FARA - Future Armed Reconnaissance Aircraft

[Nobu]

That analysis is probably what will decide it in favor of Raider. Capability aside, the ability of a platform to showcase how advanced American technology is appears to be growing into a mission of its own in various ways.

[lucklucky]

Like others have said i don't see the point. I mean, the heir to Apache? even then in drone age i am not sure what advantage it has.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, I dont see you need a manned recce helicopter at all. Better to keep rebooting the Kiowa's until drones can replace them.

On the latest Apache, they apparently have the ability to give one of the pilots the ability to drone control. Im not sure the Apache is the best platform for it (I think a Blackhawk would be better), but at that point it looks like money to support American rotorcraft industries.

May as well give the Army an R22 and a big pair of Zeiss binoculars and tell them to grow up.

[Dawes]

Isn't Airwolf hidden somewhere in the Western US? Of course, you'll need to find replacements for String and Dom.

[Ivanhoe]

On 12/9/2020 at 2:11 AM, Stuart Galbraith said:

On the latest Apache, they apparently have the ability to give one of the pilots the ability to drone control. Im not sure the Apache is the best platform for it (I think a Blackhawk would be better), but at that point it looks like money to support American rotorcraft industries.

This is the same DOD that uses fighter jets for in-flight refueling providers.

The Apache thing, as advertised, makes some sense; extend the Apache's eyeballs, so the Apache can do bad things to bad people. As we know, however, give Congress and DOD the excuse to kick the can down the road, they'll go all Messi on it. The US will be fighting the robot armies of the future with a 70 year old bomber design, a 50 year old helo design, a MBT from the 1980s, etc. The tragedy of success, I suppose.

[Dawes]

That's OK. Some folks want to bring back the M1911A1.

[Simon Tan]

 It is a fast, high payload, high manoeuvrability rotorcraft capable of operating very close to nap of earth or up at 6K ft. Having a crew gives you mad skillz on demand but there is nothing to stop it from being flown remotely. Thinking in straight lines is something many of us are guilty of.

[DB]

Simon "Spock" Tan there, giving us a bit of Wrath of Khan good and hard.

[FlyingCanOpener]

OK, stupid question time:

 

How different would this be compared to the Comanche had it gone into service? At this point we'd be on the RAH-66C model I suppose, but a stealthy recon helicopter with a bit of a bite is what the Comanche was supposed to be. I do understand the cost overruns and general mismanagement, but that's not stopping the F-35!

[Simon Tan]

The Bell entrant is essentially RAH-66 on steroids. Dynamically the same limitations. 

Edited December 13, 2020 by Simon Tan

[FlyingCanOpener]

That's what leaving me bemused about FARA: 15 years ago the Comanche was cancelled because UAV's were going to supplant the role. Now we're here looking for an upgraded Comanche because UAV's haven't been able to supplant the role.

[Dawes]

Comanche had issues. I don't think they ever got the avionics working up to expectations.

[Mad Mike]

On 11/25/2020 at 9:46 AM, Simon Tan said:

Invictus looks like a supersized Commanche. Bell screwed the pooch on Arapaho.

Bell wanted to give Big Army what they wanted- something reasonably cheep and that meant... another version of the -58/Jet Ranger. When things started either getting more expensive b/c the powers that be wanted to integrate different avionics requirements and/or by going cheep people weren't gonna get a bird that was gonna be mo' bettah than the OH-58D.

If they accepted cheap- the scout/air cav squadrons would have gotten a 407 w/ a Wescam disco ball under the nose (so wide FoV FLIR, laser rangefinder/designator, GPS, etc) plus the air frame would be packing the usual fifty cal and 7 round 2.75 inch rocket pods. That's it- maybe a little faster than the -58 Delta and a glass type cockpit.

Mad Mikec

 

[Simon Tan]

The most important bit of FARA is the base platform. All the other whiz bang can be funded in the future. Here Raider owns Invictus. Of course we are returning to the Obama era DoD and their modus operandi.

[bfng3569]

and FARA's dead.....

https://breakingdefense.com/2024/02/army-cancels-fara-helicopter-program-makes-other-cuts-in-major-aviation-shakeup/

 

[seahawk]

And the reasoning is sound.

https://www.scramble.nl/military-news/fara-cancelled

[lucklucky]

Seems many here have seen that before US Army.

[lucklucky]

Btw this is a sort of second cancellation of Comanche...

 

Another point is that as uncomplex technology wins capabilities military complex programs that takes decades to get real risks when it arrives be always too old.

Edited February 9, 2024 by lucklucky

[Dawes]

I suppose you could interpret this as meaning that the Apache and AH-1Z will be the last of their type in US service?

[lucklucky]

I think so.

[Tim Sielbeck]

Not necessarily.  The Ah-1 and AH-64 are attack helicopters, not reconnaissance helicopters.  They might want to keep the type for its ability to offer fire support especially if longer range missiles are developed.

[Dawes]

The Apache and AH-1Z will be around for the long haul. Open to question is whether future follow-on attack helos will be developed.

[seahawk]

The enhanced version with the new engines and new gearbox of the AH-64 will probably around for a long time.

But the more interesting question is. If FARA is seen as unable to provide reconnaissance with a helicopter, I wonder how FLARA is going to provide long range assault with a helicopter. Imho that is another program that needs to go.

Edited February 11, 2024 by seahawk

[Ol Paint]

Another article and an opinion piece from The War Zone:

https://www.twz.com/air/army-cancels-hight-speed-armed-reconnaissance-helicopter-program

https://www.twz.com/air/cancelling-the-future-attack-recon-helicopter-was-the-right-move

I'm not sold that the role (manned reconnaissance) is gone in the context of a peer conflict.  Its going to be dependent on the EW environment and whether the unmanned vehicles are going to be able to effectively communicate and make decisions.  Likewise, I'm not sold on the idea of launching small drones out of a utility or cargo helicopter (or even something like a C-130) as performing the necessary functions to replace the reconnaissance/scout helicopter.*  If we don't want to risk a relatively small helicopter near the front lines, what's the vulnerability of a larger launching vehicle, even if it's able to sit back a little further?

The lift element is still there, even more so in a Pacific conflict scenario, so the larger utility and cargo heloes are still flying.  The question in my mind is, in the absence of the recon helicopter, is the utility helicopter going to be pressed into the role?  Ukraine is a conflict where it's possible to drive/walk to the front lines.  The Pacific is not.  Distributed operations in the Pacific especially is not.  So the questions become, how do we get from here to there, how do we move around in the conflict area, and how do we maintain the ability to complete the OODA loop at the various levels of command in a presumably heavy EW environment?  Keeping in mind that there's going to be a lot of ship-to-shore  (and shore-to-ship and shore-to-shore) movement in addition to the type of activities we're seeing in Ukraine.

Maybe the plan is to fight entirely with expendable, single-use robots (UGVs, USVs, UAVs, UUVs)?  But if we're still planning to put troops into the combat area, it seems like the manned scout helicopter has a number of benefits to offer.  I'll admit that this component (Army Scout Aviation) is not something I've spent a lot of time thinking about recently, so I'm most probably missing part of the picture.

Doug

*I'm writing "helicopter" but maybe VTOL would be a better classification to cover the tiltrotors, compound helicopters, tailsitters, and whatever other concept fits.

[Dawes]

Last year Japan announced that they were replacing their fleet of attack and observation helicopters with drones. And Germany is buying H145M's as a sort of "lightweight attack helo". So times they are a changin'.