Bell Eagle Eye
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The Bell Helicopter Eagle Eye, Model 918, was an American
tiltrotor A tiltrotor is an aircraft which generates lift and propulsion by way of one or more powered rotors (sometimes called ''proprotors'') mounted on rotating shafts or nacelles usually at the ends of a fixed wing. Almost all tiltrotors use a trans ...
unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
that was offered as one of the competitors in the
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's VT-UAV (Vertical Takeoff - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) program.


Development

The Eagle Eye program began in 1993 with the TR911X 7/8th scale
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. The
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airframe was originally designed and built for Bell by the
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research company ''
Scaled Composites Scaled Composites (often called simply Scaled) is an American aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman. It is located at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, United States. Founded to develo ...
''. The two demonstrator aircraft were powered by an Allison 250-C20
turboshaft A turboshaft engine is a form of gas turbine that is optimized to produce shaftpower rather than jet thrust. In concept, turboshaft engines are very similar to turbojets, with additional turbine expansion to extract heat energy from the exhaust ...
engine mounted in the center
fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...
, with a transmission system driving a tilting
rotor Rotor may refer to: Science and technology Engineering *Rotor (electric), the non-stationary part of an alternator or electric motor, operating with a stationary element so called the stator * Helicopter rotor, the rotary wing(s) of a rotorcraft ...
at the end of each wing. The aircraft had its maiden flight on March 6, 1998, and then entered a flight test program. Phase 1 (land-based operations testing) was completed in April 1998. Phase 2 (sea-based testing) started shortly after that. The first prototype was destroyed in an accident, but the second successfully completed the test program. These successes led to the entry into the Deepwater program in 2002 and construction of the full size vehicle, called the TR918, powered by a
Pratt & Whitney Canada PW207D The Pratt & Whitney Canada PW200 is a family of turboshaft engines developed specifically for helicopter applications. It entered service in the 1990s. Variants ;PW205B :First run 1987. Flown in twin-engine MBB BO105 for demonstration only. ;PW ...
turboshaft engine. Bell had promoted the Eagle Eye for a decade without finding a buyer, but in the summer of 2002, the
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ordered the UAV as part of the service's broad Deepwater re-equipment effort. The Coast Guard machine was slightly scaled up from the company demonstrator and was designated as Bell HV-911. It had a maximum speed of 200 kts (370 km/h) and an endurance of 5.5 hours with a 200-pound (90 kilogram) payload. The USCG then put funds marked for development and procurement of the vehicle on hold. The US Navy and Marine Corps also expressed some interest, and there were inquiries from various foreign governments. In the summer of 2004, Bell established a relationship with Sagem in
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and Rheinmetall Defense Electronics in
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to sell variants of the Eagle Eye to
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an governments. Bell proposed to provide raw airframes, the European partners would provide payloads and other gear as specified by customers, and Bell would perform system integration. The Eagle Eye prototype crashed in 2006, and Bell could not get enough interest or money to keep the program going. However, in January 2016, the
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said it was searching for a mid-sized "runway independent" UAV, years after losing interest in the
Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout The Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout is an unmanned autonomous helicopter developed by Northrop Grumman for use by the United States Armed Forces. The Fire Scout is designed to provide reconnaissance, situational awareness, aerial fire support a ...
. Although the Army has not specified whether it wants a rotorcraft, VTOL, tiltrotor, launch and recover, or other runway independent design, Bell sees potential for the Eagle Eye to meet Army requirements.New search for VTOL UAVs may resurrect Bell tiltrotor
- Flightglobal.com, 21 January 2016


Specifications


See also


References

* This article contains material that originally came from the web articl

by Greg Goebel, which exists in the Public Domain.


External links


Bell Helicopter's Pocket Guide to Eagle Eye




{{Scaled Composites Scaled Composites
Eagle Eye ''Eagle Eye'' is a 2008 American action-thriller film directed by D. J. Caruso and with a screenplay by John Glenn (screenwriter), John Glenn, Travis Adam Wright, Hillary Seitz and Dan McDermott from a story by McDermott. The film stars Shia LaB ...
1990s United States military reconnaissance aircraft Unmanned military aircraft of the United States Tiltrotor aircraft Single-engined twin-prop tractor aircraft Mid-engined aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1998