Comments by "Geoffrey Lyons" (@granatmof) on "V-280 Valor Helicopter Will Help Defeat China" video.

  1.  @shadowslayer9988  if you go into a battle expecting to lose, then you've already lost.
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  2. Every pilot in the world looked at you funny when you said "approach with engines off". Even with the loud noise, unless the troops are well trained, there's going to be some element of shock from the chopper coming in and landing, and US combined arms would have probably shelled the position and these choppers would be coming in with air support from attack choppers. In all of this, noise of a few more choppers isn't going to be noticeable. For Stealth missions, there are specially designed aircraft and it's a special forces deployment: they always get the bespoke nice toys.
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  3. Form the reports of difficulties with the complexity of the Osprey, not to mention the perceived width of the Bell V-280 Valor, my money is on the Sikorsky/Boeing SB-1 Defiant to be selected to replace the Blackhawk: it has a similar profile and the added stability would make it better with the side gunner. I'd be worried about a side gunner in the V-280 Valor accidently shooting out an engine due to sudden motion. Since you bring up the M4 replacement, the Army went with really the most conservative choice that checked all the boxes-a steel head brass case is hardly an next generation innovation. You don't go through the specs of the Sikorsky in the same detail, but I imagine it has some range limitations right now compared to the tilt rotor, and it will never have close to the same top speed. The main factor though is just width. The tilt rotor is simply too wide to participate in the same missions and battlefields. While yes war in SE Asia will feature island hopping, it will also feature developed urban warfare, and the width of the tilt rotor will limit its use in cities. This is less important for attack, but still important for medical evac and support roles. The tilt rotor also lacks the versatility. I haven't seen any mockups of an attack version of the airframe, but the Sikorsky seems more capable of modularity. They're submitting a similarly designed chopper as a replacement of the little bird scout platform for example. Meanwhile Bell is submitting an entirely different airframe for attack support role to go with this, and that aircraft is a conventional single rotor chopper. In this case it would be interesting if the Army went with the Air Forces proposed plan of smaller orders and faster design build deliver of air frames going forward. In this case the Amry could train different forces to see how well they perform on maneuvers, and keep them around for specialized roles. If war concerns are really focused on Island hopping, then I'm surprised there hasn't been further developement on ground effect vehicles: the speed of aircraft, with greater weight capacity of of large boat. Once a beach head is established and a temporary port made, you could quickly deploy supplies and reinforce an island before the enemy could attempt to retake it. Ultimately I see these air frame instead of offering the same capacities and roles are more subtly different but overlapping roles. Many of the benefits of the Valor seem to be closely fulfilled by the Osprey which is already in wide use, so if war broke out tomorrow the Army would probably be ordering Ospreys. While the Sikorsky offers a more beefed up Blackhawk. That said the Valor is meeting most of the goals already in terms of range and speed and has years more data and development than the Defiant.
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  4. This comment wins
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  5. China is bullying over Taiwan, but it's more likely to get into a fight with India, or more interestingly, seize Russian Territory. Nobody in the region wants China to become belligerent. Chinese military capacity and tactics still lack large scale deployment and experience. It would be a bad idea to attack Taiwan and get involved in a war with the US, Korea, Japan, Australia without extensive practice. China is buying and making all the gear to make themselves look like they're competitive with US military, but then again so did Russia.
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  6. You know, I was really confused why Lockheed and Sikorsky were on different sides until you mentioned these. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew Sikorsky was bought out.
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