Jane Edwards
Boeing finished in January six wind tunnel tests on a small-scale model of an AH-64E Block II Apache compound helicopter, Rotor & Wing International reported Friday.
The aircraft, which could be deployed by the end of 2028 to help fill the gap for the U.S. Army’s Future Vertical Lift program, would have a wing and rear propulsor with a capability to carry payloads of up to 5.9K pounds at a range of up to 460 nautical miles and speed of 185 knots.
The company told the publication it has used internal funds to support research, sensitivity and trade studies and testing of the compound helicopter in the past five years and intends to present its wind tunnel testing, validation and drag computation data at the Vertical Flight Society conference in Philadelphia in May.
Boeing is one of the five recipients of other transaction agreements to provide the Army with initial designs of the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft platform. The other four awardees are Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky subsidiary, AVX Aircraft, Textron’s Bell Helicopter subsidiary and Karem Aircraft.
