Bell unveiled today their vision of the next generation tilt rotor, the V-280 Valor. Looks like the love child of an Osprey and a Blackhawk, with a little Beechcraft Bonanza flair (tail)

Interesting. It will probably be 1/3 as good and cost 10x as much as advertised if/when it is delivered in twice as long as promised.



Seriously, the Osprey is beyond cool, they fly them around here a lot. But I don't know if they will ever perform as advertised.

And the V-280 looks cool, too, but......???

Article

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Bell Helicopter is unveiling a new third-generation tiltrotor aircraft concept called the V-280 Valor, which it is pitching for the US Army's Joint Multi-Role (JMR)/Future Vertical Lift (FVL) programme....

Called the V-280, the Bell concept features a V-tail, a large cell carbon core wing and a composite fuselage. Unlike the older V-22 design, the engines do not move, only the rotor-system tilts, Bell says. Coupled with a fly-by-wire system, the aircraft should have excellent high and low-speed handling qualities, the company says.

The V-280 will be able to cruise efficiently at 280kt carrying 11 passengers comfortably with a mission radius of over 250nm

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Bell YOuTube video




Troy's Tractors dot com

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Seriously, the Osprey is beyond cool, they fly them around here a lot. But I don't know if they will ever perform as advertised.

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I believe that the Osprey's do meet many of the performance parameters for which they were advertised. There is no vertical takeoff aircraft in which I would rather ride but I wish that the program had been allowed to die when it was supposedly killed. I believe that the Marine Corps would have been better off with something more affordable and less complex even though it might not be as fast as an Osprey.

The Osprey does have personality (e.g. huge rotorwash, scorched grass beneath the nacelles, horizontal fastroping for the first man on the rope)

Canyon - you see them a lot around your neck of the woods because major componets of AF Special Ops is now based at Cannon AFB, NM.

Several units were even rebadged with the old 27th TFW designaton, including two old 27th TFW squadron designatons - 522nd and 524th.

It's got to be a HUGE change from Hurlburt Field, FL to Cannon.

FWIW, Hurlburt is in a part of the country that is hot, damp, humid, and with lots of vegetation - kinda like Viet Nam, etc.

Cannon is in a part of the country that is hot, dry, and is desert - kinda like Iraq, Iran, and Afganistan.

Cannon was on the last BRAC base closing list (and several previous closing lists) - but survived. Cannon will never close, thanks to the Clovis, NM Committee of 50.

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Canyon - you see them a lot around your neck of the woods because major componets of AF Special Ops is now based at Cannon AFB, NM.

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Well, yes, I see a lot because they fly them from a base 90 miles west of me. But most I see are from the airport 25 miles NE of me where they assemble them.




Regarding Cannon, I used to farm a property that had some unique features, easily identifiable from the air. One day last summer, when it was over 100 degrees and winds of 20-30mph, a C-130 passed overhead at about 2000' AGL (6000' MSL) from the direction of Cannon. It continued to the property I used to farm and started orbiting it at about a 30 degree bank.

My assumption is that they were a C-130 gunship practicing a mission. They got a workout that day.

Just to back Canyon's story up - not that he needs it. But, in 2000 when I moved from Austin to Denver, I spend the night on the East side of Amarillo. I was awakened in the morning by those Ospreys flying over, landing, etc. Quite a few of them. It was nonstop for a little while. That was before I knew they were manufactured in Amarillo.