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12 years 3 months

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Long Live the King: With Problems Fixed, CH-53K Contract Expected in Weeks

The Marine Corps is just weeks away from awarding a contract for the first lot of CH-53K King Stallions,[...]
Sikorsky has 20 aircraft in production as of April 3 and has flown nearly 1,500 hours of its planned flight test regime. Deficiencies found during testing range from seat cushion design and handholds to engine gas reingestion, Rudder said. Test aircraft have flown faster than 170 kts, up to 18,000 feet and at greater than 60 degree bank, according to Sikorsky.

“The vendor and the program office are going to fix these,” Rudder said. “And we’re going to hold them accountable to fix it.

Source:
Rotor & Wings.com

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12 years 3 months

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Army Secretary Defends Decision to Cut CH-47 Chinook Program


The U.S. Army's top officials on Tuesday had to defend the service's decision to stop buying CH-47 Chinook helicopters to pay for futuristic aircraft and other modernization programs.

Last year, Army officials made a decision to find about $30 billion to help pay for the service's modernization strategy over the next five years. The service did that by cutting or terminating 186 existing programs, Army Secretary Mark Esper told members of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee as he described the proposed fiscal 2020 budget request.

Source:
Military.com

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24 years 2 months

Posts: 5,396

Aircraft movement regulations require a certified Brake Rider in the cockpit to immediately apply brakes to prevent such a calamity. There should also be Wing Walkers with wheel chocks in hand. And having two small tugs daisy-chained together is sketchy. Proper supervision would have a single big tug perform the operation. I cannot tell if the tow bar broke.

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12 years 3 months

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Exiting times that we live:

It’s premature to talk dollars, [Army Secretary, Marc] Esper replied. “Whether we help fund that at some point, I don’t know, I’m not going to talk about that right now,” he said. “My comment was only we need aircraft in the future that can do that heavy vertical lift movement, but can … survive in a very contested airspace and keep up with the FARAs and FLRAAs.”

Source:
Breaking Defense.com

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12 years 3 months

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Airbus's "Chorizo Picante" doomed for... basic design failure*:

“We have not used the ducts not so much for propulsive efficiency or anything like that. We use the ducts primarily to protect personnel,” said Gaffney, a veteran of decades of military helicopter programs. “Running around at night in the dark — Army operations, probably half of them at least are in time of darkness … if you have an open propeller, someone could walk into it.”

Source:
BreakingDefense New.com

Read:
https://www.verticalmag.com/news/air...-fara-program/

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18 years 9 months

Posts: 13,432

What's the basic design flaw? Have you read the article?

"Yes, the ducted fans can vary the pitch of their blades in useful ways, making the aircraft more agile, Gaffey told me in an interview, and agility is crucial for the low-speed, low-altitude operations the Army envisions, ducking behind buildings and sneaking down streets to avoid Russian and Chinese anti-aircraft missiles. But that’s not this design feature’s most important virtue."

Where's the flaw?

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15 years 2 months

Posts: 5,197

The article was talking about exposed props around the cabin that soldiers can easily run into, especially in night ops or where vision could be obscured, like smoke.