Marine One replacement on schedule and under budget-but can't land on lawn

The VH-92A that will replace the current Marine One helicopters are on schedule, and currently about $123M, or 2.4%, under budget. The Navy plans to acquire 23 aircraft beginning in 2020, and ending in 2023.

According to a GAO report however, an undisclosed issue is preventing them from being able to land on the White House lawn. The report says, "The lawn is a highly visible, size-constrained landing zone where damage to the White House grounds needs to be minimised. Currently, however, the programme is not meeting a key system capability requirement to land the aircraft without adversely affecting the landing zone (including the White House Lawn).”

The plan currently is to implement a solution about 5 months after production begins.

www.flightglobal.com...

The plan currently is to implement a solution about 5 months after production begins.

Tarmac the lawn?

Airbags on the landing gear?

a reply to: Phage

Maybe a 100"x100" patch of hardened fieldturf?

Or maybe just keep using what they've always used?

Why is this so suddenly a problem? Are the new helicopters that much more powerful, or something?

a reply to: Zaphod58

Could this be due to new rotor blade design? Maybe silent but much more powerful and have adverse affects on the lawn. Just spitballing here!

originally posted by: seagull
Or maybe just keep using what they've always used?

Why is this so suddenly a problem? Are the new helicopters that much more powerful, or something?

They've been using Sea Kings for 56 years with no major upgrades. Surely major strides have taken place in that time frame?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I would think so.

I know the one's they've used forever are getting somewhat long in the tooth. Though I didn't know they were that old...

This just strikes me as an odd problem to have...especially with the advances in aviation in the past half century.

a reply to: seagull

They currently use VH-3Ds and VH-60Ns. The SH-3 max takeoff weight is 22,050 pounds, with a loaded weight of 18,626 pounds. The VH-60N has a max takeoff weight of 23,501 pounds. The S-92 that the VH-92A is based on has a loaded weight of 26,500 pounds, and max takeoff weight of 27,700 pounds.

a reply to: Allaroundyou

I'm thinking it's the weights. The loaded weight of an S-92 is heavier than the MTOW of the VH-60N.

a reply to: Barnalby

They might have to tarmac it, or harden it some way. That beast is heavy.

Some one forgot to mention in the specs that it lands on the WH lawn. Paid upgrade coming.

a reply to: Zaphod58

So in that case a tarmac would be the go to option. And would possibly “future proof” the area for the next update.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Surely major strides have taken place in that time frame?

Apparently not in landing gear tech. LOL

Why not just use moveable slabs of green painted metal?

a reply to: Zaphod58

Two tonnes difference? Wow.

I can see where that'd be a problem. Hardening the lawn (how strange does that sound?) seems the answer if that's indeed the issue.

Add more wheels to the landing gear, maybe smaller wheels, to increase the area over which the chopper’s weight is distributed.

It would increase the total weight of the craft somewhat, but, if the new landing gear had smaller but more numerous wheels, the weight issue might be mitigated while still providing a larger landing patch.

See the Russian An-225.

a reply to: Bhadhidar

I don’t think that would work out how you might think. Wouldn’t that just be like walking around with cleats mucking stuff up?

a reply to: seagull

I knew it would be heavier, but that's quite a bit heavier than I was expecting. It's a nice looking helicopter though, and I'm impressed as hell that they're both on time, and well under budget.

a reply to: Allaroundyou

Yeah, it would. You need to widen the footprint. More gear might help, but larger wheels, with a larger footprint is what you need.

Whats the soil like there?

If its clay then adding a bit more drainage but when I was at uni I did a lot of the simple jobs to bring in the beer vouchers and the number of people who would pay me and my mate just to rip out the front hedge and skim off the top lawn and then put down 20-30lb of pebbles and call it a driveway.

so the joys of getting abuse for not telling them that pebbles can hold a car and let the wife's heels sink when she gets out of the car.

Better off to designate an area and give it the proper love with green tarmac so it doesn't look too bad as probably with those sort of weights you're going to need some seriously thick tyres and perhaps pilots who don't just drop it the last 2-3 ft and a nice paved walkway with a grab rail as we know trump likes to hold onto something.

a reply to: Zaphod58

What about those grid bricks that the grass grows through that fancy houses have on the driveways? The south lawn would still look more or less identical from the low viewing angles that people see of it from the ground, and we're only talking about a couple tons of weight difference so assuming you had a good solid bed/substructure you should be more than able to find the extra weight capacity that way.

Sorry in advance for turning this into the "Lawn Care and Landscape Architecture Projects Forum"...