to the future of Army aviation and should proceed despite an economic crisis that is expected to put pressure on defense budgets in the coming years. Crutchfield commands the Aviation Center of Excellence, a part of U.S. Training and Doctrine Command.
"We know that if you look out to 2025/2030, that it can be said that the current fleet of aircraft, no matter how much money we spend, not matter how many times we product-improve or modernize, there will be a point at which these aircraft will not be able to fill the gaps that we see for the future, 21st-century environment," he told Inside the Army.
The service must continue upgrading existing aircraft while simultaneously beginning to define the requirements for the JMR, a process conducted in concert with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Crutchfield said.
The JMR project is still in its infancy, but Crutchfield said he wants to ensure the Army works toward the "aimpoint" of fielding the aircraft around 2025 -- and sticks with it. That time line would put the cut-off time for technologies to be included in the program at 2018 or 2019, according to Ellis Golson, Crutchfield's director of capability development and integration.
Meanwhile, officials have begun examining technologies deemed key to the envisioned multirole capability of the new helicopter. "Today, we have mostly single-type aircraft that perform single roles," Crutchfield said, noting that an Apache helicopter, for example, can be used for attack missions but not for ferrying soldiers to a battlefield.
"[W]e feel that there is a day when a single airframe can perform more than one role," he added.
Exactly what the airframe would look like is still "somewhat open to debate," according to Golson. "It may be tilt-rotor, it may be something like Sikorsky's X-2, it may be something completely different from what we know right now," he said.
Instead of one truly common helicopter, slight variants centered around a single design could emerge from the program, he added. The approach would preserve expected efficiency gains of a multirole approach by relying largely on common parts, he said.
Sikorsky's experimental X-2 is a counter-rotating, coaxial rotor helicopter, according to the company's website. The demonstrator "unofficially" broke a speed record last summer, reaching 250 knots per hour, Sikorsky said in a July 26, 2010, statement.
To be considered for the JMR development, technologies must have a readiness level of 6, Golson said. The designation describes a maturity level advanced enough that prototypes are ready for initial integration.
Officials have set their eyes on the Army's Improved Turbine Engine Program, or ITEP, to power the aircraft, according to Golson. The ITEP promises 3,000 shaft horsepower and fuel savings of 25 percent for increased range, he said.
In addition, officials are eying new communications gear and concepts for integrating manned and unmanned platforms during JMR missions, Golson noted.
As for new technologies in the area of helicopter defense, Crutchfield said the service is "looking at" countermeasures against laser weapons and laser-guided weapons expected to become more prevalent in future wars. Additional efforts are under way to quickly locate the origin of small-arms fire directed at helicopters so pilots can take "appropriate action," he added.
The Army on Jan. 12 released a broad agency announcement for what it called a JMR technology-enabled capability demonstration. The document requested industry ideas for an "objective" aircraft, complete with technology-readiness assessments, cost estimates and schedule projections.
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