Source | Sheldon Cohen

Bell Flight (Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.) released a series of announcements in August regarding developments of the highly composite V-280 Valor, a future vertical lift (FVL) tiltrotor aircraft purpose-built with the speed, range and endurance for the future long-range assault aircraft (FLRAA) mission. Since its first flight in December 2017, the company has completed several milestones, including entering Milestone B and clearance from the U.S. Army to enter the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase.

Milestone B marks the beginning of the weapon system’s Program of Record (PoR). The decision is a part of the Major Capability Acquisition process and comes after years of the Bell team working alongside the U.S. Army and Bell’s FLRAA teammates to decompose requirements, reduce risk and inform the weapon system acquisition. This includes the execution of the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) ensuring integration and effectiveness of the aircraft’s design including weapon system design, sustainment and system integrations that are integral to the U.S. Army’s special mission requirements.

“We are poised to deliver a transformational aircraft for the army,” says COL Jeffrey Poquette, FLRAA project manager. “The hard work continues into the EMD phase where we will design, build and test FLRAA prototypes.”

Following the U.S. Army’s FLRAA contract award in December 2022, Bell has established several new state-of-the-art facilities and established several new manufacturing processes to drive cost, schedule and performance to support the program’s execution. As Bell and the FLRAA team enter into the EMD phase, Bell’s focus will be on continued design maturation and prototyping.

According to DefenceToday.com, the army selected the V-280 in December 2022 to replace the Sikorsky UH-60 as the service’s main assault, medevac, and utility rotorcraft. Bell is “set to build six prototypes for testing, with the first scheduled to fly in 2026. LRIP aircraft are planned for production in 2028, and the aircraft is expected to enter service in 2030.”