CH-53K King Stallion completes first sea trials

Ex U.S. Army F models might become available at firesale prices. Who knows? The MoD might bite at a good price.

Cheers!

Yes, the CH53K is the most expensive helicopter so far produced. Initial cost per airframe has jumped to about $130 million due to delays. It is hoped that the cost will come down significantly once in full scale production, the thoughts are it will targeted to be above $80 million per frame.

Not sure whether our Civil Servants understand leases! And at north of $100m each I reckon that people would want a few more F35’s rather than the cost of a new type of helo.

Absolutely true. What I should have said was that it would be good to have to get the bootnecks and their kit ashore. And that depends on whether or when one of the carriers is ever set up as an LPH, which appears up in the air at present.

But the American Marines 8 wasp class LHD carriers that also carry the F35b do have heavy lift, and the Royal Navy carriers are more like them than the Ford class supercarriers in my opinion.

And the Royal Navy’s carriers will also host Royal Marine commandos And Their choppers and gear, and will operate similar to the yank Marine Wasp class ships, but I Suppose 7 Squadron RAF do provide heavy lift chinooks for speacial force’s and no doubt marines too don’t they?

It would be great to have a Royal Marine heavy lift capability though. But sadly this won’t happen, and the American Marines as a whole are about the size of ( well bigger these days but they spend less) the entire British active millitray! I would be more than happy with the british millitary being Roughly the size of the yank marines give or take some ships.

Only been in a chinook once and that one time it had issues and decided it wanted to go to ground quite heavily and sit on a Falklands moor for the rest of the day.
Lynx, Sea King, Merlin… Never an issue… But Chinooks… Once bitten twice shy!

I agree, I think the Chinook is currently the best battlefield support helicopter. The reason for this is its ruggedness, but also perhaps more importantly it is still easy to repair.

To be brutally honest, I don’t think the Israelis are too bothered by range, as most of their issues are on the door step. Unless we include Iran. Both The Chinook and CH53K can be aerial refueled, so that really doesn’t sway the decision and the “fat tank” Chinook has twice the range of standard one if it really required.

There is very little more that can be done to a Chinook aerodynamically to make it go faster, unless they go down the four bladed head and tilt-wing route as they did with the BV-347. The current F model is now a whole lot stiffer than say the C model, as the internal frames are now milled from solid rather than built from individual pieces. They are going to update the drive train and gearboxes, so yet more powerful engines can be fitted. Which will raise its vertical lift capacity perhaps similar to the 53K. They have finally developed new blades for it which are based on the new Apache E design (originally the Comanche design). These develop more lift and maintain more lift across the blade at faster airspeeds, but also in hot and high environments. They are also looking at replacing all the hydraulic actuators with electro-linear actuators to turn it into a fly by wire aircraft (finally getting rid of the DASH). But it still won’t be enough to go past 200mph (173kts).

The main issue with the Chinook is the limited forward pitch movement of the rear head (disc tilt). Because the pitch angle is limited, the majority of air mass is being blown downwards rather than backwards, thus limiting its airspeed. There are two things why there’s this limit, the distance between the rotor tips and the cabin roof. The length of the aft vertical shaft between the aft gearbox and rotor head. You could raise the rear rotor head by another 2ft, which would give you an increase of allowable pitch movement. But you would have to substantially beef up the lengthened rear vertical shaft to stop it flexing. The current DAFCS system will be able to counter the increased torque split between the forward and rear rotor heads. But is the additional mass of a new vertical shaft going to be worth it? There’s only so much that can be wrung out of a “conventional” helicopter design due to the blade stalling issue at higher airspeeds.

Bell/Boeing were contracted by the US DoD to investigate the feasibility of a quad tilt rotor. They produced a number of models and wind tunnel tested them. There has always been a worry that the forward rotor’s spinning airmass would disrupt the aft rotor’s. The testing has shown that so long as there is a vertical split between the forward and aft rotors the concept is doable.

Bell/Boeing have produced a number of conceptual prototype models ranging in size from something that is comparable in size to a Chinook and ranging up something like a C130. Initially the DoD said the aircraft was required to lift a JLTV, but the larger model is scaled to lift a Stryker or 110 paras. The DoD are looking at a concept where a VTOL aircraft could replace the C130 in the tactical airlift role, getting the supplies closer to the front line. So missing out the stage where the supplies are swapped between aircraft and helicopters.

Oliver VTOL LLC, have shown their concept design which is a Hexplane Heavy Lift (HHL). Much like the Bell/Boeing design of using a C130 sized tilt rotor, they have gone one better an are using 6 tilt rotors to produce a VTOL aircraft the same size as C130J-30.

Sikorsky have shown a giant coaxial heavy lift aircraft again in the small C130 class. Which includes a pair of stub wings that each have a prop fan underneath it.

China is also getting in on the act. They have demonstrated the Blue Whale concept. This is a quad tilt rotor “very similar” to the Bell/Boeing design.

If Leonardo had any sense, they should look at a modern version of the Rotodyne. The original version could lift as much as a Chinook whilst having a slightly longer cabin. The concept worked and the issue with the noisy tip jets could be solved with today’s technology.

The Rotodyne that was used for the demonstrations and airshows was just the prototype. The actual production version was going to be bigger and known as the Type Z. It was supposed to come in two flavours, a civil airliner and a military one. It had a larger fuselage, bigger rotor diameter and more powerful RR Tyne engines rated for over 4000shp.

The full scale wooden mock-ups of each version were built by Fairey, who had by then been incorporated into Westlands. The aircraft was redisignated as the Type FA-1. The civil version could seat a maximum of 70 passengers and included a galley and toilets. The military version had a rear ramp including two side doors. The cabin measured 47ft (14.3M) long by 9.2ft (2.8m) wide and 7ft (2.14m) high. With seating it could carry 62 troops along the sides. The aircraft was also going to be pressurized. As you can see, it was going to be a lot bigger than the CH47, with a all up weight around 68,300lbs (30,980kgs), which is closer to the CH53K.

By the time the project was cancelled they had managed to get the noise generated by the tip jets down to a more generous 96dB. In 1959 the aircraft set a new absolute speed record over a 100km closed circuit of 190.9mph (307kph). Unofficially, the aircraft maxed out just over 245mph (394kph).

If you want to find out more, some of the parts are in the helicopter museum in Weston Super Mare. They is also a good book by David Gibbings called the Fairey Rotordyne. It tells the whole story, with a test pilot’s perspective and gives the reasons it was cancelled by the Government.

A modern version of the Rotodyne would still be a world beater. It would be as fast as the proposed tilt rotors, whilst using a simpler design. Its vertical lift capability would challenge the CH53K if modern blade materials and aerodynamics were used.