Army replacing UH-60 Blackhawk w/ tilt rotor

[Caballoflaco]

ETA - *maybe* the Army is saying this because they view the tilt rotor as a “loophole” to obtain an CAS fixed wing aircraft?

Where do you attach the ordnance so you aren’t trying to launch rockets/missles through the rotors while in airplane mode?

Question for @TOTS and @Basher and any other Heli pilots I might have missed. Which platform (heli/tilt rotor) would you prefer to be in for the stupidly low below treetop flying in the fields that we’re seeing both Russia and Ukraine do when they’re operating in contested air space?

[DDTSGM]

Hopefully its deployment goes better than the crashhawk.

I happened to be at Ft Campbell shortly after the UH-60 was placed into service. Folks were calling it the warrant officer killer.

[Basher]

[/B]

Where do you attach the ordnance so you aren’t trying to launch rockets/missles through the rotors while in airplane mode?

Question for @TOTS and @Basher and any other Heli pilots I might have missed. Which platform (heli/tilt rotor) would you prefer to be in for the stupidly low below treetop flying in the fields that we’re seeing both Russia and Ukraine do when they’re operating in contested air space?

Me? Traditional heli. As @TOTS pointed out, a traditional heli will be MUCH more maneuverable at low and slow type of stuff. And while helicopters have a Height/Velocity curve (graph that depicts airspeed/altitude combos that are difficult to successfully autorotate from) to contend with, I’d much rather suffer an engine failure at low ALT/IAS combos in a heli than in a tilt-rotor, based on what I know about them (which is only what I’ve read/heard, so it ain’t worth much).

Like TOTS said, they have some great benefits, but at present I agree with him that they’re a poor replacement for an actual heli as they presently sit.

[Bolt_Overide]

I happened to be at Ft Campbell shortly after the UH-60 was placed into service. Folks were calling it the warrant officer killer.

I was at Bragg at the time, had a friend in 187 who was involved in one of the first stabilator crashes, he is still having back and neck issues.

[Trigger]

TOTS, appreciate your insight on tilt-rotor vs conventional helo in the Army, MAGTF, SOF missions. Can you comment on the co-axial helo and whether it would equal the mission capability of a conventional helo, and exceed it where needed? Seems like the Tilt Rotor is an airplane that can do a little helo work, where as the coax is a helo that can do a little airplane work. I’m not sure where the best trade off lies.

[Suvorov]

[/B]

Where do you attach the ordnance so you aren’t trying to launch rockets/missles through the rotors while in airplane mode?

Question for @TOTS and @Basher and any other Heli pilots I might have missed. Which platform (heli/tilt rotor) would you prefer to be in for the stupidly low below treetop flying in the fields that we’re seeing both Russia and Ukraine do when they’re operating in contested air space?

A good question. Maybe they could have a pop out missile launcher like Airwolf had and the cabin can be one big magazine?

[JRB]

I will say that the MV-22 Osprey integrated into a SP-MAGTF-CRF is a huge capability improvement to support my organization. The fact that a few well placed SP-MAGTF-CRFs can cover the significant chunk of our crisis locations is pretty game changing, and it's specifically due to the MV-22. @JRB knows what I'm talking about, given we were both in the same part of the world around early January 2020.

Or, maybe now we'll press the emergency button and instead get a few barebones squads in the cheesedick V-280 that due to the lack of capacity versus the MV-22 lack any heavy weapons and can barely even pack their own food for a week, compared to the same number of MV-22s landing a small contingent of Marines that is heavily equipped enough to operate for 30 days and have combat overmatch on 3/4s of the worlds entire militaries. A pair of V-280s can't even deliver me the split-platoon FAST element that I've worked with previously.

Absolutely - basically every single MSR in Iraq went black the instant that depraved asshole assumed room temperature. That makes logistics dweebs like me really freakin' nervous. A whole lot of allied forces were basically cut off from all forms of support for several weeks. Syria was already spicy by that time and it only made everything we were supporting out there that much harder.
Where the Osprey fit in there wasn't just its abilities in 'time:now' force projection, but an Osprey can move a worthwhile amount of logistics into some sketchy places with a quickness, and get a lot of people and stuff the hell out of there on the return flight.

[cmoore]

I can understand the Army wanting increased speed and range beyond the Blackhawk. But, what's their rationale for not going with the Osprey if a tilt-rotor is OK?

The answer to this question will directly impact funding potential for this new aircraft.

[LittleLebowski]

What do you want to bet that development and acquisition don’t go as planned, and they end up buying both down the road. The coaxial design has a lot of advantages when doing vertical helicopter stuff. The tilt rotor has advantages when doing horizontal airplane stuff.

Yup.

[Half Moon]

I can understand the Army wanting increased speed and range beyond the Blackhawk. But, what's their rationale for not going with the Osprey if a tilt-rotor is OK?

The answer to this question will directly impact funding potential for this new aircraft.

From what I've read, compared versus the Osprey, lower per unit cost, easier maintenance, longer range, lower weight, and a slightly smaller footprint.