The US Department of Defense has assigned a key architect of the project that became the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme to look at launching an all-new, "future vertical lift" (FVL) aircraft to enter service after 2020.
James "Raleigh" Durham, now the defence department's director of joint advanced concepts, will kick off a capabilities-based assessment in January to consider options to replace the US military's current helicopter inventory. The assessment will draw on lessons from Durham's role in forming the joint advanced strike technology (JAST) programme in the early 1990s.
JAST transitioned into the JSF programme in 1996, but that was not the original plan, said Durham, addressing the American Helicopter Society in Arlington, Virginia on 19 November.
JAST was supposed to be launched as early as 1994, but that idea was cancelled in the last hours of the 1993 "bottom-up review", Durham said. Instead, JAST was reclassified as a three-year, technology maturation project.
"It turns out it was the best thing that ever happened to us," Durham said. "We had nearly three years of good camaraderie, lots of beer and some analysis to pull the programme together."
Durham thinks the FVL needs to follow a similar, patient trajectory. The capabilities-based assessment will allow the department to establish the information with which to make a compelling case for funding.
"I believe that with good information, good decisions are made," Durham said.
But a fellow early architect of the JSF programme - retired US Marine Corps Lt Gen Michael Hough - rose in the question and answer period to question Durham's strategy.
In 1995, Hough said, a Congressional order that established JAST as a major acquisition priority saved the programme. That rescue was not enabled by worthy analysis, but a sudden influx of funding that came from the timely designation, he said.
"So I ask you," Hough said, questioning Durham, "where are you getting the money?"
Durham said it was more important right now to develop the analysis that could justify the requirement. "Then we can get some funding," he added.
The assessment will consider a wide range of options for replacing helicopters. Even the term "future vertical lift" is vague enough to consider aircraft types beyond rotorcraft.
A key goal will be to reduce the danger of aircraft operating in vertical lift mode. Durham noted that operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003 have claimed 215 helicopters and 380 lives.
Meanwhile, the army is continuing to pursue a Joint Heavy Lift technology demonstration, aiming to develop a new rotorcraft that can lift an Airbus A400M-sized load up to 30t.
Source: Flight International
