Army researchers win three American Helicopter Society awards

By Carlotta Maneice, AMRDEC Public AffairsMarch 31, 2016

AHS 2016 Award Recipient
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. (March 29, 2016) -- The aviation and missile community were recipients of three awards from the American Helicopter Society - International Vertical Flight Technical Society.

"The vertical flight technical community produces incredible advances every single day," said Mike Hirschberg, AHS executive director. "The AHS International Awards Program recognizes the most significant accomplishments around the world, whether by engineers and scientists developing new technologies, innovative companies, or pilots using vertical flight aircraft to save lives or demonstrate new capabilities. Those being recognized this year are truly remarkable."

The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center's Christopher Blanken, vehicle management and control technical area lead, was awarded the AHS Technical Fellow Award. This award is granted to Society members whose career-based accomplishments towards the goals and objectives of the vertical flight technical community constitute an outstanding technical achievement.

"The Army leads the world in rotary wing control system development, and Chris has been at the helm for the entire journey, a true expert and professional," said Layne B. Merritt, chief engineer, AMRDEC's Aviation Development Directorate. "Being named an AHS Technical Fellow is a well-earned achievement and recognition."

The Robert L. Pinckney Award was given to the V-280 Wing Development Team for their innovative product design. This design resulted in greater than 50 percent nonrecurring savings and 57 percent recurring savings over legacy tilt rotor wings, with a raw material utilization improvement of 25 percent.

"The wing development team, led by Bell Helicopter, includes engineers from AMRDEC's ADD and the Aviation Engineering Directorate," said John Crocco, ADD, aerospace engineer, under the Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator program. "This is an excellent example of an original equipment manufacturer supplier working collaboratively with innovative small businesses, Tier II suppliers, and government engineers to produce a product that meets the needs of their military customer, an affordable and capable aircraft system."

The Boeing - U.S. Army Multi-Role Rotor--Adaptive Performance effort was awarded the Howard Hughes Award for outstanding improvement in fundamental helicopter technology. The three-year program matured and demonstrated a new active rotor design that would provide significant performance benefits for current and future rotorcraft. This new morphing rotor system significantly increases rotorcraft hover and cruise performance while simultaneously reducing vibration and noise.

"The Multi-Role Rotor-Adaptive Performance effort is an excellent example of government-industry cooperation to advance the state-of-the-art in vertical lift technology," said Col. Steven Braddom, director, Aviation Applied Technology Directorate. "The MRRAP furthered ADD's goals of demonstrating improved performance, reduced vibration, and acoustic benefits through an integrated design incorporating both active and passive rotor technologies."

-----------

The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to ensure decisive overmatch for unified land operations to empower the Army, the joint warfighter and our nation. RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command.

Related Links:

Army Technology Live

U.S. Army Materiel Command

Army.mil: Science and Technology News

U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command

AHS International -- The Vertical Flight Technical Society

U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center