The Bell V-280 Valor, selected as the winner of the FLRAA contest. The operational version is to feature several changes, including having no cockpit doors. (Bell)
Bell Helicopters is finalising its Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) design following the US Army's Milestone B certification, which cleared the type to enter the engineering, manufacturing, and development (EMD) phase.
“Parts are being churned out right now. If we waited for that we wouldn't be ready to build aircraft,” Frank Lazzara, the company's director of FLRAA sales, told Janes on 14 October at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual conference in Washington, DC. “Engineering is being released on the things that can be released. Some parts are already being manufactured.”
Lazzara stressed that the parts are small – small gear wheels, for example – and that they are necessary to build larger subsystems.
FLRAA is one of the army's two digital pathfinder programmes – the other being the XM30 ground combat vehicle, currently in development – intended to help the service speed up the design process. The results of the pathfinder projects will define best practices and iron out practical concerns for future weapons systems.
Bell is to deliver two virtual FLRAA prototypes – exact digital replications of what Bell intends to build – to the army in February 2025. One copy is to be sent to Fort Novosel, where the army's Aviation Center of Excellence will examine the design. Another copy is headed to Redstone Arsenal for analysis by Army Materiel Command. The virtual prototypes are also intended to fulfil a Middle Tier Acquisition requirement to deliver working prototypes to the field before transitioning to a programme of record, which cannot be done with a complex aircraft.
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