High speed and low cost have emerged as essential characteristics of the US Army’s next-generation helicopter, according to an official overseeing early technology development efforts for the aircraft.
The requirement for a cruise speed of an unprecedented 200 to 300 knots, or more, stemmed from capability analyses prepared separately by the Army and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, according to Ned Chase, who is the project lead for the Joint Multi-Role (JMR) technology enabled capability demonstration at the Aviation Applied Technology Directorate, part of the Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Centre.
Greater speed means pilots can reduce mission time, which has doubled from the early days of the Apache or Black Hawk to four hours or more, Chase told Inside the Army in a June 6 interview.
“If you want to trade the time it takes to do a mission and get that down, the alternative is speed.”