Divining the future of heavy vertical lift in the Army
With the Army focused on FLRAA and FARA, the question of heavy lift under the Future Vertical Lift program won’t be answered for a decade or more. In the meantime, here’s what the Army is thinking.
By Barry Rosenberg on November 19, 2021 at 12:15 PM
The Army has three Engineering, Manufacturing, and Development (EMD) prototype aircraft for developmental testing of the C-47 Chinook Block II program.
The Army considers its Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program as a “family” of aircraft. So far, this family has only two members: the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) to replace Black Hawk transports and the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) to fill the role left by the retirement of the Kiowa Warrior and since filled by AH-64 Apaches.
When the Army first began to plan for its FVL family, it had aspirations for additional siblings — specifically a heavy lift cargo version to replace the CH-47 Chinook. While the Army continues to upgrade CH-47D helicopters to the CH-47F standard, which is primarily an avionics and digital systems upgrade not necessarily related to performance, the best-case scenario for a potential heavy lift FVL platform is kickoff in the 2030-2035 timeframe. In the meantime, the Army will be tasked with lifting heavier hardware such as full-armored Joint Light Tactical Vehicles.
To divine the Army’s present thinking on future heavy lift, we talked with MG David Francis, commanding general, US Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Rucker, AL.
https://breakingdefense.com/2021/11/divining-the-future-of-heavy-vertical-lift-in-the-army/
