Here In Mesa Boeing Chinooks + MD Helos Are Ramping-Up Production Lines

Lynn Tilton gives her 15th-annual press conference at HAI’s 2020 Heli-Expo in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Skip Robinson)

Definitely getting 'a vertical lift"

Boeing Accelerates Testing
of Upgraded Chinooks

2/20/2020
By Mandy Mayfield                                            

Photo: Boeing >

"Boeing is moving faster with flight testing for its CH-47 Block II Chinook helicopters for the Army, company officials said.
The first two aircraft — which are in the engineering and manufacturing development phase — were recently delivered to Boeing’s facility in Mesa, Arizona, said Andy Builta, vice president of cargo and utility helicopters and program manager for H-47."
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SOME BACKGROUND

Army Plan To Delay Chinook Helicopter Upgrades May Have Big Jobs, Political Consequences

Loren Thompson Senior Contributor 02.06.2019

The Pentagon hasn’t yet revealed its budget request for the fiscal year beginning October 1, but some details have begun to leak out. One big surprise is that the Army wants to delay “Block II” upgrades to its largest, fastest helicopter by five years.

If that plan is implemented, it will threaten 2,000 jobs in Pennsylvania where the helicopter is assembled, and hundreds more at supplier sites across the country.

The helicopter in question is the CH-47F Chinook, a workhorse vital to moving troops, vehicles and supplies around the battlefield. The Block II upgrades will provide a number of improvements, but the most important is aimed at reclaiming range and payload capability lost when armor and equipment were added to the Chinook. Without the Block II upgrades, the Army’s rotorcraft fleet will be unable to lift the service’s next-generation jeep (the “joint light tactical vehicle”) or its standard piece of field artillery.

The Army had a carefully vetted plan to introduce the needed upgrades for both its own helicopters and those of the U.S. special operations force, but last spring planners began moving money out of Chinook to address other priorities. Chinook remains critical to warfighting plans—it is expected to stay in the force until 2060—but the planners decided they could put off the improvements.
And therein lies a story of how Pentagon budget decisions often get made without much thought about the industrial, political or human consequences.

 It isn’t so clear that Army planners understand these impacts, or even care. But the political system will.

U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan await transport on a Chinook helicopter. Chinook is the biggest,... [+] fastest rotorcraft in the Army's fleet.

Wikipedia

To start with the industrial impact, Chinook is assembled at a sprawling Boeing plant in Ridley Township, Pennsylvania on the Delaware River south of Philadelphia. Boeing is a contributor to my think tank, so I have visited the plant several times. . .
Chinook production wouldn’t cease entirely, because special operators must have upgrades to their decrepit Chinooks—the oldest rotorcraft in the joint fleet. . . slowing Chinook production to a near standstill will hand the president’s opponents a much-needed industrial issue . . ."
Read more > https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2019/02/06

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Published on Dec 2, 2019

Views: 5,206

Nelson Fisk at Jane's gets the latest update from Randy Rotte, Director Global Sales, The Boeing Company on the Chinook Block II programme.

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"In January the first aircraft flew more than 10 hours during flight tests, he said during a call with reporters.
“We’re increasing the pace of flight tests as we add in the second aircraft,” Builta said.
The EMD phase will continue for approximately nine months.
The helicopter has moved through a significant portion of the training requirements and officials are now focused on continuing to expand the envelope in terms of speed and maneuvers, he said.
The aircraft has performed according to plan, he noted. The souped-up platform has additional lift thanks to new advanced rotor blades. There has also been a weight reduction and improvements to the drive train.

Flight tests began using low gross weights during takeoff, and subsequently raised the load to medium-and medium-high gross weights later, said Randy Rotte, Boeing’s director of global sales and marketing for cargo utility and future vertical lift.
“We’ve blown past low gross weights, medium gross weights ... and so far everything is performing very much as expected,” he said.
Last November the company conducted the first Block II flight test.
The company has a third Block II platform that is currently at Naval Station Patuxent River in Maryland and has been undergoing ground tests and electromagnetic interference testing.
Meanwhile, the company is also on contract for the Block II configuration of the MH-47G aircraft, which will be operated by Special Operations Command.
“The first two aircraft are in our factory here in Philadelphia right now and are scheduled to be delivered this year,” Builta said.
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From VERTICAL MAG NEWS

MD’s Tilton vows ‘big expensive year’ of investment bringing new military machinery to market

Posted on January 29, 2020 by Dan Parsons

In her 15th typically theatrical, wide-ranging address to Heli-Expo since she bought the company in 2004, Tilton said the coming year would be “a big year and big expensive year” for the company.New products will include
> A Block II variant of the 530G military aircraft, which includes Elbit Systems helmet display systems and a new Elbit mission management system.
> A G-model with the modifications will be “flying and ready to roll” in 2020, Tilton said.
The U.S. Army is purchasing the same helmet system for its UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook pilots.
> Universal Avionics (UA) and MD announced the same day a strategic partnership to integrate the advanced InSight Display System all-digital display avionics system in the 900/902 Explorer NOTAR-equipped light twin. The flight deck retrofit will replace steam gauge displays currently installed in the twin-engine helicopters with two portrait format high-resolution LCD displays with LED backlighting.
“I think that cockpit is by far the most advanced in the market,” Tilton said.
“It takes the best of fixed-wing and the software is now for helicopters. It is not only single-pilot IFR, it also has a helmet display, as well as what we’re all looking for, which is the ability to see the terrain even when they will not see it, the helicopter will.”
> That aircraft should be certified and ready for sale by the end of 2021, Tilton said.
> MD is also continuing its effort to certify the 969 combat attack aircraft, which Tilton said has the “combat power of a Black Hawk.” The NOTAR-equipped 969 is the basis for MD’s bid to replace the U.S. Army’s OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, but the beefed-up version did not pass Army muster when competitors for that program were chosen. In its current configuration, the aircraft is being marketed as a light, relatively affordable fast attack aircraft to overseas customers.
“We’re very excited about the 902 and the 969 and the 530G,” Tilton said.
“A lot of this year is really about continuing technology and innovation in terms of glass cockpit you see in the MD 530F as well as the 530G that also will be certified in the 520 and the 500.”
The same glass cockpit will be offered as a block upgrade to the MD600, so by the end of 2020, the company’s entire product line will be offered with digital glass cockpits, Tilton said.
> Also on offer is the Genesys Aerosystems’ Advanced IDU-680 Integrated Cockpit, which gained FAA certification in 2019. That all-digital cockpit is available on the 530F and G models.
“One of the things I’m most proud of is the ability to be both a defense contractor as well as a commercial company,” Tilton said.
“That has only gotten more and more advanced over the last few years as we really became part of the industrial base and a full defense contractor.”
MD’s manufacturing facility is both FAA and GRC certified, which allows it to build military aircraft on one line and commercial aircraft on a parallel line and to customize them with mission-specific equipment on a third military line.
Tilton is dead set on continuing to produce the MD airframe and as many parts as possible in house — the company currently makes about 2,000 — to speed output and streamline the company’s supply chain.
“We are completely vertically integrated on the single-engine line,” she said.
“I believe in vertical integration. It’s what I said 15 years ago and everyone laughed at me. But supply chain is complex and any one person can keep you from delivering an aircraft. And so the more you can control, the more you can do in-house, the more you are in charge of your own destiny.”