Friday, August 31, 2012

What If? A new/redesigned CH-46...

Another great pic by Joe Copalman
Let me hit you with a what if.

What if the USMC did a complete redesign/upgrade of the CH-46 instead of buying the MV-22?  They would all be new build helicopters but would start off with all the strong points of the Sea Knight.

What would we want?

*Composite blades...maybe something from the Brits and their Lynx helicopter (the fast one that broke records)
*A composite body...using processes developed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin
*Massive engines...perhaps the same ones used on the CH-53K or the MV-22.
*Enlarged sponsons to hold more fuel
*Enlarged cabin both in depth and width
*Quad landing gear for increased stability on ships.

Maybe I'm talking about a scaled up CH-46 or a scaled down CH-47 but if we only got these few upgrades what would we have now?  We'd have a helicopter that would probably be fully deployed and produced, lower life cycle costs, less expensive, more robust, faster than the legacy helicopter (but not as fast as the MV-22), longer ranged than the legacy helicopter (ditto) and it wouldn't be eating up the budget leaving the ground side with crumbs.


8 comments:

  1. Something that could fit a 20' ISO in the back.

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  2. i was heading there but i thought that's was the specs laid out for the CH-53K...it was either that or pallets i don't remember which.

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  3. My biggest request?? Survivability. The Chinooks are death traps.

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  4. A straight up CH-46 replacement is already flying off ships: it's the CH-148. No development needed, just up the production rate to lower the unit cost.

    Want something bigger? Something with two CH-53K engines, like you propose, has basically the same power as a CH-53E. There is no way that any benefits of a whole new development project are going to compare to the cost savings of just buying more CH-53Es.

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  5. Sol, or you could just speak nicely to boeing a get them to make you some of these...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Model_360

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  6. It's too bad the USMC didn't play it safe and go with the Model 360 instead of the Osprey. Just MHO.

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  7. I'd rather see what Sikorski could do with their X2 technologies in a larger transport platform.

    If the Russians can develop the Mi-38, I bet Sikorsky could take it further.

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