All the traditional helicopters that the military will field are either already in service or under development and any future work will feed directly into the multi-service Future Vertical Lift (FVL) effort, according to Jose Gonzales, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for tactical warfare systems.
There are a handful of helicopter development efforts underway already. The Air Force is leading the program to build a combat search-and-rescue (CSAR) helicopter. The Navy has taken point on buying a new Presidential Helicopter to replace the CH-53 Marine One. Meanwhile, the Marine Corps is nearing completion of the CH-53K King Stallion that will replace its heavy-lift helicopters.
“While I certainly recognize that we enjoy world-class aircraft today, many of them have reached their performance design limits, lifecycle costs have become unsustainable and we’re too slow and it’s too expensive to upgrade those systems,” Gonzales said during a forum on FVL hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) at its Washington headquarters. “That has been our objective and our need from day-one on Future Vertical Lift.”
Beyond these programs and efforts to incrementally upgrade legacy rotorcraft, Gonzales said all rotorcraft development efforts will feed directly into FVL.
“That’s where we snap the chalk line,” Gonzales said. “Any developments beyond that are part of the Future Vertical Lift family of systems.”
Initially, the FVL “family” was divvied up into categories based on the size of the platform. The “light” variant would take over scouting and attack roles as performed by the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior and AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. The “medium” variant would perform utility and mobility roles currently shouldered by the UH-60 Black Hawk. Finally, the “heavy” and “ultra-heavy” would take over mobility and cargo missions from the CH-47 Chinook in the Army and the CH-53 in the Marine Corps.
Now the FVL family of systems is structured according to five mission profiles or capability sets that are not necessarily exclusive and sometime overlap. FVL includes five capability sets that run the gamut from missions carried out by light to ultra-heavy helicopters. Capability set three last year passed material development decisions.
Capability set three was identified as the best target for the first FVL variant because it would satisfy the largest amount of urgent vertical-lift requirements for multiple services. As the middle capability set, it will likely satisfy utility and other roles currently performed by the UH-60 Black Hawk and UH-1 Huey. Capability sets one and two will be performed by smaller aircraft that will supplant the AH-1 Cobra, AH-64 Apache and OH-58 Kiowa. Capability sets four and five will cover the roles performed by heavy lift helicopters.
All told, FVL will replace about 6,500 aircraft in the military services, said Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Stacy Clardy, deputy director for force management, application and support on the Joint Staff.
“Each of the services, obviously, with their portfolios of aircraft have plans for those aircraft in terms of when they’ll sunset,” Clardy said. “Some will be extended, of course. They have to weave that together with their budgets and…their needs. That will somewhat determine, as we go forward, what the timeline looks like.”
An analysis of alternatives (AoA) is underway that is taking stock of all vertical-lift requirements in the military services to inform a decision on what should be capability set three. That AoA is “going to be very telling,” Gonzales said.
Both teams participating in the Joint Multi-Role Tech Demonstration (JMR-TD), which will validate the basic technologies available for FVL, are nearing completion of their prototype aircraft and are set to fly this fall.
“We have set some very lofty goals in terms of range and speed and all the abilities that we would like in this next generation of vertical lift capability,” he said. “I think we’re going to learn a lot from that AoA and we’re going to take that learning … we’re going to apply that learning to the other capability sets.”
There is no set timeline for the rollout of the capability sets and the aircraft that will perform those roles. The AoA should be completed by late 2018, early 2019, Gonzales said.
“We’d certainly love to see all cap[ability] sets moving out tomorrow, but that’s probably not likely in our current fiscal environment,” he said. “The services have to define the requirements and the services have to have the resources to make those investments.”
Clardy echoed the sentiment that in the current fiscal environment, the services have shown a willingness to pony up precious funding for a program they collectively envision with revolutionize combat capabilities.
“It really comes down to whether they are going to put the money into it or not,” Clardy said. “So far, they have. Each of the services, Marine Corps included, has put the money up that was needed to make the program a success.”