay7442 nah, clearly you don’t work in the procurement world. I was at Bell Textron when we killed 19 Marines in a V22 tilt rotor flight so I have a much different and insightful view about whether it’s “better” as you say. Plus it simply is not a helicopter and has horrible maneuverability and awful downwash for sling loads.
Huge blow to Connecticut and sikorsky heard rumors day of this announcement many people started to look for new jobs with nearly a 7billion dollar missed opportunity i think there'll be some lay offs
Love the concept, BUT. At least you won't have to worry about leaving a man behind. If this gets shot down, any shootdown by hitting one engine, everyone on board is going down QUICK. There is no auto-rotating, correct? Defiant X may not be revolutionary, but I suggest that is what you want in the field. And yes, arm chair general with nothing but common sense to work off of..... Transport, great. Sea duty, awesome! Front line?
Actually it can probably auto-rotate, with a much lower disk loading than Osprey. Auto-rotation is not considered necessary, as there is a shaft connecting the two rotors, so it can fly on one engine.
@@johnhawkins3507 Yeah, I imagine it can if its just a failure, they even say the two engines are connected, but I am thinking of damage to the nacelle. You shoot at a helicopter, you go through it to get to the engines and most of the props. And hopefully someone shooting is looking to hit the people, but you have two huge 1/2 wings and engines sticking out just begging for a high caliber or RPG round is my concern, if that makes since. You destroy or damage that wing/nacelle, its toast, some things on helicopters are the same, but these...its just way out there begging to be hit. I doubt they have much armor, and from the ground....nothing else between them and a guy with a gun...how big a round penetrates the nacelle in hover mode when its most vulnerable?
@@givemethedaily1052 Bad guys are going to shoot at the fuselage more than they'll shoot at the smaller nacelle. There's also another question to consider. Everyone assumes Defiant-X will autorotate better, but has Sikorsky ever even mentioned autorotation? Seems if they thought that would be a big advantage in their favor, yet they are conspicuously silent on this.
It the old days a plane that was drafted on paper but never put into production was referred to as a, "paper airplane." Way cooler name than "digital airplane."
All cooperating manufacturers and civil servants need to be required to improve their efficiency across the board! Speed up the contracting process and reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and lengthy litigation.
This plan was proposed in 2009, tested in 2017, and signed for mass production in 2022. It has been delayed for too long. The entire project, from proposal to full-speed mass production, requires manufacturers to comply with the timeline, which cannot exceed 7 years.
If SB-1 adopts fully autonomous driving and corrects the problems, it will also need to be adopted and mass-produced at the same time. With fully autonomous driving, the design architecture can prioritize performance-based innovation over safety.
I would be surprised to see the selection contested, lockheed is a lead on the defiant and is partnered on the V-280, they are making money either way and they will prob get the armed scout award now. Honestly this selection went backwards from what I thought was going to happen I figured Sikorsky would win the uh-60 replacement and bell was going to win the armed scout program, if bell wins both then Sikorsky (lockmart) will have a meltdown.
Vay raide97 loi:that lang phi: hoaky nen chon raide97 tan cong
Valor looks transport first then multirole, Defiant looks assault first then multirole.
Can the tilt mechanism every fail??
If it does, then how can it land? The propeller goes far below the bottom of the aircraft.
If it tries to land without tilting the propellers up, they will strike the ground and cause a crash, I think.
What could the crew do to survive??
In that case it will land just like a regular plane, its just going to do a lot of damage to the aircraft. The rotor strike itself won't kill the crew.
@@t3m3lkov85 I would think the rotor striking the ground could throw the plane out of control, and then crash.
But, then, an engine failure on a helicopter is no better.
@@craigkdillon but the Defiant X has 2 engines ,1 for each counter rotating prop, if 1 engine dies at least it could land slowly like a blackhawk without a tail prop but with 1 main prop rotating
The tilt rotor has a shaft connected to the other prop so both can work even if 1 engine dies, but if 1 prop gets shredded with enemy fire I think it will really put the vehicle off balance with just 1 prop working on 1 side, I'd say you got more chances to live in the Defiant than in the tilt rotor in very drastic situations
Craig Dillon Look up videos of any twin engine prop plane landing with its gear up.
It's not going to flip and roll across the ground/ kill the crew.
@@MrMrrome 3:12 unlike a plane, the props of the Valor would hit the ground.
Could add a button to discard the blades just before landing and glide in.
Defiant X is more refine and modern looking, more sophistacared in look and design, but the only thing I was rooting for is this because simply of the tilt rotors
Not sure how much disassembly is required for the Sikorsky Defiant but for transport in a cargo plane,its static vertical height looks like a problem.
well the bigger problem it has is the transmission and engine do not work well together over long periods of time.
That thing can't land in urban areas. If it took a hard time for Rangers to land one in Mogandishu then how are they gonna do that with a wide ass Helo?
@@DOI_ARTS cuz the wide ass helo is more wide than long. It has the same footprint as the Blackhawk just inverted
I mean there’s no real reason to load it for cargo when it is capable of making those long journeys by itself. Kind of a reason they’re picking it.
@@JrOfficerJet
Rapid deployment overseas scenario comes to mind.
I think we should have both, they complement each other.
They will spend additional billions to make sure the Bell works for them and no mistake was made. It will be hilarious.
It might partly be that the Bell represents a known technology; it's an improved version of the Osprey, with various of its problems addressed. Whereas the Defiant is new and untried, or at least not tried here: There's one military having extensive experience with stacked contra-rotors - and it ain't ours. Rather the opposite, in fact.
The Army chose Bell's product as it is simply better. Does everything better. More complicated, yes. But better. Faster, farther, stronger. On an non important point, they both look cool.
I don't think the Valor is more complicated than the Defiant. The Defiant has coaxial lift rotors and a pusher contrarotating prop. 4 rotors instead of two in the Valor.
I am glad its a done deal, better ride.@@andyharman3022
Both airframes should have been used., to reduce dependence of one supplier in the future.
4:33 blurred out the pod internals
4:52 same mechanisms not blurred anymore?
it is not a final design... just look up how the X-35 looked and the finished F-35 after
Defiant X looks like a superior design. Lets hope the V-280 doesn't end up killing like the Osprey.
Osprey does a completely different role... the Valor also outperformed the Defiant in nearly all metrics.
They never got the sb-1 quite right after they had to resize the s-97 raider while boeing had the same size design through out the competition. However I doubt the v280 will offer more value for less cost than sb1 in the long term. I dont think theyve made a thorough value analysis when taking this decision.
I know looks don't win wars but I think the defiant x is a beautiful machine. Shame that without the US government market there's no way they'll be able to put up a production lime for them.
I sense that when the Bell V-280 enters production, many problems are going to be encountered because of the aircraft’s very sophisticated rotor system
It’s a lot more simple than the v22
It is very simplified compared to the V22 Osprey.
Why not buy both... The traditional tilt rotor design is better for in close tight situations that the bell solution will not be able to support whereas situations requiring more speed and distance of travel would be well suited to Bell... Different horses for different courses...
All it needs is fuel efficiency for long-range traveling troops
In regards to footprint, perhaps the wings can rotate to align with the body in mid-air when landing in tight spaces.
The best and right choice