WASHINGTON -- Bell Helicopter is taking its legacy developing tiltrotor technology into the unmanned world with a new aircraft it is calling the V-247 "Vigilant."
The company unveiled a model of the aircraft Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington, complete with a motorized demonstration of how the unmanned aircraft system can fold its wings and rotors for optimal storage.
Now is as good a time as any to invest in the effort, the company figures, as the military services look for unmanned aircraft that are runway-independent, less expensive to operate, offer more persistence and require less space to store and transport
Bell Helicopter is particularly targeting the Marine Corps as a possible customer because it appears closest to establishing a requirement, Vince Tobin, the company's vice president of advanced tiltrotor systems, said Thursday.
The company believes Vigilant meets "the comprehensive spectrum of capabilities outlined in the 2016 Marine Corps Aviation Plan," a company statement said.
The V-247 can cruise long-range at 240 knots but can exceed a cruise speed of 300 knots. The aircraft can support an internal mission payload of 2,000 lbs and can sling-load 9,000 lbs. The aircraft is capable of flying 11 hours with 600 lbs of mission payload, but has a 1,400 nautical mile mission radius, which equates to 17 hours of flight time.
Some of the missions envisioned for the aircraft are as escorts for the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey or the future V-280 Valor the Army is assessing for a possible Future Vertical Lift (FVL) aircraft. Other missions could be delivering persistent fires, electronic warfare or early warning as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, according to Tobin.
Bell assigned the number "247" to the aircraft because of its 24-hour persistent ISR capability when used in a two-aircraft team, Tobin said.
The aircraft is also designed with a large amount of flexibility through an open-architecture, modular payload system.
Additionally, Vigilant is DDG shipboard compatible and, when folded up, has the footprint of a Bell Helicopter UH-1 Yankee. It has a 37-foot-long fuselage. Two can fit on a C-17.
The V-247 is designed to optimally fire MK-50 Torpedos, Hellfire missiles or the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM).
The aircraft will have aerial-refueling capability and a retractable tricycle landing gear.
Drawing from technology developed in the V-22 and V-280 programs, Bell is using the same wing concept as the V-280. While the V-22 has two separate wings, the wing is one long piece mated to the top of the fuselage in the V-280.
One big difference is the power source. While the V-280 and V-22’s dual-engines are located within the tiltrotor pylons, Vigilant will have a single engine housed in the fuselage, according to Tobin.
The tiltrotor’s advantage over a fixed-wing aircraft is "it collocates with the maneuver force because it isn’t reliant on a runway somewhere else, so it doesn’t have to be based at some far-off point. … It can take off from right next to where you are," Tobin said.
While Bell sees the Marine Corps as the most near-term possibility for a runway-independent drone program, the Army has been very vocal this year that it desires for its future unmanned aircraft to be runway-independent as well.
Tobin told Defense News following the unveiling that the Army has signaled "nothing specific" in terms of when it might want to start looking at such an aircraft.
But, said Tobin, "We think when we build this, and the Army sees it and they see the capability they have, they will either want this or something like it."
While the current design is larger than a Gray Eagle, Vigilant is easily scalable and could be designed smaller, Tobin said.
And he added Vigilant could be easily incorporated into manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) arrangements with the Army’s AH-64E attack helicopters, where pilots have the ability to control nearby drones from the cockpit using a tactical common data link, because its open architecture would allow for it to connect seamlessly.
Tobin said the company anticipates the same could go for MUM-T operations with a future medium-sized vertical lift aircraft for which the V-280 is being developed.
And an unmanned aircraft like Vigilant might even have a place as the Army’s future vertical lift helicopter in the light-attack or reconnaissance category. Bell responded to an Army request for information on designs for such an aircraft with an unmanned aircraft offering, according to Tobin.
In order to take the aircraft from a design phase to a development phase, Bell is waiting for a green light when the Marine Corps writes a formal requirement. Once there’s a "formal requirement, the application of funding and initiation of an engineering and manufacturing development phase of acquisition," Bell will be ready to "assist as necessary," Tobin said.
And while he didn’t want to speak for the Marine Corps, Tobin added, based on questions from the service on how quickly they can build the V-247, "we interpret that as, potentially, for there to be a near-term need so we are making sure we are ready for that."
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.
