DARPA/SOCOM X-76 Speed and Runway Independent Technologies (SPRINT)

Phase 3 is not likely to happen unless SOCOM and USN/USMC offer funding. U.S. Army and USAF will likely not have the discretionary funds to participate.
 
Interesting. I wonder how well the transition from turboprop to turbojet for the wing mounted engines will work in practice.
 
scautomoton said:
Interesting. I wonder how well the transition from turboprop to turbojet for the wing mounted engines will work in practice.
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Indeed. Bell has done a lot of work on stop-fold rotors over a number of decades. I seem to recall that there was concern with flutter (may be the wrong term) of the blades as they fold due to the twist of the blades. This may have been overcome with modern technology and Fly By Wire control laws.
 
Most DARPA efforts do not materialize because none of the services are willing to pick up the financial burden when the program demonstrated Technical Readiness Level 6. For example the UCAR program was significantly close to that level when the U.S. Army clearly indicated it would not pursue further funding. Had they done so, it is very possible that we would have had "loyal wingman" platforms in service by now. In fairness, most of the billions available were going to GWOT.
 
Yeah, the thing as presented in the sci-fi like artwork will never come to fruition in a shape resembling the thing shown.
 
yasotay said:
Most DARPA efforts do not materialize because none of the services are willing to pick up the financial burden when the program demonstrated Technical Readiness Level 6. For example the UCAR program was significantly close to that level when the U.S. Army clearly indicated it would not pursue further funding. Had they done so, it is very possible that we would have had "loyal wingman" platforms in service by now. In fairness, most of the billions available were going to GWOT.
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Interestingly enough some of “early” CCA / MUMT work was based on UCAR experience.
 
yasotay said:
Most DARPA efforts do not materialize because none of the services are willing to pick up the financial burden when the program demonstrated Technical Readiness Level 6. For example the UCAR program was significantly close to that level when the U.S. Army clearly indicated it would not pursue further funding. Had they done so, it is very possible that we would have had "loyal wingman" platforms in service by now. In fairness, most of the billions available were going to GWOT.
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That’s because prototypes and demos are the “easy” part. Look at how long it took to go from YF-22 to F-22 and X-35 to F-35. Demonstrators are basically minimum viable products to show the principle that it is physically possible to make a DARPA hard thing work. Demonstrators is not necessarily concern with how reliable the 100,000th transition from prop rotor to a turbojet for example.

Like DARPA UCAV for example; by all accounts it was a very successful program and it all of the program goals of basically demonstrating CCA. But if you turn that into a production program, you easily have 10x the amount of engineering problems that you have to solve(; things like how to integrate UCAVs into an airport traffic pattern with human pilots and ATC. They might have demonstrated positive control with a UCAV over C-band local antenna, but you might have to have a manned aircraft to stay within its vicinity to relay commands. Even back then you have sat comm links but those dishes are larger and difficult to fit on to stealth aircraft and still have high latency and low bandwidth. Remember, X-45’s first flight came only about a year after MQ-9’s first flight. The TTP, the infrastructure, the culture of using an unmanned aircraft even for low risk missions were simply not there by the time the UCAV program came to an end in 2005. Really even the concept of using unmanned aircraft at scale haven’t really been proven out yet.

These problems and many others like it have been solved by other platforms and programs over the last 2 decades. It is why only now CCAs are finally on the cusp of being a useful deployable product. To turn a successful DARPA program into an operation asset at the conclusion of the demonstration phase may simply not be feasible both financially and from a deployed at scale engineering perspective. I think stealth and the history of it gives most people the wrong impression of how the progression of DARPA is suppose to go vs how it typically goes. The natural progression of Have Blue to F-117A to B-2 and F-22 was unique and out of norm.
 
ncc81701 said:
That’s because prototypes and demos are the “easy” part. Look at how long it took to go from YF-22 to F-22 and X-35 to F-35. Demonstrators are basically minimum viable products to show the principle that it is physically possible to make a DARPA hard thing work.
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DARPA isn't there to do a full scale development and acquisition programme. As you say, it's to see whether the "hard" bit of a problem can be done, before making a massive commitment into full scale development that includes a massive amount of "easy" tasks.

Even with Have Blue / F-117 then it rapidly tranisitioned out of DARPA to a USAF funded development programme.

Amongst the "failed" DARPA programmes then there's still tranisition of materiel and knowledge into other efforts, but this tends to be more hidden.

At the same point there's other programmes where you've no idea why DARPA bothered to start them
 
I was wondering how the X-plane series had jumped to -76 since last time I checked, they were at 60-something. Then I red "76 is because 1776 and 250 years" okay... the US designation system is definitively frucked up.
 
I still think it would be easier to use 2x Pegasus from the harrier, much simpler, keeps the fuselage clear for you know fuselage things. So basically like the German vtol from the 60’s.

This seems like a lot of complexity to get to 450kts.
 
Fluff said:
I still think it would be easier to use 2x Pegasus from the harrier, much simpler, keeps the fuselage clear for you know fuselage things. So basically like the German vtol from the 60’s.

This seems like a lot of complexity to get to 450kts.
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Jet blast. Osprey is bad enough. Two Pegasus? LMAO. Also fuel economy, weight, etc.
 
I remember reading somewhere that the Harrier was capable of "digging it's own grave" in an open field. The SOF community will want a platform with the minimum restrictions on operations.
 
And obviously, F135s would be even worse than Pegasus. Imagine a C-141 size transport with two complete F-35 propulsion system (fans + jet + mobile exhaust) hanging from a high wing.
 
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Archibald said:
I was wondering how the X-plane series had jumped to -76 since last time I checked, they were at 60-something. Then I red "76 is because 1776 and 250 years" okay... the US designation system is definitively frucked up.
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69. 66 is the truss-wing, 67 is a General Atomics bird, 68 is the DARPA Longshot.
 
piginapoke said:
Hopefully, so we can fill in the X blanks, the NGAD/FAXX demonstrators feature in the designations somewhere?
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There is the X-39 designation that's been reserved for the "Future Aircraft Technology Enhancements" or FATE program.
 

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