NASHVILLE—When Army leaders talk about their new tiltrotor platform, the first thing they tout are its speed, range and load capacity, all eclipsing the UH-60 Black Hawk whose missions it’s destined to take over.
But bringing the MV-75 Cheyenne II online will also force changes upon the service’s aviation community—including, perhaps, an entirely new aircraft just to refuel it.
“Certainly, you’re not going to be able to take a conventional rotorcraft with an MV-75, but a fixed-wing can go with an MV-75,” Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, who leads the Army Aviation Center of Excellence, told reporters Thursday at the Army Aviation Warfighter Summit. “We’re also thinking creatively about, if we put aerial refueling…on a conventional variant, then how do we refuel it? So we’re thinking through, you know, do we need to develop a requirement for aerial refueling for ourselves now that we have really enhanced our capability?”
The Army is the last service to add a tiltrotor to its aviation fleet, and it’s the only service that doesn’t have air tankers to refuel its aircraft. While Army units within U.S. Special Operations Command can rely on Air Force C-130s to refuel in the sky, the conventional units that are to start testing the MV-75 will have to rely on ground refueling like the rest of the helicopter fleet.
But even in the short term, Gill said, MV-75 still reduces the logistical burden, because units don’t need to set up as many forward area refueling points for it as they would for a Black Hawk.
A Bell-Textron promotional video that accompanied the Cheyenne’s unveiling on Wednesday includes a vignette of an aerial refueling by drone. The unmanned system looks a lot like the Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray, a carrier-based tanker.
“So I think we need to solve our own problems and think about, how do we do our own—let’s call it logistical resupply—in the air, something that can keep up with an MV-75. So that’s where that concept was pointing,” Gill said.
But the Army doesn’t have a written requirement for a refueling drone, he added, so the idea is just an aspiration at this point.
What’s next for helicopters?
Beyond refueling, there are some other considerations for how a tiltrotor will operate with existing Army aviation assets, and one of the biggest is how to protect it.
Traditionally, the Army uses AH-64 Apaches to escort its helicopters on missions, and that will continue with MV-75. But the Apache, which tops out around 185 mph, is far slower than the MV-75, which is built to cruise faster than 300 mph. To protect a Cheyenne, the Army may have to launch multiple Apaches from different locations; it is also looking into ways to give Apaches a longer reach.
“We haven’t updated the requirement document since 2017, so we’re very focused on updating that requirement,” Maj. Gen. Cain Baker, who leads the Future Vertical Lift cross-functional team.
Launched effects from an Apache will help it extend its range, Baker said, with drones that can extend the Apache’s ability to see threats and also fire on them.
Then there’s the matter of the Army’s trusty workhorse, the Black Hawk, which the service selected to replace the UH-1 Iroquois in 1976. At least theoretically, the Cheyenne II was developed as an eventual replacement for the Black Hawk.
In practice, that will be a slow transition, if a complete replacement even happens at all.
“We’re going to be modernizing every formation with the latest generation of Black Hawks, as we can and our budget allows,” Gill said. “We’re going to be flying the Black Hawk for decades, I can assure you.”
At least into the 2050s, Col. Ryan Nesrsta, the Army’s program manager for utility helicopters told reporters Thursday. At least in the near term, the Cheyenne will probably free up the Black Hawk to do some more complex missions than just ferrying troops.
“So I think, before, there was a focus on troop movement, battlefield circulation, associated with the aircraft. I think what it’s actually doing is, it’s opening up the aperture for the aircraft to appreciate its multi-role capability,” Nesrsta said. That has led to “substantive conversations and activity on employing launched effects on the aircraft,” including equipping it with autonomous systems.
Not only that, but Sikorsky, who makes the Black Hawk, is working on a completely unmanned variant to pick up the helicopter’s supply mission.
“I think the Black Hawk will continue to do what it does so well, which is, you know, the same air-assault capability, the same medevac capability, the same logistical support capability, but probably closer in, to what we call the ‘close fight,’ ” Gill said.
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