After years on the periphery of the uncrewed revolution in military aviation, unmanned rotorcraft are now becoming a significant focus for vertical lift manufacturers.
At the annual Association of the US Army conference in Washington, DC this week, Boeing and Sikorsky both unveiled new designs for frontline rotorcraft meant to operate without any onboard crew.
Boeing debuted its Collaborative Transformational Rotorcraft concept – a modular, autonomous tiltrotor that could fill both combat and logistics support roles. The project is still in the design phase, but Boeing hopes to quickly progress to a functioning aircraft.
Sikorsky meanwhile unveiled a demonstrator for its first autonomous-only Black Hawk derivative – a heavily modified UH-60L dubbed the S-70 U-Hawk that replaces the cockpit with a roll-on/roll-off cargo compartment.
That offering comes as Sikorsky is simultaneously working to a mature its new rotor-blown wing concept called Nomad. The company envisions that hybrid-electric tail sitter as a multi-role vertical take-off and landing asset that will come in a range of sizes offering various battlefield capabilities.
A sub-scale Nomad demonstrator is already in flight testing, with a full-scale version currently moving through ground testing.
The surge in activity comes after years of minimal development in the space.
Although Northrop Grumman developed the MQ-8C Fire Scout uncrewed helicopter to the US Navy, the service moved to retired the type in 2024.
Israeli firm Steadicopter has a number of offerings in the rotary UAS category, but has thus far seen minimal adoption outside its home country.
The pivot toward uncrewed systems by vertical lift heavyweights like Sikorsky and Boeing comes as the US Army is seeking to reorient its aviation strategy away toward a focus on using uncrewed assets at the frontline; an acknowledgement of the deep survivability challenges facing combat rotorcraft.
Airbus Space & Defence is also working to add an autonomous helicopter to its inventory, with the company’s US wing adapting the UH-72/H145 for uncrewed cargo operations under a US Marine Corps programme.
Although the USA and its overseas allies still plan to fly large numbers of conventional rotorcraft from Sikorsky, Boeing, Airbus, and Bell for decades to come, a shift toward uncrewed vertical lift is now getting underway.
While it will likely be many years before troops are ferried to an objective by an autonomous aircraft, functions like ISR, logistics support, electronic warfare and lethal strike are prime targets for new uncrewed rotary-wing platforms, just as they have been for fixed-wing UAS.