TR Attack & Utility Helicopter Programs

[Tuvan]

I've been brainstorming about how will manned helicopter roadmap will/could develop with the recent developments. I wanted to make an account to share it.

T-625 enters service with LHTEC engines and later with TS1400.

Navalized T-625 in development.

Maybe TS1400 military variant in development for navalized T-625 and T-629.

2024 - TS3000 development starts.

T-629 reprioritized instead of ATAK 2 for next phases of T-129 and export market. T-629 will solve inherent limits of T129.

T-925, new design resembles T-70 and meant to fulfill needs of all military branches compared to the previous design. Similarity with T-70 program will ease development and adoption. I assume it should be using western engines for the prototypes and early production until TS3000 in 2030s.

T-925 ATAK 2 prototype with TV3 engines converted into test-bed aircraft if viable. Used for R&D for next-gen ATAK and other programmes. MUM-T development, system integration/tests etc.

 

[Saithan]

No need to brainstorm just had to read this thread from beginning to end and you'd have come across all of those.

 

[BaburKhan]

We need to scale up prototype/frontier projects such as Titra Alpin, Bvlos Jackal, etc. several times larger and get muscle up unmanned rotary wing attack platforms suitable for military offensive purposes. These helicopters should be capable of carrying multiple numbers of mini loitering, swarm capable missiles/drones. I'm talking about higher lift capacity, more advanced systems, basically, many times more expensive aircrafts.

But, Electric propulsion is not essential. We already have a rotary wing engine, TS1400. It should be a platform that can accompany the T-129 with its light armor and operational range with the 3-4 ton mtow. The attack helicopter's gunner assistant pilot should have direct control access to these rotary wing unmanned attack aircraft. Today's autonomy capabilities make it possible to carry out already a large part of the mission autonomously, so pilot is just needed for final decision making, which again, AI system could give accurate decision support to operator.

In short, we need to synthesize the progress we have made in unmanned systems with conventional close air support systems.

It seems like TITRA will Upgrade the Design of Alpin unmanned Helicopter, Alpin-II should carry more Payload. It will have a greater Rotor and would be driven by a Turboshaft Engine.

https://turdef.com/article/titra-aims-for-bigger-payloads-in-alpin-rotor-uav-family

 

[boredaf]

It seems like TITRA will Upgrade the Design of Alpin unmanned Helicopter, Alpin-II should carry more Payload. It will have a greater Rotor and would be driven by a Turboshaft Engine.

https://turdef.com/article/titra-aims-for-bigger-payloads-in-alpin-rotor-uav-family

This would be great to have on ships to launch (or rather drop) sonobuoys, which doesn't weigh more than 20-25kgs as far as I know, if they can find a way to attach them without hindering the uav.

 

[dBSPL]

It seems like TITRA will Upgrade the Design of Alpin unmanned Helicopter, Alpin-II should carry more Payload. It will have a greater Rotor and would be driven by a Turboshaft Engine.

https://turdef.com/article/titra-aims-for-bigger-payloads-in-alpin-rotor-uav-family

Well, 500kg(1100lbs) payload is very ambitious, the helicopter really has to grow and get much heavier if this payload range is targeted. Probably one of the most important requirements in naval rotary-wing drone will be flight endurance, keeping this payload in the air for a few hours, being able to prepare the system for flight in a very short time and and being small enough to fit in a vessel hangar is probably impossible with all electric engines. Open source specs for the Northop's MQ-8, which was tested on Bell-407 fuselage for a while, had 700lb payload cap and a maximum flight endurance of up to 12 hours. This was actually made possible by converting most of the helicopter cabin into a fuel tank.

It should also has a communication range 150-160 nautical miles, more likely SATCOM and TDL, advanced autopilot and redundant avionics, including the ability to autonomously return to the ship in the event of a connection failure. Some sort of lightweight radar, and kind of EO/IR system should also be in standard equipment. For the ASW mission, it will also require a dipping sonar breakout, as well as a sonobuoy pod, and integration of various launchers or hardpoint pylons for various weapon systems.

If what is mentioned as 500kg on Turdef news is the external payload capacity; I get the idea that TITRA's targeted unmanned helicopter could be almost the size of a T625, which makes me think that TITRA is considering utilizing the TS-1400 on the turboshaft side. It could be a pretty big and high-budget aviation program, we'll see. But if they can pull it off, they could export this system to a number of NATO navies. trivia: ORKUN-2053, which has maximum diving depth of around 350m, weighs around 270kg. And the estimated weight of the light torpedo ORKA will probably not be less than 230-240kg.

 

[Saithan]

TS1400 for naval platform right of the bat kinda sounds weird. Wouldn't it be smarter and wiser to use TS1400 for land platforms to have it mature before you toss it out to the sea and the winds out there.

I do understand the value of testing TS1400 on unmanned platforms before using it for manned platforms, but still Naval platforms seems kinda a few steps too soon.

 

[Anmdt]

Well, 500kg(1100lbs) payload is very ambitious, the helicopter really has to grow and get much heavier if this payload range is targeted. Probably one of the most important requirements in naval rotary-wing drone will be flight endurance, keeping this payload in the air for a few hours, being able to prepare the system for flight in a very short time and and being small enough to fit in a vessel hangar is probably impossible with all electric engines. Open source specs for the Northop's MQ-8, which was tested on Bell-407 fuselage for a while, had 700lb payload cap and a maximum flight endurance of up to 12 hours. This was actually made possible by converting most of the helicopter cabin into a fuel tank.

It should also has a communication range 150-160 nautical miles, more likely SATCOM and TDL, advanced autopilot and redundant avionics, including the ability to autonomously return to the ship in the event of a connection failure. Some sort of lightweight radar, and kind of EO/IR system should also be in standard equipment. For the ASW mission, it will also require a dipping sonar breakout, as well as a sonobuoy pod, and integration of various launchers or hardpoint pylons for various weapon systems.

If what is mentioned as 500kg on Turdef news is the external payload capacity; I get the idea that TITRA's targeted unmanned helicopter could be almost the size of a T625, which makes me think that TITRA is considering utilizing the TS-1400 on the turboshaft side. It could be a pretty big and high-budget aviation program, we'll see. But if they can pull it off, they could export this system to a number of NATO navies. trivia: ORKUN-2053, which has maximum diving depth of around 350m, weighs around 270kg. And the estimated weight of the light torpedo ORKA will probably not be less than 230-240kg.

Titra making a unmanned helicopter within the dimensions of T625 is technically and beyond technically impossible. Alpin itself is a licensed product / conversion project and Titra has little to none, and indifferentiable amount of knowledge on mechanical know-how of an helicopter in comparison to TAI. What i would like to see here is a drone powered by PD seriee, or PG 115 to begin with altogether with Titra's experience i am not confident on this.

What could they achieve, realistically, is a 500 kg total payload (fuel, external, sensor etc.) drone with 1 tonnes MTOW, capped.