In a conference at the beginning of the year, on transatlantic relations for the defense sector, Minister Lorenzo Guerini referred to the "Opportunities underlying the possible Italian participation in the FVL (Future Vertical Lift) program".
The American FVL program is divided into two branches: the FLRAA (Future Long Range Assault Aircraft), aimed at replacing the large fleet of UH-60 helicopters, starting from 2030 and the FARA (Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft), aimed instead at replacing the AH-64E attack helicopter, again starting in 2030.
The SB-1 coaxial rotor helicopter is competing for the first Defiant, developed by Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky and Boeing, and the Bell V-280 tiltrotor Market (opening photo, video below).
While the counter-rotating coaxial rotor helicopter of Lockheed Martin / Sikorsky is competing for the second program Raider-x and 360 Invictus of the Bell.
For the needs of the Italian Armed Forces it would be more appropriate to carefully evaluate the FLRAA program, as the FARA is focused on the construction of a 6-ton aircraft intended to replace the Kiowa Warrior (photo) in the role of reconnaissance of the battlefield.
Il Market it is a conceptually similar machine at the Osprey, even if smaller in size. In addition, the Bell tiltrotor has a tail with V-tail and tilting rotors, released from the engines that remain fixed.
Il Defianton the other hand, it has a configuration consisting of two counter-rotating main rotors and a propulsive propeller located at the end of the tail.
According to the US Army specifications, these aircraft will have to be able to carry a team of 12 riflemen at a cruising speed of at least 500 km / h and have a range of about 600 km. All the machines participating in the race are in an armed version, with missile systems both in external pods and in internal bays, the option of an external fixed machine gun is still not clear (a hypothetical version for the Italian Army could be armed with missiles Israeli counter-tank Spike NLOS, with a maximum range of 30 km).
At the moment there are no official requirements for what concerns the Italian need. It should be borne in mind that we are talking about machines that, once the experimentation phase has been passed, will have a take-off mass of 18/20 tons.
In the Italian context, the natural customer of such an aircraft could be the aircraft brigade Friuli, with its two regiments (the 5th Rigel and the 7 ° Vega) of helicopters. The Market it could perform both the function of transport and fire support, thus combining the tasks currently covered by both the UH-90A and the AH-129D, allowing for a further evolution of the concept of aeromobility at national level.
However, the Army has committed over a billion euros in the construction of the NEES (New Exploration and Escort Helicopter) AH-249 (image). The current requirement provides for the acquisition of 48 machines therefore, given the low numbers of units, production costs will certainly not be contained.
Last but not least, there would be the problem of setting up a cooperation with Washington that could also bring benefits to our industrial apparatus. Not forgetting that Americans are always very reluctant to share new technologies and, after the F-35 issue, Italy is certainly not frowned upon overseas.
Photo: Bell (+ video) / US DoD / Leonardo
