Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky reveal radical SB>1 Defiant 'supercopter' that will be the fastest helicopter in the world (and replace the Blackhawk AND Apache)

• The radical craft is being built by Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky - and has been revealed for the first time. 
• Craft could replace the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and the UH-60 Blackhawk
• Craft tops out at 300 mph and is able to hover 6,000 feet in the air 

It could be the future of military helicopters.

Called SB>1 Defiant, the radical craft is being built by Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky - and has been revealed for the first time.

'The SB>1 DEFIANT is designed to fly at twice the speed and range of today's conventional helicopters and offers advanced agility and maneuverability,' Sikorsky said.

The craft, which could enter service in the 2030s, could replace the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and the UH-60 Blackhawk.

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The SB>1 DEFIANT is designed to fly at twice the speed and range of today's conventional helicopters and offers advanced agility and maneuverability

When it enters service, the Defiant will carry a crew of four and a cabin equipped for up to 12 combat-ready troops or eight medevac litters

When it enters service, the Defiant will carry a crew of four and a cabin equipped for up to 12 combat-ready troops or eight medevac litters.  

There will also be an attack variant that shares a common fly-by-wire drivetrain and many other systems, but has a different composite fuselage and is much more heavily armed.

'Designed for the Army’s attack and assault missions as well as the Marine Corps long-range transportation, infiltration and resupply missions, the SB>1 DEFIANT is uniquely suited to provide the warfighter with unmatched capabilities for the U.S. Military’s various missions,' the firms said.SB1>DEFIANT FEATURES 

The Defiant shown in the clip would cruise at 250 knots and hover at altitudes of 6,000 feet. 

It has foldable, ridged composite rotor blades that create less downwash when it lowers to the ground to drop off or pick off soldiers and supplies. 

Defiant is also designed to be efficient when transporting soldiers – the cabin seats 12 people comfortably or eight medevac pallets - the Blackhawk can only carry 11 soldiers.

And there is weapon employments in all modes of flight. 'The primary advantage that Defiant's going to offer over a traditional helicopter is, it's got twice the speed, two to three times the range, and is just an extremely maneuverable and agile platform,' said retired Marine Maj. Frank P. Conway, Sikorsky's experimental test pilot for both the SB>1 and the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, when the concept was first unveiled.

He called the Defiant 'a very hot, sexy aircraft.' 

Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, and Boeing are partners on SB>1 DEFIANT, as well as Future Vertical Lift Medium.

The Defiant would cruise at 250 knots and hover at altitudes of 6,000 feet.

This is more than a hundred miles an hour faster than the UH-60M Blackhawk transport, as it maxes out at 183 miles an hour.

It will also have the strength and power to carry more cargo than the average helicopters, but Lockheed is not giving all of its secrets away – it has yet to release the range and payload capacity.

However, the firm is boasting about the machine's innovated design.

The 'warcopter' would be equipped with foldable, ridged composite rotor blades that create less downwash when it lowers to the ground to drop off or pick off soldiers and supplies.

And the pusher propeller and active rudders will provider pilots with more stability when hovering, as a well a helping them quickly accelerate and decelerate while in flight.

The fly-by-wire concept, designed with two coaxial rotors and a pusher propeller, is said to speed through the air at nearly 300 mph and hover like a hummingbird.

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The 'warcopter' would be equipped with foldable, ridged composite rotor blades that create less downwash when it lowers to the ground to drop off or pick off soldiers and supplies.

Boeing gives a glimpse at US military helicopter of the future

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Defiant is designed to be more efficient when transporting soldiers – the cabin seats 12 people comfortably or eight medevac pallets - the Blackhawk can only carry 11 soldiers.

And there is weapon employments in all modes of flight.

Lockheed also shared that the Defiant can also 'dramatically reduced acoustic signature', which means it is much quieter than traditional helicopters and can go undetected by surrounding enemies.

Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky and the Boeing Co. are still fabricating parts for the first Defiant, which is their entrant in the Army-run Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstration (JMR TD) program. 

Fit the Iowa-Class Battleships with Nuclear Propulsion, High capacity Lasers and Missiles

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Fit the Iowa-Class Battleships with Nuclear Propulsion, High capacity Lasers and Missiles

Deployment of these armored ships will deter China or North Korea and Russia in the Western Pacific and the Arctic Circle to disallow passage on international waters as they claim as their own territory. Also Battleships convey the projection of power and captivate the imagination. Before they were displaced by aircraft carriers, battleships were symbols of great-power status. Some of the most iconic were the American Iowa class, the last battleships ever built by the United States. Powerful in appearance, yet with sleek lines filled in with haze gray, the Iowa class served in World War II and were unretired three more times to serve as the U.S. Navy’s big guns.  

The National Defense Authorization Act for 1996, generally known as the defense budget, had a unique provision hidden inside the text: the text directed the Navy to keep at least of the four Iowa-class ships on the Naval Register in good condition, retain the logistical support to maintain battleships on active duty and keep those ships on the Register until the secretary of the navy certified that existing naval gunfire support equaled or exceeded the firepower of two battleships. Iowa and Wisconsin were finally stricken from the Register in 2006 after the secretary of the navy, citing the upcoming thirty-two Zumwalt-class destroyers, certified they were no longer needed.

Now, eleven years later, the Navy is only getting three of the thirty-two Zumwalt destroyers, and the long-range attack projectile specifically designed for the Zumwalt’s two 155-millimeter guns is being cancelled due to exorbitant costs. The Navy is again facing a naval gunfire shortfall, in addition to an antiship shortfall. Could the Iowas make yet another comeback, bolstered with new and powerful weapons?

In laying the groundwork for battleship modernizations, there four things that must happen for any successful update. The Iowa-class battleships were designed in the late 1930s, and a lot has happened in the last eighty years. First, the ships must be highly automated. The ships originally sailed with crews of up to 2,700 personnel, later reduced to 1,800. The U.S. Navy is no longer a draftee service, and personnel costs in the all-volunteer Navy are major expenses. Prime candidates for automation are older mechanical systems, such as the three sixteen-inch gun turrets, each of which has a crew of over a hundred, and the power plant and engineering.

Second, the battleships would return to the field just as firepower is transitioning from being gunpowder-based to electricity-based. The ship will need all the power it can get to power the new generation of weapons systems that will go onboard. A nuclear power plant would provide power in the megawatts range, while requiring fewer crew to operate it. An alternative is the electric drive system that powers the Zumwalt class, albeit on a larger scale, delivering even greater power.

Third, the battleships need to be able to sink ships at ranges of at least two hundred miles and hit land targets at eight hundred to a thousand miles. At 887 feet long, the battlewagons will be prime targets for land- and sea-based antiship missiles and must have a reasonable chance of operating from beyond their ranges. While the effective range of antiship missiles will only continue to grow, a long-distance striking capability will still be useful against other targets, including island garrisons, air bases and enemy ships.

Fourth, the battleships will be purely offensive weapons designed to attack targets on land and at sea. They will not have advanced radar systems aboard, nor will they equip the Standard family of missiles, nor will they jump on the ballistic-missile defense bandwagon. In order to justify their existence, they must be able to contribute as much offensive firepower as possible.

A reactivated battleship would not replace a carrier—the two would operate separately but symbiotically. A guided-missile battleship’s long-range firepower would suppress enemy air defenses, allowing carrier aircraft a freer hand over enemy territory. In return, carriers would provide antisubmarine and antiair cover for the battleship.

Our upgrade for the Iowa-class battleships would turn them from battleships (BBs) to guided missile battleships (BBGs). We’ll start by funding development of a sixteen-inch hypervelocity guided projectile along the lines of the HVP round currently being developed by BAE Systems . That round, for the 127-millimeter Mk. 45 gun on all Navy cruisers and destroyers and the 155-millimeter gun on the Zumwalt destroyers, will have a range of exceeding a hundred miles. How far a sixteen-inch hypervelocity shell could reach is unknown, but performance matching the 155-millimeter version doesn’t seem unreasonable.

Taking a cue from the Pentagon, making the ship’s main battery more efficient means that we can cut it. The aft sixteen-inch gun turret has to go, in order to give the ship a long-range strike capability. In its place we will put a field of 320 to 470 Mk. 41 variant vertical-launch systems that will accommodate a purely offensive loadout: Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles with a two-hundred-plus-mile range and Tactical Tomahawkmissiles with a thousand-mile range. Even longer-range missiles would be welcome additions to the BBG’s new arsenal, and could even be stored in deck-mounted armored box launchers if necessary.

The remaining five-inch gun turrets on the Iowa-classes’ port and starboard sides are obsolete. The solution: ripping out the turrets and replacing them with a pair of railguns . Four railguns would increase the battleship’s firepower against land targets, helping make up for the loss of the aft sixteen-inch turret.

The BBGs would not be totally defenseless: the upgrade of the early 1980s saw four Phalanx CIWS guns installed. In their place we could install newer SeaRAM point defense missile launchers, or even defensive laser weapons in the hundred-kilowatt range, fed power from the nuclear reactors.

The BBGs will retain their helicopter landing pad. The battlewagons will rely on cruiser and destroyer escorts to fend of air and subsurface threats, and P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, MQ-4 Triton drones and other unmanned aircraft, and submarines and unmanned underwater vehicles for targeting data. One outside possibility is the battleships being equipped with TERN tailsitter drones capable taking off and landing vertically, providing an organic, long-distance scouting capability not unlike the Vought OS2U Kingfisher seaplanes that equipped the Iowas in the 1940s.

The result of this conversion is a BBG that could sink any enemy surface action group protecting an enemy island or coastline, then strike antiaccess/area-denial targets such as antiship ballistic missiles, surface-to-air missile batteries, radars, air bases and and other enemy targets. Once it was safe enough to close within a hundred miles of the enemy coast, sixteen-inch guns with hypervelocity shells would come into play, destroying a half-dozen targets at a time with precision.

The Iowa-class battleships will remain museum pieces for the foreseeable future. Still, if the will and the funding were there, there are some very interesting things that could be done with them that would neatly patch holes in the U.S. Navy’s force structure—particularly the ability to fight and sink enemy ships. 

Boeing unveils its 38ft-long autonomous 'Loyal Wingman' drone that uses AI to fly alongside piloted aircraft and is designed to carry missiles or bombs

• Boeing took the wraps off its new autonomous fighter jet, that's designed to fly alongside piloted aircraft
• The jet, called 'Loyal Wingman,' measures 38ft long, can fly over 2,000 nautical miles and will take off in 2020
• A prototype version of the drone was unveiled at an airshow in Australia, where it's currently being developed 

Boeing has unveiled a new autonomous fighter jet plane that's designed to be a sidekick for piloted planes and could take to the skies as soon as 2020. 

The unmanned drone, dubbed the 'Loyal Wingman,' is 38 feet long, has a 2,000 nautical mile range and is equipped with onboard sensors that enable it to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, as well as electronic warfare. 

It's particularly suited for long-distance surveillance missions that humans can't typically perform, according to the firm. 

Wingman may also be able to carry missiles or bombs at some point in the future. Boeing hopes to sell the planes to customers around the world, though for now it remains a prototype design.

The aerospace giant revealed the drone, which it says is part of a new unmanned platform, called the Boeing Airpower Teaming System, at the Australian International Airshow on Tuesday.

It's being developed in Australia as part of a classified program and marks the country's first domestically developed combat combat aircraft since World War II.  

Boeing claims that the fighter jet will cost a 'fraction' of a typical manned fighter, but declined to share what it will be priced at, noting that the number will vary depending on the jet specifications chosen by each buyer.  

Kristin Robertson, vice president and general manager of Boeing Autonomous Systems, said: 'It is operationally very flexible, modular, multi-mission.

'It is a very disruptive price point. Fighter-like capability at a fraction of the cost.'

She declined to specify whether it could reach supersonic speeds, common for modern fighter aircraft.

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The aerospace giant revealed the drone, which it says is part of a new unmanned platform, called the Boeing Airpower Teaming System, at the Australian International Airshow on Tuesday. Pictured is a prototype version of the aircraft

The drone, dubbed the 'Loyal Wingman,' is 38 feet long, has a 2,000 nautical mile range and is equipped with onboard sensors that enable it to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, as well as electronic warfare 

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Boeing claims that the fighter jet will cost a 'fraction' of a typical manned fighter, but declined to share what it will be priced at, noting that the number will vary depending on the jet specifications chosen by each buyer 

Robertson described the Wingman as a 'force multiplier' for military units around the world that may need the extra manpower. 

'With its ability to reconfigure quickly and perform different types of missions in tandem with other aircraft, our newest addition to Boeing's portfolio will truly be a force multiplier as it protects and projects air power,' she said.

Four to six of the new aircraft can fly alongside a F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, said Shane Arnott, director of Boeing research and prototype arm Phantom Works International. 

Not only can the jets fly for longer periods than humans, but they're also capable of withstanding higher g-forces and has high-powered computers that can process large amounts of data quickly.  

'To bring that extra component and the advantage of unmanned capability, you can accept a higher level of risk,' he said. 

'It is better for one of these to take a hit than for a manned platform.'  

Further details of the 'Loyal Wingman' project remain scant but it's understood the primary purpose of the drone is to conduct electronic warfare and reconnaissance missions in 'risky' terrain.

The UAV is said to be capable of flying up to several thousand kilometres, and can also carrying sensors or electronic warfare equipment on its underside.

Boeing described the jet as a 'force multiplier' that can bulk up military units in need of manpower. The aircraft can be reconfigured based on each customer's needs and four to six of the new aircraft can fly alongside a F/A-18E/F Super Hornet

Not only can the pilot-less jets fly for longer periods than humans, but they're also capable of withstanding higher g-forces. Boeing noted that they're equipped with high-powered computers that can process large amounts of data quickly

The unmanned craft, which is roughly the size of a traditional jet fighter, was developed in Brisbane by aerospace giant Boeing. The Loyal Wingman is just a prototype right now, but could take to the skies as soon as 2020, according to the firm

The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in the United States said last year that the US Air Force should explore pairing crewed and uncrewed aircraft to expand its fleet and complement a limited number of 'exquisite, expensive, but highly potent fifth-generation aircraft' like the F-35.

'Human performance factors are a major driver behind current aerial combat practices,' the policy paper said.

'Humans can only pull a certain number of G's, fly for a certain number of hours, or process a certain amount of information at a given time.'

The precise amount of investment the US firm has pumped into the endeavor remains unknown but it's believed to be the largest investment in UAVs outside the US. 

The Australian government is investing $28.75 million (A$40 million) in the prototype program due to its 'enormous capability for exports,' Minister for Defence Christopher Pyne told reporters at the Australian International Airshow.

The drones could be used alongside existing Royal Australian Air Force aircraft such as the P-8A Poseidon.