Most people think the US Army wants to design a new rotorcraft that can vertically lift a whopping 30-ton payload, but Bruce Tenney begs to differ.
As associate director for the army's aviation applied technology directorate, Tenney says the 32.5-ton lifting capability commonly ascribed to the AATD's high efficiency tiltrotor (HETR) concept is misleading.
That figure assumes the theoretical HETR is taking off at 4,000ft elevation in 95-degree F temperatures.
If the same aircraft lifted off in cooler weather and at sea level, the maximum payload rises to 42 tons, said Tenney. That means it could conceivably carry all three categories of the army's growing stockpile of mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles. The category 3 Buffalo vehicle has a maximum weight of nearly 40 tons.
So HETR is clearly intended to be an enormous aircraft. But Tenney wishes to put the project's technological ambitions in perspective.
"I know it looks like a techological leap, but it is not when you break it down into its constituent parts," said Tenney. "There's none of it that's just out of the range of where we stand technologically. The power we're putting through the transmissions is not as much as the Mi-26. We're not busting anybody's bubble. It's not something that as a technological investment is a hope and a dream. It's something we truly believe we can accomplish."
on April 29, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply
all those rotors on that slide, but no a160? what gives?
on April 30, 2009 3:27 AM | Reply
This looks about right:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1051.0.html
;-)
on April 30, 2009 10:08 AM | Reply
Check out the Mil V-12 HOMER, the last rotary wing contraption devised to put a 40t payload aloft ROFL :)