Bell's V-280 Valor Wins U.S. Army Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft Competition | Aviation International News

U.S. Selects Bell's V-280 Valor Tiltrotor For New Assault Aircraft

Bell's V-280 Valor tiltrotor technology beats Sikorsky and Boeing in battle to replace up to 4,000 Black Hawks for the U.S. Army.

Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor airccraft in flight — The U.S. Army selected the Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor for its Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program. (Photo: Bell)

By Mark Huber • Contributor

December 6, 2022

The U.S. Army has selected Bell's V-280 Valor tiltrotor as the basis for the design that will replace the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter as its next Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA). In a decision announced on December 5, the Textron subsidiary prevailed in the long-running competition against the Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant propulsor-compound coaxial rotor design based on Sikorsky's X-2 technology program.

The FLRAA program was designed to produce aircraft to eventually replace up to 4,000 Sikorsky Black Hawks. Bell started developing and testing the V-280 Valor next-generation tiltrotor as part of the Pentagon's Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR TD) program that began in 2013.

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