FVL: The Army’s 10-Year Plan For FARA Scout
The Army’s urgently developing new air-launched drones, long-range missiles, and electronic architecture to go on the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft that Bell and Sikorsky are vying to build.
FARA: Army Awards 5 Design Contracts; Winner Enters Production in 2028
Awards for Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft designs went to Bell, Boeing, Karem, Sikorsky, and a partnership of AVX and L-3.
10 Breaking Defense op-eds that defined 2025
It's been a whirlwind of a year — and the defense establishment has plenty of thoughts on how it's unfolded and what might come next.
Army Wants Revolutionary Scout Aircraft For $30 Million, Same As Apache E
The Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) must have enough artificial intelligence to fly unmanned at least part of the time, a secure network to control drones, and combination of speed and range that's impossible for traditional helicopters.
Army Can Revolutionize Aviation Without Busting Budget, Leaders Say
The Army doesn't only want much faster aircraft: It wants them to cost the same to build, operate, and maintain as its current helicopters. Otherwise it can't fit them into an unchanging aviation budget. That's an awfully high bar.
‘Optionally Piloted’ Aircraft Studied For Future Vertical Lift
WASHINGTON: The military wants to replace a host of current helicopters with aircraft that not only fly much faster, but can fly without a human pilot. The Army-led Future Vertical Lift program will study whether FVL should be an “Optionally Piloted Vehicle,” capable of accommodating a pair of highly-trained human pilots for complex combat missions or of […]
Big SPAR Army Review May Topple ITEP
Critics say the Army could end up wasting billions by developing a better engine for its Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk and Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopters even as the joint Future Vertical Lift (FVL) initiative gets underway to replace those aircraft. The critics are wrong, program officials assure us. But the critics still disagree. A new Army […]
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Powering the future: Securing America with domestically made microelectronics
Onshoring and investment in military-specific semiconductors anchor a cornerstone of the defense industrial base.
V-280 Valor: Bell Starts Building Joint Multi-Role Prototype
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 […]
Future Vertical Lift Begins Open Software Quest
WASHINGTON: The first Future Vertical Lift Aircraft won’t fly until the 2030s but the Army, Navy, and industry are already at work on software standards. Those include a new “model-based” approach to software architectures that will require a culture change among programmers and defense bureaucrats alike. Why take on so much so early? Because FVL will […]