presented by Bell
The future of Army aviation depends on major improvements in aircraft speed, range, and reliability. Bell’s vision to ensure these programs enhance national security and are affordable relies on digital engineering and modeling to integrate missions and air vehicle systems with sustainment in mind so they all meld together in advance of manufacturing to reduce risk.
By Breaking DefenseInsights on digital transformation following successes on B-21 and Sentinel
Customers and employees are experiencing the ‘Butterfly Effect’ of digital transformation from key national security programs.
presented by Bell
A flight-proven tiltrotor and advanced helicopter are the optimum solutions for transformational air assault and attack/recon.
By Barry Rosenberg
Other companies build planes. Other companies build helicopters. Bell’s “secret sauce,” its CEO says, is its aircraft can be both.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
AUSA: Bell Helicopter is moving right along with its new V-280 Valor, a tiltrotor being built under the Army-led, multiservice Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program. The V-280 – which flies at 280 knots cruising speed — resembles the bigger V-22 Osprey built by Bell and Boeing for the Marine Corps, Air Force Special Operations Command…
By Richard Whittle
AMARILLO, TEX.: The Future Vertical Lift program aims to create revolutionary replacements for today’s military helicopters. But how? And why? The answers lie in the speed limits built into the physics of how a helicopter flies. Rival contractors Bell and Sikorsky (part of Lockheed Martin) both say they have transcended those limits to build dramatically…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
AMARILLO, TEX.: Bell Helicopter is so confident in their new V-280 tilt-rotor prototype that they want the Pentagon to accelerate the Future Vertical Lift program – which they think the V-280 will win – by “five to eight years.” [Click here for our head-to-head comparison of the V-280 and its rival, the Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1] That…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. AUSA: Bell Helicopter’s exhibit at this week’s Association of the United States Army convention includes a full-scale mockup of the V-280 Valor, the new tiltrotor the company is building. From the outside, it sure looks like a close cousin of the V-22 Osprey. Under the skin, the V-280 seems a lot more like a prop-driven F-35. The…
By Richard Whittle and Colin Clark
B-21, hypersonics and more: How digital development is driving industry innovation
Technological advancements are key to keeping pace with customer demands and evolving threat landscapes.
AUSA: I’m not a pilot, but today I played a copilot in a flight simulator Bell Helicopter brought to the Association of the United States Army annual convention to show what its next tiltrotor, the V-280 Valor, will be able to do. As my pilot in the simulator, former Army aviator and test pilot Steve Kihara,…
By Richard Whittle
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.: The United Kingdom is following the U.S. Joint Multirole Technology Demonstrator (JMR-TD) project with “great interest” and might either get involved at some point or buy future aircraft the effort spawns, says a top British Defence Ministry rotorcraft engineer. “It’s a perfectly feasible outcome,” Bryan Finlay, the senior engineer at the…
By Richard Whittle Somebody’s finally doing something tangible about the future of Army aviation. Bell Helicopter subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems of Wichita, Kan., has started assembling the composite fuselage for the first prototype V-280 Valor, Bell’s new military tiltrotor. The Valor is sleeker, smaller, and, by design, more Army-friendly than the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey, which was built to fit…
By Richard Whittle
The company that built the first workable helicopter rolled out a (potential) revolution in chopper technology yesterday: Sikorsky’s high-speed S-97 Raider. A year ago, Sikorsky made a splash at the huge Association of the US Army conference with just a life-size mock-up. Now, just in time to talk it up at AUSA 2014, they’ve built a working…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. WASHINGTON: What is Future Vertical Lift? There is no one answer, but rather a range of possibilities. At one extreme is a single mega-program, building four variants for the four services to replace a host of existing helicopters, a vision in some ways even more ambitious than the long-troubled tri-service Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). At the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Bell Helicopter has unveiled what may become what everyone hoped the V-22 Osprey would be, a tiltrotor able to operate at high altitudes for long ranges and with easily managed downwash. The new aircraft, to be known as the V-280 Valor, is the company’s offering for the Army’s Future Vertical Lift technology demonstration program. FVL…
By Colin Clark
