Reed Anderson
The United States (U.S.) Army recently decided to modernize its medium vertical lift fleet with the selection of Bell’s V-280 Valor, a next generation tiltrotor incorporating over 70 years of experience and nearly 800,000 operating hours with tiltrotor. The U.S. Army was part of early tiltrotor developmental programs but decided it was not the right solution at the time. The time is now for the U.S. Army, as witnessed by its approval of the FLRAA Milestone B Acquisition Decision Memorandum. This next generation weapon system is a leap in technology, flying at twice the range and twice the speed of current U.S. Army assets and includes a modular open system approach (MOSA) giving it unmatched flexibility for future mission scenarios. It will lead to a significant revolution in how the U.S. Army conducts missions, enhance its global responsiveness, and reduce deployment timelines and complexity. It will also outpace any vertical lift capabilities of the U.S. Army’s allies and partners.
The tiltrotor provides the combination of range, speed, and payload of an airplane, while combining the runway independent characteristics of a helicopter. It can deploy by, and operate from, naval vessels, and is fully capable of self-deployment. It also gives the commander a wide range of flexibility since there is reduced reliance on infrastructure and can be deployed to the point of need in a short period of time, as well as to austere and remote locations from which forces would not normally operate. Such a capability is well placed for operations in locations such as the Indo-Pacific, the Arctic, Europe, and the Mediterranean with reach into the Sahel and the Middle East.
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