"[I] don't want to oversell it. We got way more work to do than what wins we made, but those were very encouraging signs," said Maj. Gen. Walter Rugen, director of the Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team.
"I have a hard time believing we’re going to have 35 Rangers in the back of an aircraft and they’re going to go up and knock on the door of the cockpit and there’s no one in there,” said Gen. James McConville.
Knowing when to build on commercial systems and when to develop something new can be the difference between parity and information dominance.
“Modular open systems architecture... is the foundation of all our future modernization,” said Brig. Gen. Glenn Dean. The Bradley replacement, OMFV, will be the test case.
The Army has learned from the Comanche scout chopper debacle, where it spent $9 billion in today’s dollars to get just two prototypes. With Future Vertical Lift, $7 billion will get 18 prototype aircraft, counting both the FARA scout and FLRAA transport.
“Shadow could never fly in this type of moisture, couldn’t even come close,” Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen said, but all four FTUAS candidates made it through the rain. The formal Army Requirements Oversight Council process begins in weeks.
Bell and Sikorsky have started building their competing prototypes for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) ahead of a Final Design Review in November. The vital digital architecture is still in development.
Reducing cognitive overload on warfighters while improving “time to trust” for autonomous systems is a matter of design.