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We are as maneuverable at high speeds as we are at low speeds,” said Rob Freeland, a Bell government relations director and Marine Corps veteran. The straight wings are easier to build and reduce the manufacturing costs, he said. The engine itself doesn’t move like it does on the V-22 just the prop rotor tilts when it goes from vertical takeoff to cruise, or vice versa, explained Bell’s Terry Horner, a director of government relations and Army veteran. Valor is designed to have a cruise speed of 280 knots (322 mph) and a combat range of 500 to 800 nautical miles (580 to 920 miles). A tilt-rotor aircraft like the V-22 Osprey, the V-280 has engines and rotors at the end of its wings that swivel, which allow it to take off vertically like a helicopter and fly horizontally like an airplane. The fly-by-wire aircraft can top 300 miles per hour and carry 12 passengers. “We operate in the lower tier in the air domain so there’s a lot of places to hide.” V-280 Valorīell’S V-280 builds on its experience from the V-22 tilt-rotor, which has been in production since the late 1990s. We are not tied to a seaport, and able to be targeted,” Rugen said. “We are also vertical lift so we are not tied to an airport. “Speed range and endurance-that is an exponential increase in capability.” “We are in desperate need of a clean-sheet design,” said Rugen. The second is the coaxial lift compound rotor helicopter called Defiant X, built by the Lockheed team. One is an advanced tilt-rotor offered by Bell-called the V-280 Valor-which is derived from the V-22 Osprey, with its vertical lift and takeoff technology. That gives the Army two different aircraft to pick from. The Army already chose Lockheed and Bell for a competitive demonstration phase. The Army is expected to select a winner next year to build prototypes for the successor to its 2,000 Black Hawks. Sikorsky, partnered with Boeing Co., are competing for the program against Bell. Now, with a request for proposals July 6, the Army officially kicked off competition for the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft-just one part of the broader Future Vertical Lift program-to replace the Black Hawks by 2030.įights Over Money, Ships, and Planes Set to Lead Defense Debates And in 2011, a stealth version of the Black Hawk famously crashed during the raid that led to the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The Black Hawks have been a mainstay for decades, with their shooting down in Somalia immortalized in the book “Black Hawk Down” by Mark Bowden. “This is important to the industry at large, basically to get our engineers working on these advanced designs-to continue that and get them to production,” said Lemmo, whose company makes the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. We need to be designing next-generation platforms,” said Paul Lemmo, president of Sikorsky, now a unit of Lockheed Martin.
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“This can help propel the vertical lift industrial base, the rotor-wing industrial base into the future. The Pentagon’s ultimate goal is to also replace other aircraft types, ranging from lightweight scout planes to heavyweight transports, such as Boeing Co.’s Chinook CH-47.Īrmy Defers Boeing Chinooks in Budget Until Later Wish List “The great thing is that Army aviation is at a perfect inflection point: We look far more like coming out of the Vietnam War where our fleets are bought out, and we are able to afford jumping into the future.” “It is an opportunity now, because we must modernize for the future,” said Rugen. and Bell Textron Inc., it could be a make or break moment: Winning would cement a foothold as the Army’s aviation provider for decades, and reap the benefits of a market projected to be worth from $60 billion to as much as $90 billion, according to congressional and Wall Street budget analysts. įor the competing teams led by Lockheed Martin Corp. And honestly we are becoming obsolete if we do not jump to the future.” Competing Teamsĭespite major investments and overhauls, the military’s vertical lift fleet hasn’t gone through generational change since the 1980s-particularly within the Army, which has the largest fleet, writes Andrew Hunter, director of the defense industrial initiatives group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “It is all about being effective in our pacing theaters to be a tremendous deterrent against any peer or near peer threats. “We are going to fight as a joint force,” Rugen said in an interview. They’ll be in service for decades and fly not just for the Army but also the other military services. The Army wants the new aircraft to fly at least twice as fast and twice as far as the helicopters they’re replacing, the Black Hawk and the Apache, which have been its aerial mainstays since Grenada, Panama, and the first Gulf War. Illustration: Jonathan Hurtarte/Bloomberg Law