* Tiltrotor design, similar in principle to the V-22 Osprey but mechanically much less complicated than the Osprey mechanism, and more stable due to lower disk loading
* Current max speed of 345mph
* Current max range of 2,400 miles
* Capable of unmanned flight
* Helmet allows the pilot to see through the body of the aircraft using AR
A touch screen? I'd think something tactile would be better. As a driver, I hate my touch screen radio because I have to look at what I'm touching and avoid accidental contact.
Since the introduction in the early 2000s of the so-called "glass cockpit" the current norm is multi-function displays surrounded with "soft buttons" whose functions change depending on the currently-displayed screen. In practice there's not much benefit to this over a touchscreen, since you have to verify the button you're about to press is currently set to the function you want. Since the touchscreen has fewer moving parts, I'd wager the maintenance and production costs are much lower.
Turbulence too. With a flat surface, there's no way to anchor to a physical point before pressing. With buttons, there's tactile feedback so you can keep your finger on the button through turbulence until you're certain it's the one you want to press.
My experience even in older cars (where bumps more likely affect your control efforts) is that you also need fixed perches near the important controls. Then, you can rest part of your hand on this perch while aiming fingers to the controls.
I think avionics soft buttons are usually arranged this way, and one can imagine similar touch interfaces that would focus on the edges of screens with robust bezels of some kind.
Your body and arm might be shifting around due to the shaking of the cabin. Your hand is stabilized relative to the buttons or knobs near the perch, so you can aim precisely.
What you don't want under shaky situations are controls way out in the middle of a field of controls where you need to aim precisely and have no perch for your hand. Even worse would be the kind of consumer touch UX with drag or other gestures where you could accidentally input some high magnitude command because a cabin movement pushed your free-aiming hand across the screen...
I don't have to imagine, since I have flown these and similar aircraft. It really does not make a difference. I prefer a mechanical cockpit, but the choice between MFDs and touchscreens is not much of a choice. There are so many buttons on MFDs that you don't really operate by feel.
I would agree if the choice were between mechanical cockpits and either of the other two, but that's not the choice at hand, since most Blackhawks were upgraded to MFDs year and years ago, to the point anyone flying in the military today would be nearing retirement if they had much experience in the original cockpits.
Wasn't really very surprising when this happened. The V-280 demonstrator was running laps around the competing program (the SB-1 Defiant) in pretty much every category the army really cared about. Tiltrotors let you fly dramatically further, dramatically faster than conventional helicopters, and on top of all of that the actual technical maturity of Bell's prototype was light years beyond what Sikorsky managed with the SB-1, getting eventually retired only because they basically ran out of things to test.
The SB-1 had constant issues due to the requirements of the program. Making a helicopter go that fast introduces a lot of complexity, to the point that the SB-1 was really not any less complex than the V-280. Essentially its only winning points were in better hover performance and a slightly smaller footprint but those weren't enough to justify having dramatically slower speed and half the range for an aircraft whose main purpose is to act as a transport.
FWIW, I read stories about it at the time (interested in the technology, not Pentagon contracting competitions). What I read before the announcement thought the outcome was unknown, and nobody before or after presented it as lopsided. Certainly I didn't read everything, so YMMV.
I believe that this is ultimately supposed to replace not just the Black Hawk but the Army's Apache and Marine Corps' Cobra too. I recently had a conversation with a Marine Corps Cobra pilot who had real concerns about the configuration that a tiltrotor needs to be in when employing weapons.
Not the case. I don't think there's any plans to replace the Apache, but the closest thing would be the FARA program which hasn't selected a winner yet.
There is a little bit of controversy though about the fact that none of the other existing or proposed rotorcraft would be able to keep up with the V-280 (for escort duties), so probably they will be attaching some weapons to the thing. But it's definitely not intended to be a dedicated attack helicopter.
I've been trying to find where I read this, and I can't, so I think you're correct. Maybe I was confused by some stuff that was just Bell and Sikorsky marketing material about their attack / recon variants.
I'm thinking about the lack of an aerial escort with comparable speed and range for the Army. The Marine Corps, at least, has the F-35. It might not actually be necessary for the Army with UAS and long-range precision fires that could see the route / objective area and hit targets ahead of the Valor's arrival.
"The story does not necessarily end with the Army's decision. Lockheed Martin, which owns Sikorsky could very well protest the decision, which will put the entire program on hold at least for 100 days while the Government Accountability Office weighs its counterargument."
And this is the screwed-up state of DoD procurement in 2024 . . .
"put the entire program on hold at least for 100 days"
I don't think the wording here is quite right. The GAO has 100 days to decide if the protest is valid or not. If it is valid, then the program could be on hold for longer. The GAO could decide day 1 "nope, your protest is not valid" (they won't). Most likely it will be closer to 100 days of the program on hold, but it shouldn't be "at least 100 days".
But it also just any government procurement in general, where a protest is par for the course. Common amongst any large NASA procurement as well:
It is also happens often because even if a company doesn't think they have a valid protest the government will have to release more details of the proposals and so it is often used as a way to gain business intel.
Defiant was one of those rare projects where Lockheed and Boeing were teamed up, which helped the program not at all. The Valor had a laser-focus, by comparison. I had the good fortune to have a tiny toe in both programs.
"But wait," I hear you ask, "why didn't Boeing supply a design of their own? Don't they make the CH-47"
Well . . that's a long story, but the short version is that the 47 was designed a long, long time ago, and it's a Vertol design, not Boeing. Editorial warning, but I'm not sure Boeing has the ability to design a whole lot, these days.
I think that's either wrong or outdated, they're aiming for the first ones to be in service by the end of 2030. But of course it will take years (probably a decade) to replace the entire fleet.
This has been a mildy controversial decision, and I was initially concerned that the Valor was the wrong choice, but I've convinced myself over the past year that it wasn't.
In the mid-2000s, the Army decided to cancel the technologically revolutionary, expensive, and long-delayed RAH-66 and Congress allowed it to reinvest the RAH-66 money into known quantities like UH-60, CH-47, and AH-64 instead. We got whole new fleets of those aircraft with upgraded capabilities, and then we all saw how they were reliable workhorses over the last 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think that choosing the Valor reflects this lesson-learned. The Defiant was the riskier new technology while Bell's tiltrotor design is more mature after many years of feedback and optimization from V-22 operations. If we actually want to get something out of this program, the right decision is probably to "not let perfect be the enemy of good." The more mature design is probably going to be the safer one for aircrews and troops, the easier one to maintain, etc.
My remaining disappointment is that the Defiant reportedly had better hover power under high and hot conditions which is what we really needed in Afghanistan. The CH-47's much greater hover power compared to the UH-60 turned the CH-47 into the preferred (sometimes only) platform for air assaults and everything else. I wonder if we could have done very well by just continuing to iterate on and build more CH-47s to replace some or all of the UH-60s in our assault helicopter battalions.
> In the mid-2000s, the Army decided to cancel the technologically revolutionary, expensive, and long-delayed RAH-66 and Congress allowed it to reinvest the RAH-66 money into known quantities like UH-60, CH-47, and AH-64 instead. We got whole new fleets of those aircraft with upgraded capabilities, and then we all saw how they were reliable workhorses over the last 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think that choosing the Valor reflects this lesson-learned. ... If we actually want to get something out of this program, the right decision is probably to "not let perfect be the enemy of good." ...
That seems to be the Department of Defense's general approach these days, but I wonder if they are just fighting the last war. Against forces that are already massively outgunned, such as ISIL or the Taliban who generally had only rifles, explosives, and RPGs, improving technology generally doesn't help. Against 'near-peer' foes (the euphemism for China), it may pay to invest in the truly exceptional, ground-breaking technology - you don't want your ship or city defended by good-enough, economical fighters and anti-air; you want to see some X-wing fighters up there shooting lasers at their old turbine and missile buggies; you want what stealth bombers looked like next to the Soviet fleet.
That said, tilt-rotors are still a big step forward from standard helicopters.
With the obvious caveat that if there ever actually is a shooting war with China on one side and the US on the other then the whole world is in serious trouble and there are no good options:
I am not sure that having superior technology is critical to winning wars against "peer" competitors. The last time there was a full out peer-competitor bleeding edge war between major powers (World War Two) the side that invested in a few wonderwaffen that were supposed to eviscerate their larger number of enemies lost, and the side that invested in a lot of pretty good weapons and most importantly, the logistics and reliability to have these pretty good weapons actually show up at the battlefront won the war. It's hard to directly translate this into modern terms, but I would say that a few pieces of "exceptional, ground-breaking technology" wasn't what decided World War Two, so why do you think it would decide this hypothetical war?
Good points, especially about the extremely hypothetical nature of these issues, though I'm not suggesting better technology to the exclusion of logistics.
As a counterpoint, NATOs strategy in the Cold War was to 'offset' superior Soviet numbers by having better technology - first by having more nuclear weapons, then by using the superior technology of precision munitions and the associated global navigation and sensor network (so the munitions can track their own position and locate their targets) as demonstrated in the Gulf War.
But by far the most important point:
> With the obvious caveat that if there ever actually is a shooting war with China on one side and the US on the other then the whole world is in serious trouble and there are no good options:
I think about that, and I never heard it said (so thanks): At the end of WWII, the leaders of the combatants thought that future large-scale war must be prevented because the improving technology would wipe out civilization, thus they created the UN, (proto-)EU, etc. That was 80 years ago.
A war with China may very well include, for example, missiles hitting San Francisco, LA, SD, Seattle. Even if the US won, it would lose badly.
> A war with China may very well include, for example, missiles hitting San Francisco, LA, SD, Seattle. Even if the US won, it would lose badly.
This is how ALL wars are, and I can say this confidently as a combat veteran from Operation Iraqi Freedom II. When you fight in a war, you always lose a small bit of yourself. There is no turning back. When someone in either side is injured or especially dies, both sides permanently lose.
The thing about war many civilians never seem to understand is that one side loses less, but both sides still lose. If this was untrue, we would not have such a high number of homeless veterans or veterans who commit suicide.
Personally, I know of six soldiers I deployed to Iraq with who have committed suicide over the past 20 years (OIF II was ~2003-2004). No one ever wants to talk about these things in polite company, but you can never take these things back. War is hell.
Hey - you are right and I should have included that essential point. I was focused on other issues, but the whole thing makes me angry.
The all-volunteer, professional US military, for all its advantages, loses civilian familiarity with the realities of the military and warfare - people seem to know Call of Duty, where killing is like shooting baskets.
When I see people glorify the military, soldiers and warfare, or talk about it like a sporting event ('win' and 'lose' (my bad) should be banned from the discussion of warfare) I feel very uneasy: First, people have those extreme, romantic conceptions of things they don't understand; when there was universal conscription, the military was a stand-in for bureaucratic absurdity (e.g., Gomer Pyle, MASH, expressions like FUBAR and SNAFU), not glorification; war veterans generally (IME) are not war mongers. Also, I feel a little queasy; I think, 'it creates (intentionally, in the hands of some public figures) the public mindset that makes it easier'. And finally - again, maybe intentionally for some, maybe subconsciously for many - it shuts down the actual experiences of veterans; it makes clear that there is only space for the 'glorious' version of warfare and anything else is almost antisocial. Finally, it all lets people put warfare on the back burner, which IMHO is how Afghanistan and Iraq lasted so long.
My (very amateur) policy idea is that the US should bring back universal conscription but only for the reserves (and no exceptions, as a hard and fast rule). Sure, it's not as optimal as volunteers, former active duty, etc. But then there would be real skin in the game for everyone, and everyone's families and friends. They'd understand the military, and what warfare was about. I hope no more hyping war with China (or Iran!).
I'm very sorry about your friends and for what you lost. We need to do far better with how seriously we take warfare and how we treat soldiers when they come home. It's really absurd. Thanks for sharing your experience.
> ...talk about it like a sporting event ('win' and 'lose' (my bad) should be banned from the discussion of warfare)...
To be fair, the Army's own foundational doctrinal publication - ADP 1 - uses the word "win" very prominently. The second-to-last line of the Foreword by Chief of Staff says, "The fundamental role of the American Soldier today is the same as it was over 244 years ago—to win." It goes on from there. So don't feel bad.
As someone who deployed to combat myself, and who has known many who died there and since that time from suicide, my biggest complaint is that it didn't feel like we (as a nation) were really trying to "win." We were just going back again and again to "do our time," which made dying there seem especially pointless.
I noticed that the US military picked up the hot cultural and management-speak of 'winners' and 'winning' etc., whatever that means - business is usually optimizing a both-sides-benefit scenario; when I sell my client some IT thing, I hope that I, the client, my subcontractor, the manufacturer, etc. all do well from it. You can see its absurdity in sports, where 'winning' even makes some sense, when I see them talk about a prospect, 'first, they're a winner' - you mean they played for the school that's won 5 national titles in 10 years, with or without them? Is there a better player at a bad school that you're purposely overlooking for this ambiguous BS?
But I was a bit disturbed to see ads for the US Marine Corps over the last few years. The Marines used to talk about, "First to fight for right and freedom / And to keep our honor clean". The ad taglines had been 'for honor, for country, etc.' - something bigger than the individual, a higher cause. Then the taglines became 'Marines fight to win'. Win what? It's almost aggressive amorality (which I think is the message of the management-speak, 'that's all we care about'). Perhaps appropriately, given your and many other experiences, nobody is thinking that far. Also, it seems much less motivating than fighting for freedom, etc., as you say.
That's the root of it, of course. Everybody who went to Afghanistan or Iraq, after the first wave, knew that they weren't coming home until either (A) their timer ticked down to zero from 3-6-9-12-15 months, or (B) they became a casualty. There was no third possibility (C) of coming home after accomplishing X, because nobody could define X.
I was there during an election year, and I told everyone back home that "supporting the troops" would mean making it an electoral issue to either define X and go all-in or bring us all home; not just sending care packages.
North Korea test flew the Hwangson-15 ICBM for the first time in January 2017, which has demonstrated the capability to put a few hundred kilograms essentially anywhere in the lower 48 United States. So the only possible question about North Korea's ability to hit any point in the lower 48 with a nuke is whether their devices are that small. And the main point of the famed "Disco Ball of Death" picture [1] is that North Korea almost certainly has nuclear weapons that can fit into that size range. So, North Korea, everyone loves to laugh at how backwards they are, but they almost certainly have the ability to put nuclear weapons anywhere into the continental United States- New York, Miami, everywhere. (Also France, the UK, and basically everywhere but parts of South America and the Caribbean.) Because of their conventional inferiority, North Korea has talked openly about how their doctrine is to preempt US and ROK attacks by launching their missiles first- they do not appear to believe that they have a guaranteed second strike between their small size and conventional military problems. The result is that the North Koreans seem to have a number of nuclear weapons and are convinced that their missiles have a large use-it-or-lose-it vulnerability, which is a very unstable situation. (2)
China, which has decades more experience with nuclear weapons, missiles, and a much larger and more vibrant economy, is talking about fancy things like FOBS and atmospheric maneuvering reentry vehicles (to guarantee defeat of the US ABM system in Alaska) while at the same time seem to be increasing their missile deployments(3). They don't seem to have a doctrine of 'go nuclear at the first opportunity' like the North Koreans do, and do seem to believe that they can have a guaranteed second strike, which at least brings us back to conventional MAD territory. But that's still pretty scary, we're back to 1964 again.
War involving the US with either country would be a very unpleasant day indeed for all of humanity.
2: As Jeffery Lewis, Arms Control Wonk, likes to point out, South Korea's doctrine also appears to be a preemptive first strike, because the only way they can foresee protecting Seoul- in artillery range of the DMZ- is to wipe out North Korea's command authority first. So North and South Korea are both committed to a doctrine of striking the other first. They can't both be right about that.
I don't want to get into a measuring competition, but is there a military that does logistics better than the US? I mean this very seriously and not at all in a jingoist way.
Look at how fast the US went from Kuwait to taking Baghdad international airport in the beginning of OIF. I recall that the entire world was like HOLY CRAP and had no idea how good the US was at logistics up until that part.
“Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars.” US Army General John J. Pershing, on battle in WWI
There is no question you're right, as far as anything I've read, but is that a matter resources - of budget (the US having an extremely large one) and of long-term investment (systems, transport, bases world-wide, training, etc.) - or is it a matter of the US being somehow particularly talented in that field?
At the same time, a war with China would likely be focused, at least, in the western Pacific. China's supply lines would be so much shorter - much of it would be in Chinese waters, the US would have to cross the Pacific ocean - than it's hard to believe the US would have a logistics advantage.
The US is working hard to preposition bases, supplies, forces, alliances, etc. But the entirety of China, for millennia, has been effectively prepositioned.
Again, the war would be disaster for all, regardless.
For a national military to have solid logistics requires the country's culture to have a decent educational system, a strong work ethic, and a reasonably low corruption level. China has the first two and they're working on the third. In the past much of the stuff they would need to fight a real war has been straight up stolen by military officers and Party cadres. (I am aware that there is corruption and waste in US military logistics but it has been relatively lower than their adversaries.)
> For a national military to have solid logistics requires the country's culture to have a decent educational system, a strong work ethic, and a reasonably low corruption level.
Interesting. I can see how those factors would help, at least. Is that a well-accepted theory? Whose is it?
> China has the first two and they're working on the third.
Corruption is a disease of dictatorships. Without a free press, opposition parties, separation of powers, and the public able to vote out the government, nothing really stops it. Imagine how corrupt a US president's administration would become with none of those things to stop it, after about 10-20 years.
It's also the purpose of authoritarians, in a sense: You can see it in the unprecedented, brazen corruption of neo-authoritarians and their supporters in Western countries. They want power for the fruits of corruption (perhaps among other things).
IIRC Chinese history, it's long been taught that history goes a cycle of three phases (my memory of the details will be off here, but this is the idea): Chaos, when there is no stable government. Ascent, where a new dynasty seizes power, and the country grows and flourishes. Decent, where the dynasty loses momentum, corruption grows, and instability grows. Then a return to Chaos. I'm sure the Communists, who are not unlike a dynasty in many ways, are very aware of that model of history.
You're right, this is always the tension because we're assuming risks either way. My half-serious CH-47 proposal, in particular, is probably the extreme version of "fighting the last war."
I think the consensus within the DoD by the mid to late-2000s was that the pendulum had swung way too far in the direction of technologically advanced but small and expensive, and there was a cultural revolution to swing things back in the other direction. Senior DoD and service leaders today are really a product of that.
> I think the consensus within the DoD by the mid to late-2000s was that the pendulum had swung way too far in the direction of technologically advanced but small and expensive, and there was a cultural revolution to swing things back in the other direction. Senior DoD and service leaders today are really a product of that.
Yes, the joke was that US military bought fewer and fewer, more and more expensive items, and soon the entire DoD budget would be spent on one plane.
The US military is retooling for war in the far-flung islands of East Asia. The Valor's range and speed advantage is critical there, and combined with its technical maturity, made it an almost shoe-in for winning this competition. It's also useful for the Marines who are reorienting completely around East Asia, so Bell may get to sell some to them too.
The Defiant is pretty cool though and I hope there's a commercial future for it. It may be attractive for large multinationals to replace their corporate helicopter fleets with, or for industrial uses that need a helicopter with greater load-lifting capacity than most others.
It’s a bit hard to say that it’s an osprey done right when it’s so much less. Not sure Valor would have been a consideration (or indeed a possibility) back in the 80s.
It’s an osprey done with a smaller scope, less capability, and 30 years later (thus having drawn from the osprey’s design and operational experience).
How does this choice play into the longstanding fuzzy line between US Army and US Air Force responsibilities? This is neither fixed wing nor rotary wing; has the range for tactical airlift…
I ponder this too. Very interesting modern development. And am happy to see the hughly-dogmatic line somewhat slipping.
The AH-56 Cheyenne stands out as what could have been an absurdly well equipped very fast helicopter. Speed, and a huge 360 degree underbelly turreted cannon would have been a ridiculous fire support craft. But it had a pusher prop on the back and the Air Force really really really didn't like that at the time (and was also probably hella jealous of the cannon too).
I'm not sure what makes me as ok with I am at eroding the air force's role somewhat. Some is probably seeing these great craft (AH-56, V280) & feeling like: if the army is going to have anything in the air, it should be great. It sure feels like the v280 is heralding in a massive shift in policy/what is permitted.
It does help that tilt rotars are totally rotary craft...
In any case, V-280 being primarily transport is for sure helpful. While the range might raise some eyebrows, it also means that V-280 can potentially more meaningfully self-deploy. That means less USAF strategic lift assets to spend on the army - USAF is pondering how it can keep forward bases supplied in the Indo-Pacific - strategic lift certainly has a role to play here.
I think the reality is that USAF realizes that trying to stonewall the V-280 will NOT meaningfully give it more budget, and that the V-280's capabilities means USAF gets more effective budget.
There's some interesting recent history involving the C-27 Spartan. The Army saw a capability gap between its CH-47 and the Air Force C-130 for intra-theater, tactical lift in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it pursued the acquisition of this small fixed-wing cargo aircraft. There was another agreement for the Army to give that up in favor of the Air Force continuing the program, but the DoD / Air Force quickly reneged and canceled the program. The Army ended up relying on a lot of contract airlift support instead.
Looking at the Indo-Pacific theater, I think it's clear to everybody that there's a serious shortage of capable airlift and sealift assets across the board.
The line is fuzzy and getting fuzzier with every passing day. I wouldn't even consider the introduction of the tiltrotor to be the best example of that. The US Army straight up operates the MQ-1C, which is a derivative of the predator drone. That's an armed fixed wing aircraft! I haven't been able to find any statement from the Army explaining how that isn't a complete breach of Johnson-McConnell. The only thing I can think of is that it's unmanned?
Actually it doesn't just call Johnson-McConnell into question, it would seem to defy the Key West agreement as well
I was starting to think this thing would never enter production. I would love to see these in civilian use. Better that a helicopter or an airplane for a lot of remote site uses.
Tilt rotor aircraft have interconnected gearboxes so that they can fly on a single engine. In case of a dual engine failure in vertical lift mode the autorotation capability is very limited due to low rotor inertia; chance of survival is low from any significant altitude. In case of a dual engine failure in airplane mode it can glide like a regular airplane, but the glide ratio is low and stall speed is high so although in ideal circumstances the pilot might be able to put it down safely the most likely outcome is everyone dies.
Taking "float" literally meaning float in water:
It's probably safer than a helicopter? I can't remember the name of the effect, but a helicopter in water automatically flips upside down because the heavy engines are mounted on the top. This causes the majority of deaths in helicopter water landings, even in shallow water, because the occupants can't egress due to disorientation.
The real question is does it flip upside down if it goes belly first into water.
Taking "float" meaning can it land:
The blades in the V280 are connected so one engine can drive both props. This thing can also glide AND/or auto-rotate if needed... so I think it'd be pretty danged safe with a competent pilot.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 134 ms ] thread* Current max speed of 345mph
* Current max range of 2,400 miles
* Capable of unmanned flight
* Helmet allows the pilot to see through the body of the aircraft using AR
I think avionics soft buttons are usually arranged this way, and one can imagine similar touch interfaces that would focus on the edges of screens with robust bezels of some kind.
Your body and arm might be shifting around due to the shaking of the cabin. Your hand is stabilized relative to the buttons or knobs near the perch, so you can aim precisely.
What you don't want under shaky situations are controls way out in the middle of a field of controls where you need to aim precisely and have no perch for your hand. Even worse would be the kind of consumer touch UX with drag or other gestures where you could accidentally input some high magnitude command because a cabin movement pushed your free-aiming hand across the screen...
I would agree if the choice were between mechanical cockpits and either of the other two, but that's not the choice at hand, since most Blackhawks were upgraded to MFDs year and years ago, to the point anyone flying in the military today would be nearing retirement if they had much experience in the original cockpits.
Being much lighter / less capable than the v22, 30 years younger, and the Navy not being involved, help a lot with everything.
The SB-1 had constant issues due to the requirements of the program. Making a helicopter go that fast introduces a lot of complexity, to the point that the SB-1 was really not any less complex than the V-280. Essentially its only winning points were in better hover performance and a slightly smaller footprint but those weren't enough to justify having dramatically slower speed and half the range for an aircraft whose main purpose is to act as a transport.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPmihf_WUAICL4y?format=jpg&name=...
This is for the Army, not the Marines
There is a little bit of controversy though about the fact that none of the other existing or proposed rotorcraft would be able to keep up with the V-280 (for escort duties), so probably they will be attaching some weapons to the thing. But it's definitely not intended to be a dedicated attack helicopter.
I'm thinking about the lack of an aerial escort with comparable speed and range for the Army. The Marine Corps, at least, has the F-35. It might not actually be necessary for the Army with UAS and long-range precision fires that could see the route / objective area and hit targets ahead of the Valor's arrival.
And this is the screwed-up state of DoD procurement in 2024 . . .
I don't think the wording here is quite right. The GAO has 100 days to decide if the protest is valid or not. If it is valid, then the program could be on hold for longer. The GAO could decide day 1 "nope, your protest is not valid" (they won't). Most likely it will be closer to 100 days of the program on hold, but it shouldn't be "at least 100 days".
But it also just any government procurement in general, where a protest is par for the course. Common amongst any large NASA procurement as well:
https://spacenews.com/gao-denies-l3harris-protest-over-ball-...
It is also happens often because even if a company doesn't think they have a valid protest the government will have to release more details of the proposals and so it is often used as a way to gain business intel.
"But wait," I hear you ask, "why didn't Boeing supply a design of their own? Don't they make the CH-47"
Well . . that's a long story, but the short version is that the 47 was designed a long, long time ago, and it's a Vertol design, not Boeing. Editorial warning, but I'm not sure Boeing has the ability to design a whole lot, these days.
That seems like a long time
In the mid-2000s, the Army decided to cancel the technologically revolutionary, expensive, and long-delayed RAH-66 and Congress allowed it to reinvest the RAH-66 money into known quantities like UH-60, CH-47, and AH-64 instead. We got whole new fleets of those aircraft with upgraded capabilities, and then we all saw how they were reliable workhorses over the last 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think that choosing the Valor reflects this lesson-learned. The Defiant was the riskier new technology while Bell's tiltrotor design is more mature after many years of feedback and optimization from V-22 operations. If we actually want to get something out of this program, the right decision is probably to "not let perfect be the enemy of good." The more mature design is probably going to be the safer one for aircrews and troops, the easier one to maintain, etc.
My remaining disappointment is that the Defiant reportedly had better hover power under high and hot conditions which is what we really needed in Afghanistan. The CH-47's much greater hover power compared to the UH-60 turned the CH-47 into the preferred (sometimes only) platform for air assaults and everything else. I wonder if we could have done very well by just continuing to iterate on and build more CH-47s to replace some or all of the UH-60s in our assault helicopter battalions.
That seems to be the Department of Defense's general approach these days, but I wonder if they are just fighting the last war. Against forces that are already massively outgunned, such as ISIL or the Taliban who generally had only rifles, explosives, and RPGs, improving technology generally doesn't help. Against 'near-peer' foes (the euphemism for China), it may pay to invest in the truly exceptional, ground-breaking technology - you don't want your ship or city defended by good-enough, economical fighters and anti-air; you want to see some X-wing fighters up there shooting lasers at their old turbine and missile buggies; you want what stealth bombers looked like next to the Soviet fleet.
That said, tilt-rotors are still a big step forward from standard helicopters.
I am not sure that having superior technology is critical to winning wars against "peer" competitors. The last time there was a full out peer-competitor bleeding edge war between major powers (World War Two) the side that invested in a few wonderwaffen that were supposed to eviscerate their larger number of enemies lost, and the side that invested in a lot of pretty good weapons and most importantly, the logistics and reliability to have these pretty good weapons actually show up at the battlefront won the war. It's hard to directly translate this into modern terms, but I would say that a few pieces of "exceptional, ground-breaking technology" wasn't what decided World War Two, so why do you think it would decide this hypothetical war?
As a counterpoint, NATOs strategy in the Cold War was to 'offset' superior Soviet numbers by having better technology - first by having more nuclear weapons, then by using the superior technology of precision munitions and the associated global navigation and sensor network (so the munitions can track their own position and locate their targets) as demonstrated in the Gulf War.
But by far the most important point:
> With the obvious caveat that if there ever actually is a shooting war with China on one side and the US on the other then the whole world is in serious trouble and there are no good options:
I think about that, and I never heard it said (so thanks): At the end of WWII, the leaders of the combatants thought that future large-scale war must be prevented because the improving technology would wipe out civilization, thus they created the UN, (proto-)EU, etc. That was 80 years ago.
A war with China may very well include, for example, missiles hitting San Francisco, LA, SD, Seattle. Even if the US won, it would lose badly.
This is how ALL wars are, and I can say this confidently as a combat veteran from Operation Iraqi Freedom II. When you fight in a war, you always lose a small bit of yourself. There is no turning back. When someone in either side is injured or especially dies, both sides permanently lose.
The thing about war many civilians never seem to understand is that one side loses less, but both sides still lose. If this was untrue, we would not have such a high number of homeless veterans or veterans who commit suicide.
Personally, I know of six soldiers I deployed to Iraq with who have committed suicide over the past 20 years (OIF II was ~2003-2004). No one ever wants to talk about these things in polite company, but you can never take these things back. War is hell.
The all-volunteer, professional US military, for all its advantages, loses civilian familiarity with the realities of the military and warfare - people seem to know Call of Duty, where killing is like shooting baskets.
When I see people glorify the military, soldiers and warfare, or talk about it like a sporting event ('win' and 'lose' (my bad) should be banned from the discussion of warfare) I feel very uneasy: First, people have those extreme, romantic conceptions of things they don't understand; when there was universal conscription, the military was a stand-in for bureaucratic absurdity (e.g., Gomer Pyle, MASH, expressions like FUBAR and SNAFU), not glorification; war veterans generally (IME) are not war mongers. Also, I feel a little queasy; I think, 'it creates (intentionally, in the hands of some public figures) the public mindset that makes it easier'. And finally - again, maybe intentionally for some, maybe subconsciously for many - it shuts down the actual experiences of veterans; it makes clear that there is only space for the 'glorious' version of warfare and anything else is almost antisocial. Finally, it all lets people put warfare on the back burner, which IMHO is how Afghanistan and Iraq lasted so long.
My (very amateur) policy idea is that the US should bring back universal conscription but only for the reserves (and no exceptions, as a hard and fast rule). Sure, it's not as optimal as volunteers, former active duty, etc. But then there would be real skin in the game for everyone, and everyone's families and friends. They'd understand the military, and what warfare was about. I hope no more hyping war with China (or Iran!).
I'm very sorry about your friends and for what you lost. We need to do far better with how seriously we take warfare and how we treat soldiers when they come home. It's really absurd. Thanks for sharing your experience.
To be fair, the Army's own foundational doctrinal publication - ADP 1 - uses the word "win" very prominently. The second-to-last line of the Foreword by Chief of Staff says, "The fundamental role of the American Soldier today is the same as it was over 244 years ago—to win." It goes on from there. So don't feel bad.
https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN1800...
As someone who deployed to combat myself, and who has known many who died there and since that time from suicide, my biggest complaint is that it didn't feel like we (as a nation) were really trying to "win." We were just going back again and again to "do our time," which made dying there seem especially pointless.
I agree with everything else said.
But I was a bit disturbed to see ads for the US Marine Corps over the last few years. The Marines used to talk about, "First to fight for right and freedom / And to keep our honor clean". The ad taglines had been 'for honor, for country, etc.' - something bigger than the individual, a higher cause. Then the taglines became 'Marines fight to win'. Win what? It's almost aggressive amorality (which I think is the message of the management-speak, 'that's all we care about'). Perhaps appropriately, given your and many other experiences, nobody is thinking that far. Also, it seems much less motivating than fighting for freedom, etc., as you say.
That's the root of it, of course. Everybody who went to Afghanistan or Iraq, after the first wave, knew that they weren't coming home until either (A) their timer ticked down to zero from 3-6-9-12-15 months, or (B) they became a casualty. There was no third possibility (C) of coming home after accomplishing X, because nobody could define X.
I was there during an election year, and I told everyone back home that "supporting the troops" would mean making it an electoral issue to either define X and go all-in or bring us all home; not just sending care packages.
China, which has decades more experience with nuclear weapons, missiles, and a much larger and more vibrant economy, is talking about fancy things like FOBS and atmospheric maneuvering reentry vehicles (to guarantee defeat of the US ABM system in Alaska) while at the same time seem to be increasing their missile deployments(3). They don't seem to have a doctrine of 'go nuclear at the first opportunity' like the North Koreans do, and do seem to believe that they can have a guaranteed second strike, which at least brings us back to conventional MAD territory. But that's still pretty scary, we're back to 1964 again.
War involving the US with either country would be a very unpleasant day indeed for all of humanity.
1: https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/03/21/470976577/...
2: As Jeffery Lewis, Arms Control Wonk, likes to point out, South Korea's doctrine also appears to be a preemptive first strike, because the only way they can foresee protecting Seoul- in artillery range of the DMZ- is to wipe out North Korea's command authority first. So North and South Korea are both committed to a doctrine of striking the other first. They can't both be right about that.
3: https://fas.org/publication/china-is-building-a-second-nucle...
Look at how fast the US went from Kuwait to taking Baghdad international airport in the beginning of OIF. I recall that the entire world was like HOLY CRAP and had no idea how good the US was at logistics up until that part.
“Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars.” US Army General John J. Pershing, on battle in WWI
At the same time, a war with China would likely be focused, at least, in the western Pacific. China's supply lines would be so much shorter - much of it would be in Chinese waters, the US would have to cross the Pacific ocean - than it's hard to believe the US would have a logistics advantage.
The US is working hard to preposition bases, supplies, forces, alliances, etc. But the entirety of China, for millennia, has been effectively prepositioned.
Again, the war would be disaster for all, regardless.
Interesting. I can see how those factors would help, at least. Is that a well-accepted theory? Whose is it?
> China has the first two and they're working on the third.
Corruption is a disease of dictatorships. Without a free press, opposition parties, separation of powers, and the public able to vote out the government, nothing really stops it. Imagine how corrupt a US president's administration would become with none of those things to stop it, after about 10-20 years.
It's also the purpose of authoritarians, in a sense: You can see it in the unprecedented, brazen corruption of neo-authoritarians and their supporters in Western countries. They want power for the fruits of corruption (perhaps among other things).
IIRC Chinese history, it's long been taught that history goes a cycle of three phases (my memory of the details will be off here, but this is the idea): Chaos, when there is no stable government. Ascent, where a new dynasty seizes power, and the country grows and flourishes. Decent, where the dynasty loses momentum, corruption grows, and instability grows. Then a return to Chaos. I'm sure the Communists, who are not unlike a dynasty in many ways, are very aware of that model of history.
I think the consensus within the DoD by the mid to late-2000s was that the pendulum had swung way too far in the direction of technologically advanced but small and expensive, and there was a cultural revolution to swing things back in the other direction. Senior DoD and service leaders today are really a product of that.
I read a fresh opinion piece just yesterday arguing that we're still erring on the side of being too small and expensive, with which I tend to agree: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2024/01/pentagon-has-been-l...
Yes, the joke was that US military bought fewer and fewer, more and more expensive items, and soon the entire DoD budget would be spent on one plane.
The Defiant is pretty cool though and I hope there's a commercial future for it. It may be attractive for large multinationals to replace their corporate helicopter fleets with, or for industrial uses that need a helicopter with greater load-lifting capacity than most others.
It’s an osprey done with a smaller scope, less capability, and 30 years later (thus having drawn from the osprey’s design and operational experience).
Is Johnson-McConnell still considered binding? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson-McConnell_agreement_of...
The AH-56 Cheyenne stands out as what could have been an absurdly well equipped very fast helicopter. Speed, and a huge 360 degree underbelly turreted cannon would have been a ridiculous fire support craft. But it had a pusher prop on the back and the Air Force really really really didn't like that at the time (and was also probably hella jealous of the cannon too).
I'm not sure what makes me as ok with I am at eroding the air force's role somewhat. Some is probably seeing these great craft (AH-56, V280) & feeling like: if the army is going to have anything in the air, it should be great. It sure feels like the v280 is heralding in a massive shift in policy/what is permitted.
In any case, V-280 being primarily transport is for sure helpful. While the range might raise some eyebrows, it also means that V-280 can potentially more meaningfully self-deploy. That means less USAF strategic lift assets to spend on the army - USAF is pondering how it can keep forward bases supplied in the Indo-Pacific - strategic lift certainly has a role to play here.
I think the reality is that USAF realizes that trying to stonewall the V-280 will NOT meaningfully give it more budget, and that the V-280's capabilities means USAF gets more effective budget.
(In comparison, you can fit three Blackhawks in a Globemaster)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alenia_C-27J_Spartan#United_St...
Looking at the Indo-Pacific theater, I think it's clear to everybody that there's a serious shortage of capable airlift and sealift assets across the board.
Actually it doesn't just call Johnson-McConnell into question, it would seem to defy the Key West agreement as well
Do helicopters typically float?
The real question is does it flip upside down if it goes belly first into water.
Taking "float" meaning can it land: The blades in the V280 are connected so one engine can drive both props. This thing can also glide AND/or auto-rotate if needed... so I think it'd be pretty danged safe with a competent pilot.
They're both quite good at different missions.