NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – Officials from three top rotary aircraft producers said that the acquisition cycle can and should be made shorter to keep up with technological needs, adding that they see increased automation augmenting capabilities in the future.

Steve Mathias, vice president of global military business development at Bell Helicopter Textron [TXT] said at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference that all of the future technology his company is working on indicates the defense industry no longer needs a 10-year long acquisition cycle.

Bell Helicopter V-280 Valor prototype readying for first ground run in Amarillo, Texas. (Photo by Bell Helicopter)
Bell Helicopter V-280 Valor prototype readying for first ground run in Amarillo, Texas. (Photo by Bell Helicopter)

“How we build aircraft now has changed the way you look at cost, how long it takes to build aircraft, and then downstream how long it takes someone or what they do to maintain aircraft,” he said.

He noted digital design of aircraft is completely different from when they designed on paper, like with the V-22 tiltrotor

Mathias noted V-280 Valor tiltrotor is built and “very close” to doing its first engine runs, benefiting from knowledge Bell got from cooperating with Boeing [BA] on the V-22 Osprey. He added the technology readiness levels for making the V-280 are much higher than the company expected when it began the process.

Work on the Valor is demonstrating that acquisition cycles can be shortened, he said.

“You can have an acquisition cycle that potentially could either shorten significantly or maybe even completely do away with the technology maturation risk reduction because of what we’re learning now.”

David Koopersmith, vice president and general manager of Boeing vertical lift, agreed that the cycle should speed up. He said a fast sector that can work collaboratively and get products into the hands of clients faster is what they all signed up for.

Koopersmith added that trying to speed up the acquisition process is a “worthy endeavor” both for the U.S. government and other international clients because near-peer potential adversaries are “catching up” in military technology

Mathias said the greatest challenge in his mind was changing acquisition cycles because it should not take 10 years to develop a capability and then by the time it is deployed the capability is outdated.

Separately, Chris Van Buiten, vice president of Sikorsky Innovation underscored the company’s progress in developing unmanned or partially manned helicopters.

Van Buiten said he thinks every helicopter in the future will be operated with two, one, or no crew variations and the company is building this autonomous capability into the current S-76 test platform and in the future, Blackhawks. Sikorsky is part of Lockheed Martin [LMT].

That means a helicopter can add many more hours of work after certain missions requiring a crew of two, such as lower risk operations with one or no crew while the original pilots rest. Van Buiten said this kind of structure will make it appear to the enemy that U.S. forces have twice as many helicopters operating.

He said the company makes “tremendous” machines but they are merely machines, and customers operate them. Van Buiten noted three quarters of hard landing accidents occur because of stressed operators in hard environments.

Van Buiten also said the rotorcraft field has spent decades trying to train operators well enough so this would stop, but it has not. He said companies and the government have to collaborate for new solutions, such as increased emergency automation options.

He added Sikorsky is experiencing “tremendous” synergies in its second year as a Lockheed Martin company that is helping bring new concepts to bear and they expect to continue to bear “amazing fruit” in the future.

The industry representatives spoke on a rotorcraft panel on Sept. 20 here.