Airbus Helicopters will submit two concept studies to NATO’s Next Generation Rotorcraft Capability (NGRC) project – a conventional high-speed helicopter and a design based around the airframer’s Racer compound technology.
The Marseille-headquartered airframer was one of three firms selected last July, alongside Leonardo Helicopters and Sikorsky, to carry out concept studies for the programme, with work to be completed in September this year.
David Alfano, who heads the NGRC activity at Airbus Helicopters, says the conventional rotorcraft will still be capable of meeting the project’s minimum speed requirement of 180kt (333km/h) without the need for significant architectural changes.
This could be achieved through aerodynamic and main rotor improvements, plus “big engines” that will each need to deliver “most likely beyond” 3,000shp (2,237kW).
Speaking to FlightGlobal at the Defence IQ International Military Helicopter conference in London on 25 February, Alfano said the airframer had previously taken a conventional design to a record 200kt “but it was not comfortable” for those on board.
“180kt can be reached pretty easily with a high-speed helicopter which is comfortable enough to be manouverable,” he says.
Alfano says the feedback from nations involved in NGRC is that the optimum speed is around 200kt, slightly slower than the 220kt upper limit suggested in the project’s initial attributes document.
Driving that is operator demand to perform “real nap of the earth flights – below 50ft, between the trees” to enhance survivability, requiring highly advanced sensors and a next-generation cockpit rather than pure speed.
However, Airbus Helicopters is also developing a Racer-based concept should the NGRC nations instead decide that their priorities are speed and range.
A compound architecture also brings other advantages such as enhanced manouverability, a lower noise signature, and the ability to carry weapon or sensor payloads on the wings.
While declining to disclose details of the design, Alfano says the company “will have to adjust” elements of the Racer, a civil demonstrator, to meet “military needs”.
“We know that we have some key design features to change to make it really military.”
The twin-engined Racer features a five-bladed main rotor for vertical lift, while cruise power is provided by a pair of pusher propellers mounted on V-wings located in the middle of the fuselage.
But in addition to speed “you need payload and range”, he says. “It is useless to have a high-speed helicopter with no payload – you are just warning adversaries in that case.
“From our point of view, we are working more on range and survivability and for speed we are just answering the threshold – we don’t fight to be the fastest.”
Alfano says the two concepts will have a high degree of commonality, sharing the “most difficult or expensive items” such as engines and transmission and potentially the cockpit and centre fuselage.
How operators prioritise other attributes, such as transportability or the need to fit on certain landing decks, will also influence the eventual design, Alfano adds.
Airbus Helicopters is likely to release detailed images of the two concept studies later this year.
Meanwhile, Airbus Helicopters continues to work on the technologies underpinning the NGRC concept through a separate European Defence Fund (EDF)-backed programme.
Phase one of the European Next Generation Rotorcraft Technologies (ENGRT) project “is almost completed”, says Alfano.
Funding for a follow-on phase is likely to be awarded by the EDF in May or June this year allowing the project to move from technology exploration to “pre-development” activities.
Airbus Helicopters is partnered with Leonardo Helicopters in ENGRT, despite a fundamental disagreement on how to achieve high-speed flight – the Italian airframer having backed tiltrotor technology over a compound architecture.
Nonetheless, the pair “continue to work hand in hand on everything that is common”, such as an open system architecture, says Alfano.
Airbus Helicopters last year stood up a new “transversal team” within its military business to consolidate all activities on future rotorcraft.
Headed by Alfano, the unit – to add yet another similar-sounding name – is called Next Generation Rotorcraft System and is “dedicated to preparing the future”.
