The U.S. Army Research Laboratory has conducted a new round of live-fire tests on its rotor blade technology on March 4 as it seeks to help the research efforts of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.The Continuous Trailing Edge Flap that features individual blade control technology was first tested in mid-January to study the potential of its integration into future rotorcraft, the Army said Thursday.
The Army added that the experiments seek to focus on the blade technology’s ballistic vulnerability and are part of the Science and Technology Red Teaming initiative sponsored by ASA (ALT).
“The purpose of this program is to generate some limited ballistic data that could reduce risk and/or encourage Future Vertical Lift designers to consider CTEF technology,” said Brian Smith, aviation analysis team leader at ARL’s survivability and lethality analysis directorate.
“Our goal is to design, develop and demonstrate the next generation of technologies that will provide unmatched vertical lift aircraft performance to meet future operation capabilities,” added Todd Turner, ASA (ALT) air portfolio director.
Budget cuts amounting to $2 billion from fiscal year 2016 to 2017 affected the CTEF efforts, Jim Garamone reported Thursday on DoD News.
“When we don’t have money, we do a lot of analysis and we come up with great ideas, but then at some point you have to start building some hardware and sometimes that gets a little harder to do when there’s not enough money flowing,” said Matthew Wilbur, ARL vehicle technology directorate senior research engineer.
Wilbur said the funding under the Red Teaming initiative with ASA (ALT) helped CTEF continue research and assessment efforts.
