Page 53 - HeliOps Frontline Issue 26

actively pursued or funded under current spending plans. Both
concepts are designed to bring the speed, altitude and range
capabilities of the JMR-Medium (effectively FLRAA through the
JMR Technology Demonstration program) and JMR-Light (FARA)
to larger platforms. JMR-H is designated as the direct Chinook
and potentially CH-53K replacement (it is ‘Joint’ after all…..),
with broadly similar payload capability. The Army initially, and
it now seems rather ambitiously, cited an in-service date of
2035 for JMR-H. Even more fanciful at the moment is JMR-U
which seeks to replicate the cargo carrying capabilities of fixed
wing platforms such as the Lockheed Martin C-130J and EADS
A400M Atlas in a vertical lift form. The technological challenges
and costs of developing JMR-U will likely prove prohibitive, not
to mention that it will inevitably spark a ‘turf war’ with the
US Air Force over the Tactical Air Transport role. It is therefore
likely that JMR-U, if it ever sees the light of day, will be a truly
‘joint’ program with the Air Force as it will require access to
USAF funding lines and clear demarcation between the relative
services’ parochial interests.
JMR-H has, at least been examined in concept form. AVX
Aircraft (teamed with L3), one of the bidders for FARA, have
shown a planned ‘family’ of platforms that leverage off JMR
derived technology, including a ‘Cargo’ tiltrotor with a proposed
payload of over 10 000lbs and a Chinook sized cabin. In the early
2000s Bell and Boeing, as designers and producers of the V-22
Osprey, were funded to look at what a larger Chinook equivalent
would look like. Dubbed, inevitably, the ‘V-44’, the design was
conceptually striking and novel, a Quad Tilt Rotor (QTR), with the
scope to scale up to JMR-U size with, potentially, six rotors. The
feasibility studies were enough to show that, although credible,