Thursday, November 13, 2008

InsideDefense: Boeing/Textron to file JLTV protest

InsideDefense reports that the Boeing/Textron JLTV partnership has joined Northrop Grumman/Oshkosh in appealing the Army's winnowing process for the development phase of the program.

Both partnerships protesting the Army's decision went with unconventional drive systems. Tim W, an industry insider, provided a useful description of the two systems in a commentary thread some days ago.
The Boeing and Northrop systems were quite different. As I understand it the Boeing vehicle had some sort of hybrid that they described as a parallel/series system. A parallel hybrid is like the Prius where there is a mechanical connection between the engine and wheels and the engine is aided or switched for an electric motor as needed. A series hybrid has an engine running a generator which charges batteries that power a basically electric vehicle. The Millenworks prototype that formed the basis of the Boeing JLTV had I think an engine mechanically running the rear wheels and an electric motor powering the front. This might explain the peculiar and contradictory parallel/series description.

The Northrop/Oshkosh vehicle was not technically a hybrid but a much simpler diesel-electric as used for many years on trains. It is similar to the series hybrid but doesn't have significant batteries and has no silent running ability - the diesel would be constantly running, its generator supplying power directly to the electric motors.
(Sublime Bloviations/Haloscan)
Can the Army shrug these off or is a delay in the JLTV program in the offing?

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