AVX To Replace Chinook In The Near Future

The Ch-47 Chinook has been a staple of the US Army since the early 70’s and remains one of the most iconic aircraft in American history to this day. Although the US Army has no immediate plans and intentions to replace the venerable aircraft, when the time does come for it to move on from the Ch-47 Chinook, the AVX aircraft will be its successor. With a 27.2t (60,000lb) tiltrotor replacement and  13.4m (44ft) propellers, the AVX tiltrotor aircraft has been deemed the most perfect fit for a heavy-lift cargo aircraft by an independent advanced rotorcraft design shop. The Texas-based shop in Benbrook has several Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey aerodynamicists as staff and with the wealth of experience and knowledge between them have approved the AVX as the most sensible and probable successor to the storied Chinook. The CH-47 is among the last of the current-generation helicopters that are intended to be slowly phased out in favor of a next-generation design.

AVX  has offered light/medium compound coaxial designs as part of the army’s Joint MultiRole technology demonstrator project and has revealed that the forward lifting canards and would be powered by two Improved Turbine Engine Programme (ITEP) engines along with having dual ducted fans mounted forward of the horizontal tail.

Troy Gaffey, Chief Executive of AVX has stated that his team would offer a tiltrotor solution currently being pushed by Karem Aircraft with optimal speed tiltrotor and Bell Helicopter has promised to promote an up-scaled V-280 Valor type for "FVL Heavy". An artist’s rendering has drawn some tentative speculation but as of yet AVX still hasn’t completed any detailed work on the tiltrotor. Gaffey is not worried and has stated that AVX feels really comfortable with the first three capability sets in regards to their compound coaxial helicopter configurations.

Speaking at the Army Aviation Association of America symposium in Atlanta, Gaffey believes that the Capability Set 4 is logically a tiltrotor and will be a CH-47 replacement. Previously AVX has proposed a tiltrotor for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) X-plane project which was won eventually by Aurora Flight Sciences LightningStrike platform.

1. john parker
2. Posted on May 15, 2016
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