Military rotorcraft procurement has a lot to learn from commercial programmes such as Boeing's 7E7 and the Airbus A380 and must change radically if expensive cancellations such as the Boeing/Sikorsky Comanche are not to be repeated.
That was the view put forward by Pat Shanahan, vice-president of Boeing Rotorcraft, yesterday at Farnborough.
Shanahan said Comanche's demise provided a stark reminder that unless a requirement was 'frozen' early enough, both customers and industry suffer in the long run. Shanahan was looking ahead to future requirements for an advanced heavylift aircraft, capable of carrying 20t and being part of the future digitised battlefield. Several arms of the US military are mulling such a requirement and NATO needs an aircraft with similar capabilities.
The challenge, he said, was to find a way of crystallising these needs into a single, clearly defined requirement document. "If we approach this heavylift requirement in the traditional way, then the money will simply run out."
Shanahan turned the focus on Boeing internally as well as the wider procurement community, saying that the ability of Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) colleagues in Seattle to develop the 7E7 programme in ultra-fast time, had led to some "head scratching" in Philadelphia.
Timeframe
"We see what they [BCA] are doing with the 7E7, all the new materials and innovation on that aircraft and the timeframe in which they are accomplishing it. The question for us is why can't we do the same?"
He outlined an aggressive plan to position Boeing as a contender to meet the heavylift requirement, by taking what might have been a 20-year development programme and reducing it to just five years.
He indicated Boeing was approaching the future heavylift market with an open mind in terms of providing a stand-alone solution or partnering with another manufacturer: "At this stage my view is that it's about harmonising the requirement; the rest will fall into place through the normal competition process."
Asked if such co-operation, particularly at political level, was possible, he said the mindset was right post-Comanche, but the will to try a new approach had to be there.
PAUL DERBY
Source: Flight Daily News
