Bell V-280 Valor

pedrospe said:
The height of the cabin looks a bit small to me, i doubt the side guns can be shoot in the stand up position.
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Blackhawk also has a short cabin. In the UH-60's case it was to fit in a cargo plane more easily. For V-280, it's likely a big help with aerodynamics.
 
yasotay said:
"...the 101st #Screaming Eagles' patch on the nose..."

Always good to recognize your primary customer.
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Yeah, I expect the 101st to get the first two battalions worth of Valors.

Do we know what the official service name of the V-280 will be yet?
 
Scott Kenny said:
Yeah, I expect the 101st to get the first two battalions worth of Valors.

Do we know what the official service name of the V-280 will be yet?
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No, nor do we know the designation. I doubt "V-280" though I have been surprised before
 
Moose said:
While "Crow" is not as instantly cool as "Blackhawk," it's both the common name of a famous native tribe and a bird, so it fits the tribe tradition of US Army helicopters and bird tradition of US tilt-rotors (all one of them prior to this week.)
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That is an excellent suggestion, @Moose!

Also, the bird name applies to the Harrier as well, so it's at least all VTOLs that get bird names, not just tilt rotors.
 
pedrospe said:
The height of the cabin looks a bit small to me, i doubt the side guns can be shoot in the stand up position.
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days of standing as a door gunner went out with the Vietnam war lol, all door crew chiefs / gunners especially in UH-60 Blackhawk are all sit down positions.

cheers
 
RavenOne said:
I was in the Bell chalet , having brief on FVL, so it was nice to see and sit in the V-280 mock up, after last year's Farnborough. One noticeable difference was the 101st #Screaming Eagles' patch on the nose lol...so my photos

View attachment 707452

cheers
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How long before that Neato Cool Touchscreen is replaced by a bank of actually practical knobs and switches? Screens are great for displaying data, but if you want to control things you'd best be able to do so in the dark. You'd best be able to make inputs without the *need* to look away from the world to your damn touchscreen.
 
I suspect there is much discussion ongoing regarding the nature of the touch screen cockpit. As Scott hinted.at above currently there is a part of training called "blind cockpit drill" where by the aviator has to identify specific knobs and switches by touch without looking. For instance, the Stabilator Slew Switch in H-60 has a distinctive triangular head for just that reason.
Environmental factors (dust, dirt, moisture) that are common for field aircraft will likely be problematic for touch screens.
 
yasotay said:
I suspect there is much discussion ongoing regarding the nature of the touch screen cockpit. As Scott hinted.at above currently there is a part of training called "blind cockpit drill" where by the aviator has to identify specific knobs and switches by touch without looking. For instance, the Stabilator Slew Switch in H-60 has a distinctive triangular head for just that reason.
Environmental factors (dust, dirt, moisture) that are common for field aircraft will likely be problematic for touch screens.
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The all-glass "touch screen" is just a mock up cost saving feature. The real displays have to meet the current standards for pilot-machine interfaces. Interestingly, the smooth touchscreen interfaces with morphing user interfaces in Star Trek: The Next Generation was also a cost savings as the sets could be make much cheaper.
 
The objective of the marketing ploy was to look "21st Century". You don't impress the DoD Brooks Brothers crowd with boiler gauges. I suspect a look at the MH-47G cockpit will give a good idea what the Alpha model will look like.
 
mh-47g-cockpit.jpg
Blue Thunder pilot, Roy Sheider would have felt at ease.
 
The Valor certainly has a clean looking cockpit, there are hardly any old fashioned dials left.
 
FighterJock said:
here are hardly any old fashioned dials left.
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IIRC, there's a scary You-Tube of a civilian jet-liner calling ATC to say all their screens had just died. IIRC, they had to be talked down by small stages, with other aircraft reporting sightings and progress. Ended happily...
 
I suppose that there must be at least one or two backup dials to do with navigation and critical engine information somewhere out of shot Nik, just in case anything goes wrong with the main systems goes under just like the scenario that you have posted.
 
Thanks Dynoman, looks like Bell are going to do an F-35 and do a large screen instead of traditional displays, and there is no room for traditional dials which will be rather difficult if all the electrics go down.
 
“If a round pierced the screen it might take out one or two tiles, but the rest of the screen would function around it, sort of like poking your finger through a screen door. The screen is still intact; you just have a localized area where the screen is not functioning,” Chavez said. “With the mosaic design, you don’t lose the entire screen. You can move information off the damaged area or the display control system would be smart enough to know not to display critical information in the damaged area and would automatically move it off to the side… Beyond that we are still developing failure modes and how we want to mitigate those risks.”

The V-280 simulator still has a couple of basic flight instruments on the center panel as backup/standby instruments. I don't know how the prototype or production panel will look.

www.ainonline.com

Bell Unveils Single-screen V-280 Cockpit | AIN

Touchscreen technology is at the heart of the panel, which won’t be installed in the aircraft until 2025 or 2030.
www.ainonline.com www.ainonline.com
 
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I don't know why you are so against touchscreens Scott Kenny, the F-35 has had them since it was designed, and the Typhoon is going to be retrofitted with them as well in the next upgrade. As far as I am concerned the days of old fasioned steam gauge dials is over. Bell is only following the fashion.
 
Part of the challenge is the environment you operate in. Fighters operate from tarmac and hardened shelter, more protected from the elements. U.S. Army rotorcraft are expected to operate in fields and barren desert. Dust and dirt can, over time, damage the screen elements.
This is being worked on I would think, but I doubt with the priority level of other technologies for the program.
 
yasotay said:
Part of the challenge is the environment you operate in. Fighters operate from tarmac and hardened shelter, more protected from the elements. U.S. Army rotorcraft are expected to operate in fields and barren desert. Dust and dirt can, over time, damage the screen elements.
This is being worked on I would think, but I doubt with the priority level of other technologies for the program.
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Like cellphones nowadays, you get a screen protector to protect the primary screen. Or like race driver face shields, pull and peel protective sheets.
 
Screen protectors would help protect the screens from any dust or dirt that would damage the glass on the touchscreens that would come into the cockpit.
 
FighterJock said:
I don't know why you are so against touchscreens Scott Kenny, the F-35 has had them since it was designed, and the Typhoon is going to be retrofitted with them as well in the next upgrade. As far as I am concerned the days of old fasioned steam gauge dials is over. Bell is only following the fashion.
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Blind operation.

You MUST look at a touchscreen to use it.

When you're dodging trees you can't take the time to look at the stupid touchscreen to press the right "button".

Big screens are fine, but give me physical buttons and switches that I can correctly operate by feel alone.
 
@Scott Kenny - Agreed. There is a reason that many of the switches and knobs in modern rotorcraft have distinctive shapes. For instance, in the H-60, the Stabilator [manual] Slew Switch has a triangular head on the switch so that either pilot can quickly find it without looking inside. I am sure there are those who will argue that these sort of thing can be automated or made voice activated ("Hey Siri/Google, lower the landing gear") but under stress our voices sometimes become unrecognizable. I will believe it when I see it.
 
V-22 has a ton of physical buttons, most of them are identical squares. More seriously, look at an F-35. It has an absolutely massive screen front and center. It also has switches and levers and HOTAS controls. I'm willing to bet Bell is not thinking about iPhone-izing flight, but rather how it can leverage advances in display technology while also giving pilots the tools they need.
 
I am wondering: when you have been hit and sustained cockpit fire with burned limbs, how will you operated a touch screen with burnt finger tips? (see how many pilots gloves have their tips cutoff).
 
Screens for information, not touchscreens. How many aircraft have a visual display linked to the helmet? Not just for weapons management.
 
TomcatViP said:
I am wondering: when you have been hit and sustained cockpit fire with burned limbs, how will you operated a touch screen with burnt finger tips? (see how many pilots gloves have their tips cutoff).
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With the lethality of modern weapons that could hit a tactical aircraft, I suppose designers may consider "not being hit" to be of higher priority than "flying machine that was hit, but not destroyed".
 
Dilandu said:
With the lethality of modern weapons that could hit a tactical aircraft, I suppose designers may consider "not being hit" to be of higher priority than "flying machine that was hit, but not destroyed".
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It's a helicopter, it's going to take small arms hits.
 
If that is the case Scott Kenny, I wonder if the front cockpit will have some form of armour protection around it to protect the pilots just in case the Valor does get hit with small arms fire once it enters service.
 
FighterJock said:
If that is the case Scott Kenny, I wonder if the front cockpit will have some form of armour protection around it to protect the pilots just in case the Valor does get hit with small arms fire once it enters service.
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All modern Army rotorcraft have a requirement that components of the aircraft are protected from various types of weapons. Most cockpits have a requirement for protection from 7.62 caliber for the pilots. Usually in the form of extendible panels that are pulled out during combat missions. With newer technology there are forms glass and Kevlar that would likely improve protection. It does not make the aircrew invulnerable, but it does give protection from the most likely threat vectors.
 
FighterJock said:
If that is the case Scott Kenny, I wonder if the front cockpit will have some form of armour protection around it to protect the pilots just in case the Valor does get hit with small arms fire once it enters service.
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Protecting the pilots, not the instrument panel.
 
FighterJock said:
If that is the case Scott Kenny, I wonder if the front cockpit will have some form of armour protection around it to protect the pilots just in case the Valor does get hit with small arms fire once it enters service.
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the cockpit is unarmored iirc. that said - the the pilots seats are armored as are flight critical controls
 

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