Comments on: The UCAR Lives!

By: Francis

Francis — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 04:04:17 +0000

The significance of the Kmax is its service cieling which is 10,000 feet higher than its nearest competitor. Even the 1960’s Kaman copters could have summited Mount Everest long ago. The lack of torsinal rigidity of rotor blades is used as a hinge and stabilized with an outboard control surface on the blade. Thus the design achieves the lowest disk loadings. Hence it can resupply high altitude locations under hot conditions… such as Afghanistan. Resupply has been the proposed use of this automated chopper. The intermeshing rotors pack two into the smallest airframe with some savings say 8% on an antitorqe rotor. Many helicopters maximum altitide is limited by the size of the tail rotor for control. This is not a limit with the two rotor design. The accuracy of control has not always been as good as a tail rotor, however

By: Elias Cosculluela

Elias Cosculluela — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:35:28 +0000

What I care the most is if the Helicopter can keep himself up & running after a dozen of rocket launchers fired at it. “That is the most important and basic feature of all.”

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:15:52 +0000

What comes around, goes around.… We had K-Max on board the USS Carl Vinson in 1996 for about half of a deployment.
Flown by a civilian pilot, the brass wanted to see if it could replace the H-46. It looked ok inflight, couldn’t carry the same weight (nets, etc). It participated in a few vert-reps and un-reps, kinda cool to watch, but never saw ‘em again after their trial run.

By: Stephen Trimble

Stephen Trimble — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 10:45:20 +0000

Do some more Googleing about the status of the ARH program and I think you’ll get it. That link was probably not the best one to use.

By: murc

murc — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 01:32:43 +0000

I clicked your “trouble” link, about the Bell ARH…is that a bad thing? didn’t the BlackHawks test flight crash, and the people on board were ok, just like the ARH pilots, and the blackhawk won the contract for its “survivability”.
anywho…back to the UCAR, I would like to see the prototype…do they have any pics of it yet…or is it still on th drawing board?
BTW, you should replace your pic (which has nothing to do with this article)…with this one.
http://www.aviationnow.com/media/images/awst_images/large/AW_09_06_2004_908_L.jpg

By: Stephen Trimble

Stephen Trimble — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:37:46 +0000

Reefdiver, thanks for the question. Note that I use the terms "highly autonomous" AND "armed". It's the combination that is the problem. The Predator is armed, but no one -- especially the human pilot and human sensor operator -- is going to call it a "highly autonomous" aircraft. When was the last time you saw the military buy an unmanned aircraft that claims it can fly around, find targets and shoot them with little, if any, human intervention? That's the distinction I was making.

By: reefdiver

reefdiver — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 19:33:22 +0000

You said “No obvious market exists for a highly autonomous and armed (always a troubling combination), unmanned helicopter.“
I’m most curious why you should be any more troubled by the armed heli than the Predator? I seriously doubt its attack authority will be any greater than the Predator.
Although the Kaman may not be the chosen helicopter in the future, why is there no obvious market? The heli can be forward deployed without a runway as the predator requires. It can be quickly refueled and back in the air. It can hover for the best continous coverage. And it can perhaps replace pilots in aircraft like Apaches and observation aircraft. Certainly there’s a need?
Though it may not ultimately be chosen for such a role, the Kaman has some advantages — its more stable, but more importantly, it doesn’t use a tail rotor. The tail rotor takes extra power and is dangerous on the ground. The Kaman sends all its power to lifting. Its better in the hot/high conditions. Its a great platform thats been around for a while. Its even got the slender profile of an attack helicopter.