Bell 360 Invictus (FARA program)

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lastdingo

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www.flugrevue.de

Angebot für den FARA-Wettbewerb der US Army: Bell 360 Invictus enthüllt

Zum Auftakt der AUSA-Militärmesse hat Bell sein Modell 360 Invictus vorgestellt, dass sich um einen Prototypen-Auftrag der US Army bewirbt und 2022 fliegen könnte.
www.flugrevue.de www.flugrevue.de
auto translate https://translate.google.com/transl...werb-der-us-army-bell-360-invictus-enthuellt/

Looks like dad bod version of Comanche to me. I did throughly check if the article was from April 1st, and it isn't.



As ususal, I searched for it and found nothing. Seems implausible, because the article is five days old.
Feel free to merge if there's a FARA thread that I missed.
 
Should this be moved to the JMR/FVL thread?
 
yasotay said:
Should this be moved to the JMR/FVL thread?
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Defiant, Valor, Raider do have their own thread. However, I think as long there is no physical prototype up and running no separate thread is required for Invictus.
 
lastdingo said:
I tried multiple combinations of keywords and found nothing.
Search engines on other forums usually deliver the goods, this one is crap.
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I fundamentally disagree with this, it uses Elasticsearch which is an industry-leading search system.

I can search for Bell 360, Invictus, FARA, they all result in showing you the existing topic.
 
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The only way to NOT get the existing topic is to search explicitly for the entirety of your topic title

Bell 360 Invictus FARA program

Which doesn't match because no existing post contained all of those keywords. The search is AND not OR.

If you tried any two of these keywords, or even one, you would find the topic in question.

If your other sites did OR keyword matching, or matched across an entire topic instead of individual posts, such a search would work to some degree (though you'd match lots of topics from "Bell" and "program" that were irrelevant) assuming all your keywords were in the topic somewhere. That might be why this kind of search works on some other forums.
 
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Bell Website discusses Invictus

www.bellflight.com

Bell 360 - Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA)

Always ready. The future fight requires increased range, speed, agility and lethality. It requires seamless coordination between Army aviation and the maneuver force. It requires persistence, fearlessness, and must own the information domain. The Bell 360 Invictus delivers the U.S. Army’s...
www.bellflight.com www.bellflight.com

Fact Sheet
 

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defence-blog.com

Bell 360 Invictus helicopter makes public debut

Bell, part of American conglomerate Textron, displayed mock-up of its new rotorcraft, 360 Invictus, during the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) National Conference. “The Bell 360 will deliver advanced battlefield situational awareness, as well as lethal options, in support of the...
defence-blog.com defence-blog.com
 
Beautiful graphics (however twin inlets! ) but terrible comments. Although I do appreciate the effort and time spent for the community, I would recommend the narrative to be muted while he discuss aerodynamics matters not to be misled.
 
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Thanks for posting that. A good assessment. I especially liked the bit about designing for "optionally" piloted.
 
www.bellflight.com

Bell 360 - Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA)

Always ready. The future fight requires increased range, speed, agility and lethality. It requires seamless coordination between Army aviation and the maneuver force. It requires persistence, fearlessness, and must own the information domain. The Bell 360 Invictus delivers the U.S. Army’s...
www.bellflight.com www.bellflight.com
Configuration has changed to a optimized tail rotor.
 
That thing looks so much like a Comanche... the irony is so strong... history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes
 
Range 135Nm with 90min reserve means a total fuel mission for roughly 3 hours.

I wonder how they are going to pair the Valor or Defiant with it for escort and support? I guess that the army would then need some F-35B...
 
TomcatViP said:
Range 135Nm with 90min reserve means a total fuel mission for roughly 3 hours.

I wonder how they are going to pair the Valor or Defiant with it for escort and support? I guess that the army would then need some F-35B...
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So something like 200NM with ~20min station time. Perhaps the Army is going to consider AtoA refuel at some point. Given stabilized refuel drogues you could do a "flying cow" (paraphrasing "fat cow" that the Army already does) with CH-47. Depending on which aircraft the Army picks for FLRAA you might be able to do something like that with that aircraft. Then there is the likelihood that the Army is considering something novel like internal/external tanks for FARA, that will extend the range, albeit at reduced weapons loads.
 
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vs
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www.defensenews.com

Bell changes design for the US Army’s future attack recon aircraft

Here's how Bell has changed its design for the prototype it is building for the U.S. Army's Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft competition.
www.defensenews.com www.defensenews.com

main part
While Bell could have operated “perfectly well” with the ducted tail rotor, Gonzalez said, “we decided for consistency of the airframe that we would go ahead and change the [competitive prototype] tail rotor design as well.”
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TomcatViP said:
Range 135Nm with 90min reserve means a total fuel mission for roughly 3 hours.
Click to expand...
It is like the staging area is within range of many very low cost weapons/ISR systems available to all state and some non-state actors. Apaches were getting destroyed on the ground by houthis level penetrative firepower....

Would not be surprising that by the time this gets into a prospective shooting war (normal service life puts guesstimate of 2040), the the above distance defines not rear areas but battle areas where formations starts inflicting serious loss to each other.
 
I agree with the point that the proliferation of inexpensive attack drones will continue, and they will get better as well. However, the number of anti-attack drone systems is almost as prolific. In some places tall nets and chain link fences have already demonstrated effectiveness. Numerous electronic means have been 'demonstrated ' recently as well. So as the drones improve, the means to defeat them will also improve. So I think most first tier militaries will render the attack drones less effective. Also there are technique to reduce the signature of the staging areas long used.
 
Bell is looking pretty impressive at the moment. Hopefully the 360 prototype works as well as the V-280.
 
Don't underestimate the commercial aspect also: without Invictus, Bell would have de-facto abandoned the foreign military market to Leonardo, TAI, Airbus (I don't believe it but mentioned this for the fans) or Boeing.
They need it to fit their attack helicopter offer.
 
TomcatViP said:
Don't underestimate the commercial aspect also: without Invictus, Bell would have de-facto abandoned the foreign military market to Leonardo, TAI, Airbus (I don't believe it but mentioned this for the fans) or Boeing.
They need it to fit their attack helicopter offer.
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A fair point and Textron is feeling "froggy" these days. However, I am not sure that investors are going to be comfortable with the risk associated with full development and production tooling if Invictus is not the US Army choice.
 
yasotay said:
TomcatViP said:
Don't underestimate the commercial aspect also: without Invictus, Bell would have de-facto abandoned the foreign military market to Leonardo, TAI, Airbus (I don't believe it but mentioned this for the fans) or Boeing.
They need it to fit their attack helicopter offer.
Click to expand...
A fair point and Textron is feeling "froggy" these days. However, I am not sure that investors are going to be comfortable with the risk associated with full development and production tooling if Invictus is not the US Army choice.
Click to expand...
Good observation. A lot of potential customers are eager to be the second force to operate a new aircraft design.
 

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