Fort Worth company wins Army contract for helicopter design

Last week privately owned AVX Aircraft Co. was awarded an Army contract worth nearly $4 million to conduct design studies and test models to determine whether its ideas for a higher-speed helicopter could be successfully incorporated into a military aircraft.

“We are quite pleased with ourselves, to tell the truth,” Troy Gaffey, chief executive of AVX, said in a telephone interview Friday.

AVX is made up of about a dozen career aviation professionals, mostly former Bell Helicopter engineers and managers.

Looking to improve the speed, lifting capability and cost of helicopters, AVX has dusted off some old concepts that modern technology has made more feasible.

By using a compound coaxial rotor system (two counter-rotating rotors) and ducted fans (essentially propellers), AVX contends that it’s feasible to design an aircraft that can fly faster than existing helicopters and carry more payload higher and farther at a lower cost.

AVX received one of four contracts awarded by the Army for technical and design studies on what it has designated the joint multirole aircraft, a troop carrier that it hopes to begin buying in 15 to 20 years.

Other contracts were awarded to aviation heavyweights: Boeing Co.’s helicopter division, Sikorsky Aircraft Co. and the Bell Helicopter/Boeing team that developed and produces the V-22 Osprey.

The Army wants an aircraft that will haul up to 18 heavily equipped soldiers, travel up to 520 miles without refueling and fly higher and faster, much more demanding requirements than the capabilities of today’s Black Hawk and Huey helicopters.

“What we’re trying to do is bridge the gap between the helicopter and the tilt-rotor,” said Gaffey, who spent 38 years as an engineer at Bell. AVX believes its concept could produce an aircraft 50 percent faster than modern helicopters and, because it would be lighter and require less power to accomplish the same tasks, use 20 to 30 percent less fuel. A tilt-rotor would be faster and fly higher and farther, Gaffey said, but it would also be heavier, more complex and likely more expensive to buy and operate.

“We discussed our proposal very thoroughly with the Army. We told them the reason we chose it is that it gave them the most aircraft for the money,” Gaffey said.

AVX has lined up nine other companies with varying fields of expertise to help it perform the analysis and design work to fulfill the contract.

The Bell/Boeing team “is performing a study to design an aircraft configuration of an advanced tilt-rotor,” said Bell spokesman William Schroeder.

AVX has previously proposed using its coaxial rotor/ducted fan system to upgrade the Army’s Bell-built OH-58D scout helicopters.

It is also working on selling its concepts for other military helicopters and unmanned aircraft, creating quite a workload. But the Army contract represents its first award from the Pentagon.

“We’ve brought some people onboard, and we’re going to bring some more onboard,” Gaffey said. “We’re looking to get some more office space, and I had to go out and buy some chairs the other day. We were out of chairs for people to sit in.”