“Optionally Manned” is the future of Rotary Wing Aviation.
by
Lieutenant Colonel Paul R. Helten
United States Army
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The Blackhawk, Apache, and Chinook have performed service in various environments around the world and proven themselves in peacetime and during combat, most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army Aviation and helicopter operations have a unique role in today’s modern battles. This role has been developed over time and many soldiers have placed a heavy reliance on helicopter assets being available to assist in their life or death situations. This reliance has carved out the true mission and is the reason Army Aviation exists; ”to be relentlessly focused on and dedicated to honoring a sacred trust with commanders and soldiers on the ground.“ This trust is why even the thought of moving toward unmanned aircraft causes such recoil among aviators and soldiers alike. Soldiers prefer the idea of riding behind a Blackhawk or Chinook pilot when heading into a firefight on an air assault. They appreciate a “Dust-off” flight crew willing to risk their own lives time after time to rescue wounded soldiers from the battlefield. Combat infantry units under fire breathe a sigh of relief when they hear the calm voice of an Apache pilot arriving to provide them with aerial gun …show more content…
Navy introduced the first unmanned helicopter with a combat role. Approximately 800 DASH (QH-50) submarine hunters armed with torpedoes and depth charges were remotely flown from the decks of destroyers in search of enemy submarines. Since that time aircraft manufacturers have either modified existing aircraft to fly unmanned or started from scratch to build unique solutions to a specific mission.
In 2006 Boeing Aircraft Corporation flew their Unmanned Little Bird (ULB) on its first fully autonomous flight. The ULB is a modified A/MH-6 Little Bird, the workhorse used by US Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. It took off, hovered and flew a preprogrammed 20 min route segment simulating a reconnaissance mission, then returned and landed within six inches of its intended touchdown point. This is one of the first examples of an optionally manned helicopter.
Northrup Grumman developed the MQ-8 as a tactical unmanned aerial vehicle. Its missions include real-time reconnaissance, surveillance, battle damage assessment, direct targeting of the enemy and general intelligence gathering. Boeing has also developed unmanned helicopter from scractch. The This aircraft advancements have been madeIn the. Itin when a took flight in . The flith consisted of It has evolved over the years with the
The Vietnam War provided challenging and exciting times for United States (US) military aviation. Jets were still considered new technology at the beginning of the 1960’s and had not been tested thoroughly during the Korean War. As the situation in Vietnam started to escalate, US leadership recognized the importance of air superiority and the need to use and adapt newer technology. Air superiority can be achieved through multiple means, but none as romanticized and iconic as aerial combat. The general concept remains the same even to this day—defeat the other plane. However, the means to winning a dog fight had changed greatly due to the quick advancement in jet propulsion and guided weapon technology. This paper provides a summarization of the US efforts towards achieving air superiority through the means of aerial combat.
... of Staff, Joint Operations, Joint Publication 3-0 (Washington, DC: U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, 11 August 2011),III-10
In 1957, the army began developing a new fighting force based on the helicopter. ...
It was the first helicopter introduced, with although it being intended to be used for medical evacuations and a utility helicopter, it then transformed into being a helicopter that was served both as an armed escort and/or as an attack gunship. Then came the mass production of the Bell AH-1 Huey Cobra. The Huey, the first turbine-powered helicopter, came to serve as an escort for transportation helicopters and unarmed helicopters. The longer the war carried on, the more Huey's were being brought to Vietnam. At the end of the war it had the most combat flight hours of any war, and with that being said, it also sadly was the most helicopter with pilot and crew members K.I.A. and also had the most destruction's within helicopters with 3,305 of the 7,000 Huey's produced being destroyed. One of the most important helicopters after the Iroquois and the Huey was the Boeing CH-47 Chinook. The Chinook was a tandem rotor (double rotor), heavy lifting helicopter. It could fit up to 3 crew members and had a maximum capacity of 33-35 troops. It was used heavily for troop movement, artillery movement and placement and for battlefield resupplying. It was used for tactical and combat support missions. The main reason for its used though was because of the fact it could carry so many troops, they had to find the perfect place, so the Chinook was known for its ability to find strange places to land, such as the edge of large hills and mountains. The last of the helicopters were manufactured by Sikorsky. Sikorsky have all types of helicopters that were needed in order to win a war, they had pave low/gunships, medivacs, and transportation choppers for both troops and artillery. Then the day finally came when the helicopters were put to a test. The Northern Vietnamese had been closing in on the Southern Vietnamese capital and an evacuation was needed. The biggest helicopter evacuation in
The helicopter has demonstrated in the combat role to be a great benefit in the battlefield. Throughout history, helicopters has been modified to support several missions such as supply, close air support, medical extraction, surveillance, extraction and infiltration of armed forces members. The apache helicopter has proven to be a major asset in the US Army in combat. Since its first flight in 1975, the apache has shown its versatility and capability in the combat field.
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operations, Joint Publication 3-0 (Washington, DC: U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, August 11, 2011), III-1.
- - -, dir. “Tactical Air Control Party Specialist (TACP).” U.S. Air Force. U.S. Air Force, n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2012. .
Airplanes and helicopters have been significant ways of transporting goods as well as people since the beginning of the 19th century. The uses of these two machines have impacted human life more than we know it. An airplane, by definition, is a powered flying vehicle with fixed wings and a weight greater than that of the air it displaces. Contrary to the airplane, a helicopter, by definition, is a type of aircraft that derives both lift and propulsion from one or more sets of horizontally revolving overhead rotors. Both machines are incredible works of engineering and are very beneficial for separate reasons. By contrasting airplanes and helicopters, it is easy to see the structure, the purposes, and the control functions
While the idea of a vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft sounds interesting to just about everyone, few people are acquainted with the long and interesting history of the diverse designs that attempt to achieve this. A large fraction of the population of the western world has first-hand experience being flown inside conventional (non-VTOL) airplanes, but few have ever been inside a helicopter. And while airplanes dominate the aviation world, helicopters only fill small often-unseen niches, and VTOL airplanes and other VTOL machines are even less visible.
Historically, flying a helicopter has always been a challenge. From its beginnings some 70 years ago, flying a helicopter required a high degree of skill and constant attention. Even in the best of weather, in broad daylight, lacking either or both could be catastrophic. For all practical purposes, night flight and instrument flight were impossibilities. Not any longer. Since that time, vast improvements in basic helicopter design and avionics have occurred, making even single-pilot instrument flight rules (SPIFR) a reality while realizing major benefits, including greatly increased
The first operational helicopter was the forcke-wulf fw 61 in 1936. Most of the helicopters meet the limits production, however it was not until the 1942’s that a bright man named Igor sikorsky designed a helicopter and the production escalated by around 131 aircraft built. In the early design a helicopter had more than one rotor. But it is the single roto with the anti-torque tail roto configuration that caught people intension.
Ground forces throughout the military rely heavily on the aerial systems used by their aviation assets in order to accomplish their missions. Advances in technology have evolved the types of aircraft used in battle, and while the manned aviation asset is still the leading system used, unmanned systems are steadily moving forward. Manned aircraft systems have both advantages and disadvantages as well as unmanned aircraft systems. The military utilizes both of these systems to complement each other in the battlefield. In this topic, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages for both systems.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the US developed the first proper Unmanned Vehicle Systems ‘UVS’, the Ryan 147 Series. These were used for reconnaissance missions in China and Vietnam.
Tice, Brian P. (1991). Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – The Force Multiplier of the 1990s. Airpower Journal.
Many prestigious aviation companies such as Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin, (to name a few) have led the way in the design and development of UAVs. Even though UAVs are seen as very modern and futuristic, the concept of flying without a pilot has been thought of for long time. (“Brief” 1) The idea was first tested during the United States Civil War, when both the North and South attempted to put explosives in a hot air balloon, and make them drop on the other side’s camp. The idea of using hot air balloons was used again in World War II by the Japanese, who attempted to bomb the United States by using wind to guide the balloons. During WWII, the U.S. had a more successful attempt at producing a UAV, a prototype called, “Operation Aphrodite.” (“Brief” 1) But it was the development of cruise missiles that paved the way for UAVs. The aeronautics company, Chance Vought Aircraft, is the company that took the first step in producing UAVs by proposing the idea of putting landing gear onto missiles. One of the first, full-functioning UAVs is the Firebee. The Firebee was designed by Ryan Aeronautical Company and u...