The US Army's New Black Hawk Helicopter Replacement, The Bell v-280 Valor. (REVISED)

The US army’s new Black Hawk Helicopter replacement, the Bell V-280 Valor.
The US army has sellect the Bell V-280 Valor tilt-rator craft to replace the army’s 2,000 UH-60 Black
Hawk utility helicopters and 1,200 AH-64 Apache assault helicopters. They decided that after years
of testing and deliberation.
According to the company, the U.S. Army’s FLRAA (Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft) Program has
awarded the development contract with a total ceiling of $1.3 billion for the replacement of Black
Hawk to the Bell V-270 Valor. It was announced by the U.S Army themselves on Monday evening no
item purchases that spend more than that in decades and making this the largest purchase in more
than 30 years.
The main reason Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor got the award was that or the developed and tested as
part of the JMR TD (Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator), the program that began in 2013.
Needed years of testing conscientious flight that provided extensive data validating aircraft’s
technical and operational advantages for long-range strike missions. Also, There a few signs of
progress in V-280, including manufacturing and design, and most importantly is, flight testing.
Scot C. Donnelly, Textron’s chairman and chief executive officer glad and honored that the U.S army
has selected the Bell V-280 Valor as their next-generation assault aircraft. He stated, “We are
honored that the U.S. Army has selected the Bell V-280 Valor as its next generation assault aircraft,”
He added that he was glad, honored, and excited to join and play an important part in Army Aviation
in the future. He also said that he wanted to build the best or most remarkable weapon system to
fulfill the army’s requirements on their missions.
The President and the CEO of Bell, Mitch Synder, is excited about modernizing the army aviation
capabilities for the future. Mitch Synder also added, “This is an exciting time for the U.S. Army, Bell,
and Team Valor as we modernize the Army’s aviation capabilities for decades to come.” Bell himself
has always been supporting Army Aviation. He stated he was ready to help supply the Army Aviation
with the high, reliable, elite long-range assault weapon system.
Bell and his business partner have validated the V-280 aircraft systematically and approach in
collaborating with the Army Aviation in their modular open system.
Keith Flail, the executive vice president of Advanced Vertical Lift Systems at Bell, stated that Bell’s
team had demonstrated extraordinary operational capabilities for the past few years and
increasements or enhancements in platform affordability provided by the V-280 itself.
The U.S Army leaders stated that they needed more time to review the two competing bids, which
have 2; the first one is Bell's V-280 Valor and a joint Sikorsky-Boeing compound helicopter platform
dubbed the SB-1 Defiant-X. The Army also stated in November that they’d announced the decision
by the end of the year. The reasons why they delayed because of due diligence and quality control.
The V-280 Valor tiltrotor beat out Sikorsky-Boeing compound helicopter after months of waiting for
the decision.
Gen. Robert Barrie, the executive program officer for aviation, told reporters at a media that an
initial obligation of $232 million will fund Bell’s preliminary design and development of a virtual
prototype that the Army will then use to proceed with the acquisition, Army Brig. It will continue for
the next 19 months, and also, there will be no aircraft procured in the initial phase of the acquisition.
He also added, “For the initial phase of the acquisition, there will be no aircraft procured.”
Now it turns out there are two different approaches of competition against each other; one example
is Bell Textron's tiltrotor design, similar to the V-22 Osprey — flown by the Marines, etc.
Berrie said, “we're not going to talk specifics about the evaluation, but what we were seeking is the
best-value approach,” when he was asked what put the tiltrotor ahead of the competition, he
refused to tell.
Berrie added, “no one thing really drove the decision, so if you look at a very high level, the factors
or variables of performance, cost, and schedule, all were considered, and the combination of those
are defined explicitly and evaluated.”
The first lot of low-rate initial production is $7.1 billion, and the total award number for the FLRAA
(Future Long Range Assault Aircraft) contract and engineering manufacturing also development
phase included, Barrie said. He also added, “there's a larger number on the order of $70 billion of
potential, depending on how many aircraft the Army procured over the long term to include
potential foreign military sales, so that's both near term and long term.”
In its releases, Keith Flail, the executive vice president of Advanced Vertical Lift Systems at Bell, said
The V-280 Valor would bring a modern rotorcraft to the U.S Army.
However, the V-280 Valor is a highly capable tiltrotor aircraft that combines conventional aircraft set
capabilities and a helicopter. The V-280 Valor is miles better than the Black Hawk’s, especially when
both of them are compared in speed comparison. Alongside the high sling load capability and
craftsmanship you'd expect from a tactical helicopter, such as allowing troops to be brought on
board to exit the aircraft during hovering.
Carl Coffman, the vice president of Future Vertical Lift Strategy at Bell, stated that "what Bell did
with the V-280 Valor was to evolve the tiltrotor configuration into a fighting machine designed
specifically for the Army air assault and utility missions in contested environments and to be
maintainable in the field." He also added, "we proved that this is not going to be a risky
configuration for the Army to adopt because there is no component on the V-280 Valor that you
can't pull with organic ground support equipment in an austere environment today."
The requirements that the US Army wants the V-280 Valor to meet before entering service remain
confidential or secret. According to the service, the initial prototype will be sent to the U.S Army by
2025. Meanwhile, a unit of the Army is scheduled to be equipped with the FLRAA (Future Long
Range Assault Aircraft) in the year 2030, which will be the first army unit ever to be equipped with
that.

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