The most advanced helicopter at present is Apache. Anything else?

American RAH-66 Comanche helicopter

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brief introduction

RAH-66 "Kamanche" is the next generation attack reconnaissance helicopter developed by Boeing for the US military. It was originally planned to replace AH- 1 combat helicopters and OH-56 reconnaissance helicopters, and partially replace AH-64 combat helicopters. At present, the aircraft development equipment plan has been cancelled.

1982, the us army put forward the LHX (experimental light helicopter program). Originally planned, 5000 LHX helicopters were needed to replace UH- 1, AH- 1, OH-58 and OH-6 helicopters, and the planned procurement quantity was reduced to 1292 in 190. 1In June, 1988, the US Army issued a tender for LHX, and signed a 23-month demonstration and verification contract with the first competition team composed of Boeing and Sikorsky and the super team composed of Bell and McDonnell Douglas. 199 1 On April 8, 2008, the US Army announced that Boeing and Sikorsky won, and LHX entered the prototype development stage. At the beginning of 1990, the U.S. Army deleted the experimental letter X from the LHX code and became LH, 199 1 April, officially numbered as RAH-66. Among them, R stands for reconnaissance, A stands for attack, and H stands for helicopter. It is named "Comanche" after North American Indians. It is estimated that the RAH-66 will make its first flight in August 1995 and be delivered in 200 1 year. It will become the main aircraft type of the US Army, carrying out tasks such as armed reconnaissance, anti-tank and air combat.

[Edit this paragraph] Stealth performance

The most outstanding advantage of RAH-66 is that it adopts an unprecedented comprehensive stealth design in helicopters. In the past, various helicopters also took stealth measures. For example, the engine exhaust pipe of AH-64 uses an infrared radiation suppression device nicknamed "black hole".

On the other hand, RAH-66 has an overall stealth design: the fuselage adopts a polyhedral smooth corner design similar to F- 1 17, reducing the right-angle reflection surface and using absorbing materials; The air inlet of the engine is exquisitely designed, the opening is slit-shaped, and the air passage is tortuous, so as to avoid the radar wave from irradiating the turbofan engine and generating large echo; The exhaust pipe adopts complex cooling and shielding design, and the exhaust radiation is extremely small; The ducted fan tail rotor design, which is rare in American helicopter design, is adopted, and the radar reflection echo is smaller than the traditional tail rotor.

The radar cross-sectional area of RAH-66 helicopter is smaller than that of any helicopter at present, only 1% of them. Such good stealth performance is mainly due to its stealth shape and the extensive use of composite materials and radar jamming equipment. The turret of RAH-66 photoelectric sensor is an angular plane prism, which has the function of dissipating radar reflected waves. The side of the fuselage is composed of two halves of the corner, which avoids the shortcomings of strong omnidirectional scattering of radar waves by cylindrical and hemispherical fuselage. There are "brackets" on both sides of the tail beam, which can deflect and reflect radar waves so that they cannot return to the detection radar. After the culvert at the tail, the propeller tilts to the left, and the vertical tail on the tail rotor tilts to the right, and a horizontal stabilizer is installed on it. This structure will not form an angular reflector with an included angle of 90 degrees between metal surfaces, and can strongly reflect radar signals. On the front of an ordinary helicopter, the air inlet is a strong radar reflector like a corner reflector, while the two engines of RAH-66 helicopter are encapsulated in the fuselage, and the air inlet is suspended and buried above the two sides of the fuselage, and the air inlet is prismatic, which will not form a strong reflection on radar waves. The rotor hub and blade root are equipped with fairings to form a smooth transition fusion body, which can also reduce the reflection of radar waves. The shape of the paddle is carefully selected, so it is not easy to be found by radar.

Another shape design measure of RAH-66 to reduce the cross-sectional area of radar is to use built-in missiles and retractable super-drop frames. RAH-66 can carry 14 missiles at most, of which 6 missiles are hung on the closable hatch with integral lifting beam, and are usually closed and opened when launching. The built-in missile cabin was first used for helicopters. The gatling gatling gun with a diameter of 20mm can form a larger radar cross-sectional area, so it is designed to rotate 180 degrees in the horizontal plane and be stored backwards in the fairing of the turret. The short wing used for hanging weapons or auxiliary fuel tanks can be disassembled, and it can only be disassembled when performing tasks such as armed reconnaissance that require a small amount of weapons and high stealth. The rear three-point landing gear can be retracted. After retraction, the hatch of the super-descending frame is closed for shielding, which can reduce the radar reflection cross-sectional area.

In order to reduce the radar cross-sectional area, RAH-66 also widely uses composite materials, which account for 5 1% of the total weight of the helicopter structure. However, the U.S. military helicopter UH-60 "Black Hawk" uses only 9% of composite materials, and RAH-66 is the practical helicopter that uses the most composite materials in the world. The composite materials used in the fuselage structure include skin, hatch, stringer, partition frame, central keel box beam structure, turret fairing, ducted tail rotor shield, vertical tail wing and horizontal stabilizer. The composite materials used in the rotor system include flexible beams, blades, torsion tubes, torsion arms, rotating inclined plates, sleeve shafts and rotor fairings. The transmission system is made of composite materials, including transmission shaft and main gearbox. The composite materials used are toughened epoxy resin, bismaleimide resin, graphite fiber, glass fiber and Kevlar fiber.

[Edit this paragraph] Operational performance

[font] The advanced bearingless rotor has good maneuverability [/font], which makes the pilot feel like a fighter. The 8-blade ducted tail rotor can make RAH-66 turn sharply, making it turn 90 degrees and 180 degrees respectively at the forward speed within 3 to 4.5 seconds. This is far superior to ordinary helicopters, and it is easy to catch fighters in air combat. When the tail rotor blade rotates in the culvert, it will not encounter the turning obstacle caused by the aerodynamic sound of the sound seam of the tail rotor, such as branches, and it is not easy to hit the staff when driving on the ground. The high-level stabilizer can be folded down, which is beneficial for the transport plane to airlift the whole helicopter. The fuselage is made of composite material with basin keel beam in the middle, which is the main load-bearing structure. More than half of the skin can be opened without loading the skin, which is convenient for maintenance. When the weapon door is opened, it can be used as a maintenance platform. The nose mask is hinged and can be opened to the left, which is convenient for accessing the sensor and ammunition compartment to work. The airframe structure can withstand an overload of 3.5G and the shooting of bullets or shells with diameters of 762mm, 12.7mm and 23mm.

Two T800 turboshaft engines are installed on the curved shoulders of the fuselage with digital engine control devices. The power of a single unit is 895 kilowatts. The amount of oil in the fuel tank is 10 18 liters. The fuel system is crash-resistant, and there is an inert gas generation system to prevent the fuel from catching fire after the helicopter crashes.

The RAH-66 helicopter can also be equipped with a radar jammer, which can jam the detection radar. Its working principle is that the incident radar wave can be turned into a pulse signal, and at the same time, the reflection data of the helicopter under this condition can be measured, and a false echo can be sent out, thus achieving the purpose of disabling the detection radar. The radar reflection characteristic signal of RAH-66 is low, so low-power jammer can be used, which reduces the weight and cost of jammer. Unlike AH-64, it needs a higher power jammer. It is not difficult to see that stealth technology is a technology that makes the radar system ineffective and makes it impossible to detect aircraft. In fact, stealth technology has four aspects, except radar detection, infrared detection, acoustic detection and visual stealth.

It can be said that RAH-66 is the coldest helicopter and the first helicopter to fully apply infrared suppression technology to the fuselage. The infrared suppressor is installed in the tail beam, and its unique long exhaust port is designed with enough bending length to make the hot gas and cooling air exhausted by the engine completely and effectively mix. The cooling air is sucked in through the second air inlet above the tail beam, mixed with the hot exhaust of the engine, then discharged through the downward gaps on both sides of the tail beam, and then blown away by the downward airflow of the rotor, so that the exhaust temperature is obviously reduced, thus protecting the helicopter from the attack of heat-seeking missiles.

Comanche mainly adopts passive reconnaissance means when performing tasks, such as thermal camera or TV, low-light-level TV, etc. Of course, a tapered masthead millimeter wave radar (disk on AH-64D) can also be used. Boeing claims that its effective distance to observe targets is twice that of active reconnaissance helicopters. The most outstanding thing is that the reconnaissance task is planned by computer, which can compare and analyze the target data found by airborne equipment with the original stored data as soon as possible, eliminate the false and retain the true, find new targets and new trends, display the final target data and battlefield situation on the cockpit screen, and transmit them to the relevant commanders of the ground forces in near real time according to the instructions. In the past, it took an optical reconnaissance plane about 1-2 hours to find a battlefield target and command the next attack force to attack, but now it only takes about 10 minutes. If there was an attack plane on the battlefield at that time, you could order an immediate attack. RAH-66 cockpit

RAH-66 large display, thermal imaging image is very clear.

The "battlefield video" of the plane can be immediately transmitted to other armed helicopters in the air with corresponding receiving equipment, such as Apache. Therefore, in the future, the "reaction" time considered by the army on the battlefield will be calculated in minutes, and slow means "beating". The US Army plans to designate about 430 "Longbow" helicopters with a new radar function similar to "Longbow Apache" among the thousands of "Comanche" helicopters scheduled, but the antenna diameter is only 560 mm, and the radome is mushroom-shaped to reduce the radar reflection cross section.

RAH-66 adopts a two-seat tandem cockpit, with slender fuselage, concealed weapons and retractable overhead pylon, which not only reduces the radar reflection area for helicopters, but also is not easy to be found by naked eyes if the distance is not close enough. The cockpit adopts flat glass, which can effectively reduce the diffuse reflection of sunlight. Dark non-reflective coating is used on the surface of the whole aircraft to reduce the reflective intensity of the helicopter. These are also beneficial to visual invisibility. RAH-66 uses a five-blade rotor, but it is related to reducing visual detection. Because the apparent brightness when the rotor rotates is related to the flicker frequency, that is, to the passing rate of the rotor blades. If the stable light source is blocked for half the time, when the flicker frequency is 9.5 Hz, the actual display brightness is twice that of the stable light source. 9.5 Hz is about the flicker frequency of two blades. The higher the frequency, the lower the brightness. The flicker frequency of each blade is 36 Hz, and the brightness will be reduced by 50%. When the rotor is five blades, the possibility of visual detection can be reduced by about 85% compared with a helicopter with two blades. This phenomenon is called Brooke effect, which is also confirmed by experiments.

Before seeing the helicopter with naked eyes, we can also detect and identify the helicopter through its sound. To this end, RAH-66 has taken the following effective measures to reduce the sound. The rotor blade tip swept back can reduce the noise sound pressure by 2 to 3 decibels, so it is difficult to distinguish the noise of five blades from that of two blades. The ducted tail rotor can also reduce noise, because it eliminates the interaction between rotor and tail rotor wake. The narrow slit exhaust ports on both sides of RAH-66 tail beam can not only reduce the infrared radiation mark of engine exhaust, but also eliminate the noise of engine exhaust. Another method of noise reduction of RAH-66 is that the blade profile and curvature from the blade root to the blade tip are the same, which can make the outer section of the forward blade reach high speed and the backward blade will not stall, so that the helicopter can reduce the rotor speed at low speed (167 km/h), thus reducing the rotor noise.

In terms of optical vision reconnaissance ability, pilots also have helmet sight, which can transmit images to helmet night vision goggles by nasal infrared or low-light-level night vision goggles. The airport angle of night vision goggles can reach 35 degrees to 52 degrees. Apache is only 30 to 40 degrees. The nose infrared viewer uses the wavelength of 8- 12 micron, and it is entirely possible to find tanks 8- 10 km away at night.

[Edit this paragraph] Electronic communication performance

[font] In the past, the communication and information transmission of the US armed forces had their own set of specifications [/font], which were different from each other. Comanche helicopter solved this problem for the first time. Its digital communication and information cross-linking equipment is completely compatible with the US Army's 188-220 standard, the Air Force's AFAPD standard, the tactical communication standards of the Navy and the Marine Corps, and the recently developed Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS), so the information it detects can be immediately transmitted to the three services for their use. And can contact with E-3 airborne early warning aircraft, RC- 135 reconnaissance aircraft, E-8JSTARS joint surveillance target attack radar system, RC- 12 electronic reconnaissance aircraft and satellites at any time. This is a concrete example of the concept of "system to system" of the US military in modern warfare.

On June 5438+ 10, 2003, Rockwell Collins Company delivered the first set of helmet integrated display aiming system (HIDSS) to RAH-66, which was used for the aircraft maintenance module (ARU) of the Engineering Manufacturing Development (EMD). Kaiser Electronics (now affiliated to Rockwell Collins) is responsible for the design and development of helmet integrated display aiming system for Comanche project. The helmet display shows the precise weapons and flight roles to the pilots, enabling them to fly with their heads up 24 hours a day. This helmet-mounted display adopts light solid light active matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD) technology. The system adopts double-component structure design. In the predetermined components of the aircraft, modules with a large field of view of 35× 52, binocular and double objective optical systems, high resolution (SXGA level-1280× 1024 pixels), electromagnetic tracking sensors and their driving electronic components are used. Aircraft retention components are stored on the aircraft as part of weapons and photoelectric systems. The optical system can be folded, and only single eyepiece and single objective lens can be used, or binoculars and double objective lenses can be used. The driver's earphone of the system weighs 1770g, and it also has an optional 40-degree weak light (low brightness) TV module with a weight of 2000g g.

The electronic equipment on board is very modern, with two redundant task computers and three sets of data buses:

The standard bus 1553B currently used by military aircraft;

High speed optical fiber bus;

Ultra-high speed optical fiber bus.

The above three can be mutually redundant. As long as one set is normal, airborne equipment data can be cross-linked.

RAH-66 will be equipped with AN/ALQ-2 1 1 Integrated Radio Frequency Countermeasures (SIRFC) of avionics division of ITT Industry Company for self-defense electronic countermeasures. SIRFC has radar early warning and jamming functions, which can protect aircraft from radar-guided missiles. The system adopts open structure and modular design, which is suitable for various types of aircraft. In addition to the functions of sensor fusion, situation notification, radar early warning and electronic countermeasures, it also has the ability of electronic support measures based on the requirements of combat missions.

[Edit this paragraph] Survival performance

[font] The survivability of armed helicopters includes two aspects [/font]. One is operational survivability, such as the ability to resist damage when attacked by the other side's weapons, and the other is the "normal anti-crash" ability during normal training flight or use.

The design standard of Comanche helicopter's combat survivability is that the tail rotor can withstand the impact of 12.7mm machine gun projectiles, and one rotor can still fly for 30 minutes after being knocked off. The airframe structure can withstand the damage caused by the direct hit of 23mm shells. In addition, the cockpit has the ability to prevent chemical and biological weapons in combat.

The low-altitude maneuverability of armed helicopters is very important to improve operational survivability. In low-altitude combat, it is necessary to minimize the time exposed to the opponent's fire, such as being able to cross a mountain quickly and at low altitude. The maximum positive overload of Comanche is +2.5g, and the negative overload is-1.0g, so that Comanche can cross the hill of 100m in 6 seconds during high-speed sprint, and the height from the ground is always less than 5m.

At the beginning of the pull-up, it takes 2 seconds to maintain a positive overload of 2.5g, then it becomes a negative overload (reducing the helicopter shape) within less than 1.5 seconds, and then it remains -0.5g for about 2 seconds. In this way, the whole mobile exposure time is very short.

In order to improve the operational survivability of helicopters, the US Army emphasizes the necessity of dual release bureaus. At present, the power plant used is two T800-LHT-800 turboshaft engines developed by light helicopter turboshaft engine company (a joint venture between rolls royce Company and Hanniwell Company), each with a maximum power of 1 149 kW.

The two engines basically work independently, and when one engine is damaged in battle, it will not affect the work of the other engine. As long as 1 engine works, the helicopter can guarantee the return flight. The standard of crash prevention is that when the pilot falls to the ground at the vertical speed of 12.8m/s, the pilot's seat can ensure his life safety, with a probability of 95%.

[Edit this paragraph] Firepower distribution

[font] In terms of firepower, this helicopter is not too demanding [/font], because it is not an attack helicopter, and its main task is to detect rather than directly destroy ground targets. Of course, if given the chance, it will also play its role as a weapon. When performing a mission with stealth requirements, its weapons are hung on the inside of the missile doors on both sides. Open these two doors before launching, and the weapon will be exposed. It can be launched in 3 seconds.

The short wing of RAH-66 can carry 864 kilograms of weapon load in different combinations. If the short wing is attached to the external fuel tank, the RAH-66 can fly 2355 kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean. The short wing can carry 32 70mm Hydra rockets, or 8 Helfa missiles, or similar missiles. The internal pylon of RAH-66 can carry 14 Helfa missiles or similar missiles.

The rotating turret is equipped with 20 mm caliber double-barrel guns, and the firing rate is 1500 rounds/min when dealing with air targets and 750 rounds/min when dealing with ground targets. The azimuth angle of the turntable is 240 degrees and the pitch angle is 60 degrees. The ammunition box contained 500 rounds of ammunition. It takes less than three people to refuel RAH-66 and load its turret and weapon bay 13 minutes. RAH-66 is equipped with advanced avionics, which has the ability to detect day and night and fight in bad weather conditions. If you can find the target first in a battle, you can strike first and fire before the target fires. The advanced navigation and target aiming system can provide high-definition infrared images of the battlefield at night, which makes the helicopter have excellent combat capability. Compared with Apache helicopter, RAH-66 Comanche helicopter can increase the distance to find the target by 40% and shorten the response time by 95%.

When performing tasks that do not require stealth, a pair of short wings can be installed on both sides of the fuselage, and 2×4 Helfa missiles or 2×8 Stinger missiles can be hung. The short wing can also be hung with two 1700-liter auxiliary fuel tanks for transition flight. If the bomb bay is not loaded, it can be changed to a 425-liter fuel tank. The normal oil quantity of the engine is 1 142 liters. By comparison, it can be seen that the two external auxiliary fuel tanks are very large, which will make the helicopter's transition range reach more than 2000 kilometers.

In order to solve the increasingly complex maintenance problem of modern military aircraft, improve the utilization rate of aircraft and better adapt to the time requirements of modern warfare, the US military has strict maintenance standards for newly developed military aircraft. The maintenance requirements of Comanche helicopter are very strict, and Boeing has also made great efforts. The original goal is: it takes 3 people 15 minutes to detour (refueling and loading ammunition); Average flight 1 hour, and maintenance workload is 2.5 working hours (AH-64 is 6 working hours). The transition flight requires five crew members. It takes 3.5 minutes to install the short helicopter, 3 minutes to hang the auxiliary fuel tank and fill it with oil, 4.5 minutes to hang two stinger missiles and 1500 shells, and the total time is 15.5 minutes. After arriving at the destination, unload the short wing, auxiliary fuel tank and weapons/kloc-0 for 5.5 minutes, and unload other transit equipment for 3.5 minutes. However, these indicators have not been fully achieved.

The US military transport plane can send Comanche to the front, and it takes an average of 22 minutes to load and unload it. C- 13O can hold 1, C- 14 1 3, C- 17 4 and C-5 8.

Recently, Raytheon Systems Limited (RSL), a British subsidiary of Raytheon Corporation of the United States, won a pre-production contract to provide 18 Pagan anti-jamming navigation system for RAH-66 Comanche helicopter. The contract is worth 2.2 million pounds, including hardware delivery, project management and qualification certification. Mass production may begin in mid-2004.

PAGAN is a small four-channel anti-jamming system, which is suitable for small platforms. The system is developed to eliminate the natural interference that destroys GPS signals, and can deal with various interference sources from any direction. PAGAN's typical platforms include ground vehicles, helicopters, drones and surface ships, as well as smaller fighters.

Recently, RAH-66 was equipped with a conical masthead millimeter wave radar, which improved its combat capability at night and in bad weather.

[Edit this paragraph] Development course

At present, the US Army pays more attention to the RAH-66 project, but this project may face the doom of being cancelled due to funding problems. The Army has postponed the time for Comanche to fully equip the troops from 2008 to 2009, and relaxed the requirements for some combat weapons and systems equipped with RAH-66 to reduce the risk of aircraft development. After the adjustment, R&D expenditure is still as high as $3.4 billion.

However, in April 2002, the US House Armed Services Committee (HASC) submitted the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2003, which rejected the Army's recent idea of changing the RAH-66 plan. The bill will urge the army to establish a special RAH-66 program to supplement the funds for testing aircraft. HASC supports the plan, but does not tolerate bargaining between the army and contractors on the plan. HASC hopes to have a well-organized RAH-66 plan. According to the requirements of HASC, the army must increase funds to support the risk reduction plan, postpone the arrangement of additional flight test time and spiral development requirements, meet the new contract requirements of the army's target military strength level, and increase the cost of S contractor's sub-optimal performance.

In May 2002, the US Army made an assessment that the total number of RAH-66 equipment would not reach the original planned 12 13, but should be around 1200. According to this assessment, the first actual Comanche unit will be put into active service for 9 months, and the research and development funds will increase by 3 billion US dollars. When the production quantity is expected to be completed, the total cost will increase by about 1200 USD.

On May 23rd, the second prototype of RAH-66 made its first flight. This time, a new engine LHTEC T-800-LHT-80 1 and a new MEP software system are used. The power of the new engine is 1563 shaft horsepower, 1 165.5 kW, which is 17% higher than the original engine. MEP can complete many functions such as automatic driving, self-inspection report and digital map. Prototype 2 can carry more weapons and ammunition.

In July 2002, the US Army announced its decision to equip Comanche, the lowest combat unit of the "ideal force". Because the Crusader's new self-propelled howitzer project was cancelled a month ago, the army stepped up its work on the RAH-66 project to avoid being cut again. The army plans to replace the current battalion and brigade combat units with "action units" as the lowest-level "ideal troops". Each unit includes two units, six of which are equipped with RAH-66 Comanche. Each team also has six drones, which can team up with RAH-66 to complete the task. Because RAH-66 has perfect reconnaissance capability, it meets the operational requirements of the lowest combat echelon. According to the plan when the US Army began to transform into an "ideal force" a year ago, only advanced combat troops had aviation power, but now the US Army has completely changed its original plan. Although this proposal is still under discussion, it is reported that there are about 65,438+000 aviation troops, including two RAH-66 helicopter units, and they have their own command organs.

In August 2002, the US military began to plan to upgrade all Comanches before 2009. In order to better meet the needs of battlefield reconnaissance and command, "Comanche" will gradually update the radar system, so as to gain the ability to operate drones, as well as new satellite link communication systems and artillery systems. The first problem at present is the need to increase the load. According to the US military budget, this plan will cost 3.4 billion US dollars. The premise of the above argument is that the Army determines that RAH-66 will take over the operational tasks of OH-58 and AH-64. However, in the research report of the US Department of Defense in September, it was suggested that RAH-66 should be positioned as a substitute for OH-58, and it should not be considered to take over the offensive combat mission of AH-64.

In April, 2003, the U.S. Army delayed submitting a plan to the Ministry of National Defense to purchase 65,438+069 RAH-66. At present, the army believes that it is necessary to purchase at least 8 19 aircraft, which is different from the 650 aircraft agreed by the Ministry of National Defense. Therefore, the army was forced to postpone the submission for further study. Subsequently, Boeing and Sikorsky established a new production plant in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania on April 25th, and workers began to manufacture the rear fuselage part for the first engineering and manufacturing development RAH-66. The composite tail and rotor blades of the RAH-66 will be manufactured in the new factory, which will become the center of the Boeing rotorcraft, and then shipped to the Sikorsky factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut for assembly. Boeing Company began to produce the aircraft rear fuselage at the beginning of this year, and installed the first important equipment-tail rotor cover on the production line on April 2 1. Boeing and Sikorsky teams have so far produced two Comanche prototypes under the EMD (engineering and manufacturing development) phase contract, with a total amount of 6.5 billion US dollars. * * * Nine EMD aircraft will be manufactured and delivered to the US Army in 2005-2006. It is planned to form initial operational capability in 2009.

At the same time, the US Army is actively screening UAV models that cooperate with RAH-66. The UAV will have the function of vertical take-off and landing, and form a cooperative combat system with RAH-66. The plan will be divided into two phases. In the first stage, the pilot will be able to receive all the relevant information of the cooperative drone on the RAH-66. In the second stage, Comanche pilots will realize real-time control of UAVs through Tactical Universal Data Link (TCDL), so as to achieve the purpose of cooperative operations. It is reported that according to the current assumption of the US Army, a "Comanche" will cooperate with two drones.

In June 2003, the RAH-66 II prototype completed its first flight, equipped with a complete set of MEP software and a new engine thickness, reaching an important milestone several weeks ahead of schedule. The plane completed the flight of 1.4 hours, and carried out basic maneuvers such as hovering, hovering left and right, and turning. Starting from May of 20001year, the No.2 prototype was ready to install the new T-800-LHT-80 1 engine, and continued the MEP comprehensive test. In the future, the aircraft will continue to carry out flight tests, and its short-term goals include continuing to develop MEP core functions, continuing to develop flight control systems and developing and testing night vision landmark navigation systems. The prototype 1 completed the flight test at the beginning of this year, and is now used as a backup machine for prototype 2.

From June 5438 to October 2003 10, the "Comanche" project team strived to achieve the goal of losing 200 pounds (90 kilograms) before the end of the year, thus limiting the weight of the whole machine to 9950 pounds (45 17 kilograms). According to Chuck Allen, the project manager of Boeing, losing 200 pounds is the target value jointly determined by experts, scholars and military officials of the project team. Although the Army did not stipulate Comanche's weight limit, it stipulated the vertical climb rate, which actually meant that the weight of the new helicopter should be as small as possible to maintain a high climb rate.

After spending $8 billion and 2 1 year, the US Army finally announced on February 23, 2004 that it would cancel the plan to produce Comanche. This is one of the biggest projects cancelled by the US military in history. At this time, it was less than two years before the Army cancelled the $2 billion Crusader artillery program. The Pentagon is increasingly aware that the US military has too many costly weapons research and development projects. Although the US military budget has increased by tens of billions of dollars since 200 1, the R&D funds are still insufficient. This also reflects that the Pentagon is increasingly inclined to develop drones that can be used for reconnaissance and attack in recent years. Andrew Kripinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Evaluation, said in an interview that he believed that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld would gradually cancel the weapons development plans formulated during the Cold War, which were costly and had seriously affected the modernization process of the US military. Take the Comanche helicopter as an example. Of course, the US Army also needs it, but it is not indispensable for future operations. He said: "It is of course important to the army, but it is by no means the jewel in the crown."

In September, 2004, Donald Woodbury, director of the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) project of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), said that UCAR would provide an excellent opportunity for the further development of helicopter technology in Comanche project, so that these helicopter technologies would not be lost or abandoned. Woodbury said that the cancellation of Comanche is a great loss for the Army, especially the Army Aviation, and the technology developed by Comanche is beneficial to many projects. He believes that some advanced sensor capabilities required by UCAR project overlap with Comanche, so some technologies of Comanche can be used in UCAR project. The UCAR project is jointly invested by DARPA and the Army. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are currently competing for the third phase of the project, which includes the manufacture and testing of two UCAR verification machine systems, which will last for 30 months, with a total value of $654.38+600 million. The bidder was originally planned to be decided in June 65438+ 10, but it may be delayed because the funds have not yet been secured.

[Edit this paragraph] Basic technical data

Captain 2 meters

The height of the machine is 3.36 meters.

Rotor diameter11.9m.

Empty weight 3605 kg

The maximum takeoff weight is 499 kg (increased to 5845 kg).

The maximum speed is 324 km/h.

The cruising speed is 305 km/h.

No effect upper limit of 2900 meters

The maximum climb rate is 7.2m/s.

The maximum angular velocity of the pause head is 80 degrees/second, and it takes about 4.5 seconds to turn 180 degrees.