The United States Army (US Army) has chosen Bell to build the latest generation of tiltrotor aircraft (vertical lift aircraft) that will replace the UH-60 Black Hawk, which incidentally has been operated by the Army. The US has been involved in a variety of war and non-war military operations since the 1970s.
Reporting from defenseone.com (5/12/2022), Bell Textron received a US$232 million contract, which is the first installment of a deal worth a total of US$7.1 billion for the development and initial batch of replacements for the Black Hawk.
This is a major win for Bell, which will secure more than $70 billion in contracts in the coming decades, depending on how many units the US Army and foreign militaries order.
The replacement for the UH-60 Black Hawk is the Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor hybrid aircraft, which is similar to the V-22 Osprey. Bell's V-280 in this tender beat the Sikorsky-Boeing team who proposed the coaxial helicopter design, which uses two stack rotors rotating in opposite directions and provides more stability than traditional helicopters.
The tiltrotor can take off and land vertically like a helicopter, but rotates its propellers forward allowing it to fly at the speed of a fixed wing aircraft.
"The V-280 Valor design with tiltrotor technology combined with innovative digital engineering and open architecture, offers the US Army outstanding operational versatility," Bell said in a statement.
The contract awarded on Monday was for a "virtual prototype," not an actual aircraft, US Army officials said. An early prototype of the V-280 could come in 2025, but the Army will need to award additional contracts before that happens.
Over the last nine years, both bidders (Bell and Sikorsky-Boeing) have offered proposals and demos of the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) for the US Army.
Meanwhile, US Army officials declined to give specific reasons why they chose Bell over Sikorsky-Boeing, other than calling Bell's proposal the "best value".
Losing companies have three days to request a briefing from the Army about their decisions. After that briefing they had the option to 'protest' the Army's decision. If they do protest, the Government Accountability Office will review it and make a decision.
Bell first unveiled the V-280 design in 2013, and its prototype first flew on December 18, 2017. Unlike its V-22 predecessor, the wingtip engines were improved, a move it is hoped will lower maintenance costs.
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