To land the deal, the firm will have to overcome the service's traditional opposition to tilt-rotor aircraft, which take off and land like a helicopter but fly like a conventional propeller-driven aircraft. The demonstrator effort is designed to hone requirements for a Future Vertical Lift acquisition program to fill the Army's requirement for a mid-sized, next-generation rotorcraft with twice the speed and range of a conventional helicopter to replace its UH-60 Black Hawks probably in the 2030s.īell wants to sell the V-280 to all the services, but the Army - with its thousands of Black Hawks alone - offers the biggest potential market. By comparison, the Black Hawk can hold a crew of four and transport 11 troops fully loaded or 20 lightly equipped. Army and represents a transformational aircraft for all the challenging missions our armed forces are asked to undertake."īell's V-280 Valor is slightly bigger than a UH-60 Black Hawk and hold a crew of four and carry up to 14 passengers. "The Valor is designed to revolutionize vertical lift for the U.S. "First flight demonstrates our commitment to supporting Department of Defense leadership's modernization priorities and acquisition reform initiatives," he added. "This is an exciting time for Bell Helicopter, and I could not be more proud of the progress we have made with first flight of the Bell V-280," Mitch Snyder, president and chief executive officer of Bell Helicopter, said in a statement. local time at the company's Amarillo, Texas, facility, according to the company. The black prototype, which resembles the older V-22 Osprey, also made by Textron Inc.'s Bell unit and Boeing Co., completed the roughly maiden flight around 2 p.m.
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